Bamm Boo

I’ve been collecting ideas for developing fine motor skills in young children and thought paper clips would be a good idea because E.’s not done it before and it’s a no cost activity.

I realised that it was unlikely he’d be interested in ordinary paper clips so I pinned these but I didn’t have any thin ribbon so….

Clip the prickles on the Gruffalo

The ‘Gruffalo’ came from Teachers Pet (the website doesn’t seem to be working at the moment so it’s not a direct link). The prickles are purple felt that I hand sewed on.

E. found it really tricky so it’s going to take some practice until he can do it but it kept his interest.

As soon as I saw this I knew E would love it. He loves his Mr Potato head and photographs of himself or people he knows are always a hit.

I pretty much followed the instructions from Creative Juice exactly. The only thing I would change is printing 6 pdfs to a page leaves a lot of wasted space and magnetic sheets aren’t cheap – we have a laser printer and they were £7.99 for 5. Next time I’ll try some cutting and pasting to get the images closer together. I didn’t seal the pictures with anything – did I mention I’m impatient – but I probably should have.

It was difficult to find pencil tins at this time of year and I really wanted to get started so I bought these  from the supermarket. E. can’t read yet so it hasn’t occurred to him that the contents don’t make sense! I’ll probably find a cheaper tin and put the snap cards back in at some point.

E loves it and I’m sure older children or adults would too. We had great fun making faces when he was in bed.

Have I ever mentioned that I love my muffin tins!!? I think I’ve probably made muffins in them twice but we use them at least once a week.

They’re great for separating out ingredients or art supplies for creative activities. We also use them for sorting objects by colour or type. When Eli was younger he like to move objects from one section to another.

And we love muffin tin meals.

Eli has always eaten really well so it’s easy to be lazy with his meals because I don’t need to make them interesting to encourage him to eat. He does love these though and it really is no different than what I would have given him anyway.

Today we didn’t have a big selection of food in the house. He had cheese (cubed and grated) toast, apple slices and a box of raisons. The advantage of serving it like this is so he can be in control of what order he eats his food in (3 year olds love control) and it looks like fun!

You can be much more creative with it if you’re more into planning in advance than me! More ideas

Inspiration here 

I did it the lazy way and made it on the computer. Eli played with it on and off all day. He’s really good at recognising colours so it’s not really a ‘learning’ activity but he’s still at the age where he likes to sort things.

Here’s the PDF if you want it:

*For personal or school use only. Please leave a comment if you use it. I like to know I’m not talking to myself.