fine motor Archives ⋆ Page 4 of 5 ⋆ Parenting Chaos

Why Do Pine Cones Open and Close?

December 19, 2020September 14, 2015 by Stephanie Oswald

Why Do Pine Cones Open and Close? This student led science experiment is a fascinating and quick learning activity that the entire family will enjoy!

Painting with Pinecones

April 8, 2016September 11, 2015 by Stephanie Oswald

Fall is by far one of my favorite seasons. It is just absolutely magical. The crisp air, changing leaves, scents of cinnamon and apples, and of course the pinecones. You can’t forget the pinecones. Painting with Pinecones is a fun way to unlock some of the magic of fall while exploring the uniqueness of pinecones!

Every day when we go on our walk whether it be to the park or to pick Livia up from school, Meatball goes on a hunt for pinecones. Every day – it never fails. So far we have found at least 4 different types of pinecones. He is absolutely fascinated with them. So I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to squeeze them into one of our afternoon activities!

Hammering Water Beads

May 21, 2017September 5, 2015 by Stephanie Oswald

So…it’s no secret that my kids LOVE water beads. At least twice a week they are requesting that the water beads get pulled out. While I love sensory bins, there are times (especially when the weather outside is beautiful) that we need to be exploring more than a bin. Hammering Water Beads is a fantastic way to take a water bead sensory bin and extend the play into some gross motor fun.

The other day while I was talking to a colleague, they said to me that they were not into sensory play. That they didn’t care for the mess of sensory bins. And I’ll be honest, my heart sunk a little because I realized that some of the activities that I share on the blog make it seem like sensory play happens in a bin and is always messy. And that can’t be farther from the truth — that is just the type of sensory play my kids prefer. And while this activity is messy (because we love messy play) I hope that it helps get you thinking outside of the bin 😉

Moon Excavation! Construction Sensory Bin with Exploding Frozen Stars

April 17, 2023September 4, 2015 by Stephanie Oswald

Moon Excavation! Construction Sensory Bin with Exploding Stars

Moon Excavation! Construction Sensory Bin with Exploding Frozen Stars –MAN that’s a mouthful! The things our kids can come up with when you let their imaginations run wild! This month we have been working on shapes with Meatball and for some reason or another, the one he is having difficulty recognizing are the stars. Whenever he is shown a star, he labels it as a triangle. I suppose they are made up of a bunch of triangles, so on some level the confusion does make sense.

This sensory bin made from taste safe moon sand and frozen baking soda stars was used to explore a variety of different stars to try to reinforce the shape through conversation and play.

This bin is also a hodge-podge of a bunch of Meatballs favorite things right now. Cars…we can never get enough of those. Construction — Good Night, Good Night, Construction site is a go everywhere with us favorite (we even made a sensory bin to go with it). Anything and everything Outer Space, hence the moon sand. And of course dirt, mud, sticky, ooey-gooey messes.

Painting with Water Beads!

April 8, 2016August 18, 2015 by Stephanie Oswald

Water Beads are by far one of my kids favorite sensory materials. The ways that you can play with water beads are endless and they are cheap! We have tried everything from adding scents to our water beads to freezing them! Our lesson this week had a craft that required Marbles and Paint to do it. While we had the paint, we did not have any marbles lying around. But…we did have water beads! We had an absolute blast with this substitution – Painting with Water Beads was a major hit!

What I loved about this activity is that while it was very messy, it was super adaptable to meet the needs of both of my kids!