fine motor skills Archives - Because Babies Grow Up

Making Writing Fun With Duck Tape

November 4, 2013 by ajpassey 2 Comments

At the Family Forward Conference in August we had an awesome crafting session with Duck Brand duct tape and Cricut. It was all about getting families into a creative place together. We love crafts at our house so this was right up our alley. We got some awesome Duck tape paper to run through the Cricut machine from the Cricut folks. Then we got to head over to the Duck tape booth and pick out a roll of duct tape for each member of our family. We’ve been riding high on that Duck tape since!

Encouraging Writing with Duck Tape

We have some early writers in our house now and so I’m always looking for ways to make writing more enticing for them. The girls always love to make books and write letters when it’s self initiated, but sometimes I have a project I’d like their help on and then they aren’t always game. So, when we had letters to write to friends and family who needed a little extra love and support, we brought out the Duck tape to help encourage their writing along!

We decorated the paper with Duck tape before we wrote our letters. Then we decorated the envelopes. We even used the Duck tape to frame where we write the address to help them get it in the right place and to know how much space to devote to writing the address. Knowing how to read the addresses on an envelope is also part of literacy development.

And hopefully, this decorated envelope and letter will brighten the receiver’s day. And maybe a few postal workers’ days along the way!

Find more ideas on using Duck brand duct tape on their Facebook page, on their website, on their Pinterest boards, or on YouTube.

How do you encourage your children’s writing?

DIY Halloween Treat Bags

October 30, 2013 by ajpassey 1 Comment

I am so lucky this year to be a home room mom, twice! Last week we had Elli’s Kindergarten class party. Lots of moms and grandmas showed up to help and enjoy the party with their little ones. Because I was so focused on that, I kinda neglected Sammi’s class. Her teacher didn’t want a party, just treat bags. So, just in time, I got a letter sent home inviting parents to send in candy and come help fill bags if they wanted. All that was left was to get the treat bags. Enter my talented mom!

Color Heals Me is a new blog my mom just started to journal her adventures in art and art journaling. She is the doodle master! The girls and I have had so much fun learning to doodle with her. She recently created a Halloween doodle free printable. We used her doodle printable to decorate the treat bags for Sammi’s class.

First I printed out her doodle page on different shaped label stickers. Then we each took a label sheet and colored in the doodles.

Sammi and Elli used watercolors. I encouraged them to not use too much water so the colors would be vibrant and not spread.

My favorite is colored pencils so that’s what I used to color my doodles.

Once the paint was dry, I added the round stickers to the bags. I’ve had my labels for a few years (I bought a huge stack) and found they didn’t stick to the paper bag as well as I’d have liked. I wish I would have covered them with packing tape to make sure they stayed put. Sammi wrote the names of all her classmates on the bags. She loved the idea of each person knowing which bag was there and not fighting over which they thought looked the fullest. I’m so glad she’s thinking of these things and planning solutions for them.

After the bags were filled, we used the rectangle labels to close them up. Turns out it’s okay they don’t stick that well, because Sammi’s teacher had more candy to add. This was a fun project to do with the girls and made for a quick but darling treat bag for the kids in Sammi’s class.

Want to make your own? Or just have a fun Halloween coloring sheet? Download the free Halloween doodle printable and let the creative juices flow!

What’s your favorite medium: paint, colored pencil, crayon, marker? What’s your child’s?

Pleygo-Rent Your Legos!

September 18, 2013 by ajpassey Leave a Comment

One of the most common complaints about being a mother of boys is stepping on Legos! Scott is still young and we haven’t gotten there, yet, but I’m always on the lookout for things to do with Legos. You know, to be prepared! So I was excited when I learned about Pleygo. It’s a rental service for Lego sets, much like Netflix’ DVD service. You make a wish list of Lego sets you’d like to rent. Then you are mailed one. You play with it then return it and another one is mailed out to you. The shipping is included in the monthly price you pay for your package based on your plan level.

With three different plan levels, you can find something that will appease your Lego enthusiast and fit your budget! The Fan Plan allows you to receive sets up to 250 pieces. The Super Fan allows you to receive sets up to 500 pieces and DUPLO sets. And the Mega Fan plan allows you to receive up to 5,400 pieces! That is die hard, right there. You can exchange your sets an unlimited number of times in a month having one set at a time. They sanitize each set when it’s returned so it’s nice and clean for the next home.

