Happy Thursday! It really feels like July these days with warm, humid weather. Here are three invitations for toddlers.
Fine Motor/Cooking Invitation: Make your own snack (cutting practice)
This morning, invite your child to help make their snack. Depending on your child’s thoughts on food, they might enjoy making a sandwich, a tortilla roll-up, or just cutting things and putting them on a snack plate. If you are making toast, a sandwich, or tortilla roll-up, they can help spread sunbutter, hummus, or peanut butter, cut soft fruit (strawberries, bananas, etc.) with a butterknife, and assemble their creation. Make sure to allow extra time and start before everyone is extremely hungry. This invitation builds self-help skills, fine motor skills, and creativity in the kitchen.
Fine Motor/Science Invitation: Tubes and small cars
This invitation can be done in a large storage bin, which keeps the cars close, or on the floor or tabletop. If you choose to set it up on the floor or tabletop, it is possible the cars will go everywhere. Provide some empty paper towel tubes or wrapping paper tubes and cars which are small enough to fit inside the tubes. What will your child do with these materials? Will they explore slope, velocity and trajectory? Will they explore whether they can move the cars through the tubes while they are flat on the floor like tunnels?
Art Invitation: Exploring glue and collage
This art invitation is not only an avenue for new forms of creative expression, but also an exploration of the properties and possibilities of glue. We suggest offering a small cup (such as a clean yogurt cup) with a little glue in the bottom, and a variety of small collage objects along with a sturdy substrate like cardboard. Invite your child to explore how they might use the glue to adhere things to the cardboard/paper. They may want to stick things on, and then remove them, only to adhere them again.
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