We’ll be trying out the Super Fan level so we can get some DUPLOs for Scott. I like this risk-free way to see how interested he’ll be in Legos before we invest a whole bunch in them. We bought bags and bags of Mega Bloks and none of the kids have really enjoyed building with them. But we do have one small collection of DUPLOs and they get played with a bit more regularly.

Here’s a coupon from US Family Guide to get you started with your free month trial. It’s free if you choose the Fan Plan and $15 off the first month if you choose either of the other two plans.

Contact Paper Valentine’s Day Hearts

January 16, 2013 by ajpassey Leave a Comment

We are already excitedly preparing for Valentine’s Day around here. The girls love making hearts and decorating them. I’ve been dying to hang up some contact paper for them to decorate. I finally remembered to buy some at the store. Yay for me! And we got to work.

I cut out a heart frame from a piece of construction paper and taped that to the window first to be a guide. I taped the contact paper, sticky side out, over the heart. Then I dumped the tissue squares I bought years ago from Oriental Trading Company on a little table. Then it was the kids’ turn. And they jumped right to it.

Elli immediately began filling in he heart. She placed 5 squares on and then called it good. I encouraged her to cover all of the stickiness and make it a mosaic. I figured if she said she was done I’d leave it at that, but she accepted my request and completely covered everything inside the heart.

Contact Paper Valentine's Day Heart withTissue Paper Scott had a lot of fun exploring the stickiness. He also thought the tissue squares were fun to drop and watch float to the ground. He eventually decided to stick some to the paper. He preferred to have me hand him the squares. I asked him if he wanted a green square or a purple square as a way to bring color word association into our activity. He calls everything pink (thanks to two older sisters!) but prefers the color green.

Contact Paper Valentine's Day Heart withTissue Paper When Sammi came home she really wanted to make one, too. I just moved Scott’s paper to a different window and put up a new piece of contact paper over the black heart frame. She had so much fun with creating a scene and incorporating texture into her project. She gave her heart a face with a winking eye and eyelashes. Her heart also has hair and legs and is standing in grass. It’s so fun to see her art become more complex as she gets older.

When Elli’s heart was done, I glued the red heart frame to the front of the paper and we painted glue over it to secure down the overlapping tissue squares. It gave it a nice glossy look. Her plan is to cut it out and give it to Daddy for Valentine’s Day.

In hindsight, I would stick the heart frame to the sticky side. I think it would be easier to finish up if we didn’t have to place it again over the top of the tissue paper. But initially I didn’t want it to be covered with tissue paper. Another idea I thought of after the fact was covering Elli’s heart with another piece of contact paper so the heart was “laminated” to hold the unstuck tissue paper in place. But the modge podge was a fun and fine motor skill building step. Also, the texture Sammi added to her heart made it difficult to finish off. There are still sticky parts that I don’t know how to cover. Because of how she placed the hair I can’t move the heart frame to the front side like I did with Elli’s. For now it’s just displayed in our window while I continue to problem solve the situation. Any suggestions are welcome 🙂

Last Chance Halloween Ideas

October 30, 2012 by ajpassey 1 Comment

Only one day left! Happy Halloween, tomorrow. Just in case you are looking for some last minute ideas, here are some ways to celebrate with ordinary supplies you probably already have on hand.

Pumpkin Pictures

Supplies:

White glue
black food coloring/paint
crayons/oil pastels
watercolors

We drew our pumpkins and the background with pencil. Then we mixed the black into the food coloring into the glue. We painted the lines with the black glue. This created a barrier around sections that helped keep the watercolors in their section.

After the glue dried, we created patterns with the oil pastels. Once we were pleased with our patterns, we pulled out the watercolors and painted each section.

From the Archives

Halloween Wreath: We just used plastic Halloween trinkets we had collected over the season and glued them to a paper plate wreath we painted.

Cotton ball Ghost: I googled “ghost coloring page” and picked one I loved then printed it out. We glued cotton balls to fill it in. This is great for really little ones all the way up to 4/5 year olds. Especially when you let the squeeze the glue themselves. Excellent fine motor development!

What are you or your little one dressing up as this year?

Mixed Media: Where Are the Dragons

September 13, 2012 by ajpassey 4 Comments

Why Music?

Music is becoming an increasingly important part of our play. Music is great for dance parties and altering sour moods. But it’s great for so much more, too. Music is good for learning, bonding, communicating, and creating! As we have gotten to know various albums, specific songs have sparked art projects, gifts, and parties. With so many opportunities to review and share new music here on the blog, I’ve felt inspired to explore and elaborate on the connections we’re making between music and other “related arts” (as they are called at the girls’ school.)

Welcome to Week Two of Mixed Media!

In each Mixed Media post I’ll share a song and a creative project that was inspired by the song. My hope is that you will be inspired to share music with your little one in a way that gets you two (or three or four!) connected to each other and to your creative sides. This week’s song is Where Are the Dragons by Ben Rudnick and Friends. This song inspired a read-aloud and an art project!

Where Are The Dragons by Ben Rudnick and Friends

To start off, I read the book That’s Not My Dragon from Usborne Books. I love this book because it has the cutest dragons and highlights a different feature on each page with different textures. All the kids want to feel each page and invariably name the texture, e.g., knobbly, scaly, or scratchy. We also referenced the book when drawing our dragons which was most helpful for me since Scott and even Elli convinced me to draw their dragons. Sammi’s is all hers, though!

I wanted them all to use the letter D and create their dragon from that. But that was too teacher-centered for them today! Only Scott consented to use the D (he didn’t really get much choice and he loves getting his hands on the glue stick!) but he still spent a lot of time trying to pull it off the paper.

I also made a “teacher” choice by saying our only texture was sparkly because I was trying to minimize the mess. Fortunately glitter is always an exciting crafting resource and they didn’t complain. I thought of it because for a year between ages 4 and 5, Sammi’s favorite adjective was sparkly. It was even on our word wall when she first really started asking me to spell words for her to write down. She definitely loved having a sparkly dragon.

After they drew/colored their dragons, they decided what part would be sparkly. Scott absolutely loved squeezing on the glue and then sprinkling on the glitter. It took serious distraction skills to make sure Elli got her turn. When she was done he went back to his picture for round two of adding glitter. While he did that the girls wrote their names on their paper and Sammi wrote a whole sentence while Elli wrote sparkly. I really enjoy seeing them excited about writing and communicating an idea through their creativity.

We’re enjoying Ben Runick and Friends newest album, Love Is A Superpower, set to release 9/25. They’ve graciously offered to giveaway a copy of this album to a BBGU reader! Go to the review and giveaway post and leave a comment, then use Rafflecopter to manage your entries, doing as many or as few as you’d like. The giveaway is open through 9/19/2012.

Linking up at No Time For Flashcards Kids Craft Linky!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Weekend Reading

September 1, 2012 by ajpassey 1 Comment

The kids licking the plate of funnel cake clean!

This week we enjoyed the county fair (3 years running! That’s a tradition now), dance classes and playing with friends. I’ve also really enjoyed several blog posts this week and thought I’d share a few with you.

Learning activity with little ones: Leaf Matching Puzzles at No Time for Flash Cards

Earth-friendly: The Dirtier the Better at City Kids Homeschooling

Cooking with kids: 17 Must-Have Kids Cooking Tools at Make and Takes

Fine motor skills practice: 5 Playful ways to practice scissor skills at Simple Kids

Resources for connecting with our kids: 5 Blogs to Help You Maintain That Connection With Your Kids at Play Activities

What caught your attention this week?

The Obsession with Writing

August 9, 2012 by ajpassey Leave a Comment

I’ve written before about how Elli is different from Sammi. She hasn’t been as interested in hours spent at the craft table surrounded by art supplies. I’ve spent the last year getting to know Elli for Elli. We’ve tickled and wrestled, read and snuggled, role played and raced. It’s been a fun year and I really feel like I know who she is and what makes her tick.

As we homeschooled Sammi through Kindergarten, I also had preschool activities for Elli to do. Occasionally she would stay with us long enough to finish a worksheet or glue her pictures down. Often she would hop and skip around the table. Somewhere in all of that she mastered recognizing all her letters and their sounds, counting to 16, holding a pencil correctly and even learned the names of most of the continents. I’m amazed!

We’re approaching Elli’s birthday. She’ll be 4 and she’s very excited about it. She now consistently wants to put her own shoes on. She likes to get dressed and loves to pick our her own outfits. She dances and sings all the time. She’s still the very movement-oriented learner that she’s always been, but in the last couple of weeks she’s taken to writing. She makes lists all day long. No pad of paper is safe from Elli’s list making. Sometimes it’s just squiggles but often it’s letters. Lots and lots of letters.

She’s known how to write her name since last fall. E-L-L-I. Pretty easy and she loved that she could write it. But she wasn’t that interested in learning to write any other letters. She accidentally picked up F and H, O and C, and S for Sammi and Scott. When we did handwriting practice with different letters she usually entertained Scott instead of writing. But now she’s asking me to show her how to write different letters. She mastered R and K at church last week. She’s even asked me to spell out a few words for her to write down.

Development is all about timing. Children progress when they are ready for it. The best we can do is provide them with a rich environment that creates opportunities for and exposure to learning, then keep our eyes open for when they show us they are ready for the next stage. It’s been so fun to see Elli sit for 20+ minutes writing letters and drawing pictures. She tells the best stories to go along with her masterpieces, too.

What is unfolding for your child now?

A Family that Plays Together, Cleans Together

July 27, 2012 by ajpassey 4 Comments

Yesterday we experienced the joy of Oobleck. I spent the morning cleaning the kitchen while the kids played so it would be ready for the fun. As I finished, the kids came calling for something to do with me. Perfect timing!

We watched this video together that we found on Pinterest, then got to work. Elli poured the cornstarch (2 cups), I poured the water (1-1 1/2 cups), and Sammi stirred.

Then the fun began.

Scott was such a charmer. He loved handing it to me and watching it slip through his fingers and then mine to make designs all over his legs. Then he’s eat it off his hands. I loved that this was something I didn’t have to worry about him eating, unlike the play dough since I still haven’t made a gluten-free version yet.

Then mama made the unwise decision to make an important phone call while the kids were so engaged. The call took me out of the room in search of my computer. I ended the call to very loud arguing between Sammi and Elli. I went upstairs to see what was going on and found at least a gallon of water covering the table mixed with the remaining oobleck and a puddle of smoothie that Scott had spilled. Then there was at least another gallon of water on the floor tinted with cornstarch.

The mess wasn’t the bad part. It was the constant “She did it. I didn’t do anything!” from the oldest. I gave them towels and had them soak up the puddles of water. Then I sent the girls to their rooms for some peace to calm down and give me a chance to think about how to tackle the mess.

So it’s rare that I get the whole kitchen clean all at the same time. It’s never happened that I’ve done that twice on the same day. But it had to be done. We couldn’t live with cornstarch caking everything from the sink and mat to the table and chairs. Even I wasn’t going to cross that line! So after time out we cleaned together.

Since we were all calmed down, the cleaning was actually quite fun. We each had a washcloth and we wiped up all the cornstarch and water we could find. We wiped down the chairs and even the chair legs! I don’t think that’s happened since they were repainted last year. Every one was cheerful and helpful. It was a good end to a good activity.

It reminded me of a sign I saw at the children’s museum in Utah. It reads: Clean up is part of play. For someone who doesn’t like to clean, this message is my new mantra when it comes to messes. Just like I had to learn to schedule in diaper changes and packing snacks into the diaper bag so we could get places on time, I am working on making clean up a part of our playtime instead of something I grumpily force the kids to do after we are too tired to do anything well. I admire those who manage clean up so much better than I do!

What do you do to make clean up manageable for your family?

Spiders

October 29, 2011 by ajpassey 1 Comment

I have a huge aversion to spiders. Seriously. I literally cried when the park ranger walked by me with a tarantula at a show we went to. Then I turned around and carried the snake around for all the kids to see. It’s just spiders. They freak me out. So celebrating spiders on our Halloween Countdown took a lot of will power for me. In the end, it was one of the more fun days we had!

We made spider snacks:

They are cute and I know you want to make them, too! Here’s the how-to on spider cookies.

Supplies for Spider Cookies

Oreo cookies
Pull apart Twizzlers
Chocolate chips
gingerbread house frosting (best edible glue, ever!)

I made the frosting first following our gingerbread house frosting recipe. I was a little distracted and added almost two pounds instead of one pound of powdered sugar. I added some more milk to thin it down and smooth it out. I was worried it wouldn’t hold well with the, uh, alterations. But it did great.

Next we pulled apart the Twizzlers and cut them into little leg-length pieces. Then we twisted the top of the Oreo off. We pressed eight legs into the cream filling. Then added a little frosting to the backside of the Oreo and put it back on top to cover the legs. Then we dipped the chocolate chips in the frosting, generously, and put them on to of the Oreos for eyes. I love the look of a little extra frosting around the chocolate chip. Looks like real eyes to me.

This was great work for little fingers. Sammi (5) and Elli (3) both helped put legs on and dipped eyes in frosting and added them. Sammi also loves to twist off the Ores tops. Once she worked through the process on one cookie with me, she did all the rest of hers on her own without any assistance from me. I love how independent she is now!