Glowing water bead increased attention & coordination

Playing in the dark is so much fun with a UV light & some glowing water beads.

A few people have mention before that these type of activities would be great for kids who have a fear of the dark, it may help them be at ease in the dark and come to enjoy it.

 

You can make water beads UV reactive by getting some clear, yellow or light coloured water beads in their dehydrated form & soaking them over night in glow water (highlighter ink infused water). It's pretty simple. Get some highlighters, a uv light & you can do lots of fun things. Check out my Glow tab above for some more ideas.

 

The best part about glowing UV play is that no matter how messy it gets, and no matter how many glowing artifacts get scrambled across the floor the UV light picks them up. They're so easy to see, so you wont be finding hidden water beads crushed into the carpet for the following week lol.

 

This was a simple activity that I set out in the hope that Dimples could practise a steady hand, patience, perseverance, focus & bilateral coordination. I had some clear cups of different sizes, different shape tweezers and small spoons in a tray with glowing water beads, a UV light and a ice tray. It did look very inviting, as expected.

This was a fun, bright activity where Dimples got some good practise in bilateral coordination. By setting out the cups on one side, the tweezers/cups on the other and by giving him the spoon to one particular hand he got some good practise in using both hands steadily and reaching across the body slowly, coordinating his reach and movements to carefully spoon the water beads into the cups or across the ice tray.

Scooping with spoons is something simple but also very complex with glow in the dark water beads as they slip and slide unless you have a steady hand and they're quite difficult to scoop up unless you manoeuvre the spoon around or trap them against a edge or corner.

 

Not only do you need to focus your visual coordination in the dark but the water beads are slimy little suckers and they bounce and skim away at any movement so you need to work hard at task to succeed. Handling them must be with a slow stead scoop and its serious business, otherwise they bounce and scatter in all different directions.

 

You get the drift.

Lots of fun that helps develop concentration, focus, coordination and fine motor skills.

The ice tray worked really well, the more he filled up an ice cube - the more it glowed. Dimples experimented with scooping, pouring and tweezing (which was extremely difficult) water beads into the sections if the ice tray one at a time. The tweezers weren't really a success, it was way too difficult to secure a water bead, most likely they hit a sharp edge and crushed but if you had some of those plastic kids play tweezers that are semi-rounded on the end it would work well and provide a great fine motor task to master.

Dimples then poured them all out and try again!

Pouring from different size clear cups and back, experimenting with the volume and size of cups. 

Experimenting with the angle of the ice tray while pouring water beads from it and watching each section.  Filling cups up with the small spoon and the large with the opposite hand, leaning across the body and keeping a slow steady focus. It all looks so fun but Dimples was working on some very important tasks as he played.

Learning Concepts:
Bilateral Coordination
Focused attention
Patience and slow, steady movements
Transferring
Fine motor skills
Volume & Size
Sensory Play

Ideas for Extension:
Make water beads into Glowing Dragon Eggs
Make a small world with them for some pretend/Imaginative play
Add some glowing spaghetti for more of a messy sensory experience.
Add some measuring cups & funnels for a math approach
or some PVC pipes to experiment with transference
If your brave do it in a tub of glow water

Happy Adventures

The Scissor Box - Practise cutting with big boy scissors

The Scissor Box: For cutting practise using Big-boy scissors.

 

 

 The Scissor box is a little tin we have put together that is full of all different materials that can be cut easily.  Dimples has a special pair of 'big boy' scissors to practise with that are always kept in his cutting box.  This is a quick and easy activity that I keep tucked away for special time.  It is easy for me to grab out when we have a little time to calmly focus and pay attention on the task. For now, it remains a special mummy time activity that he can do when I am with him or keeping a close eye on him.  It is still a great incentive for him as it gives him a sense of accomplishment and confidence in using his big boy scissors.

In side Dimples Scissor Box I have a wide range of different papers and materials that are easy to cut. Lots of different shapes, sizes, textures, colours, thicknesses and some printables make it interesting to sort through. He has a small box that sits with it so when he cuts small pieces he can throw them out, and keep all his bigger pieces in the box for another time.

Material Ribbons
Felt squares
Colourful card stock
Crepe Paper
twirling ribbon
cellophane paper
cardboard
wrapping paper
Foam pieces
Metallic papers
Scrap booking papers
Magazine pictures
Vellum transparent paper
& some scissor practise printables.

I have also added some of our own cutting practise lines on the colourful paper. Just grab a ruler and a pencil and do a dotted straight line, maybe a few zig zag ones or a wavy one.  You can also do it on magazine papers or wrapping paper to help your child see where to cut in order to cut out a particular picture. I did this with some cars & Thomas wrapping paper as I knew Dimples would want to cut Thomas and Lightning McQueen out.

Not only does he get some quality time with me and some practise using his big boy scissors, this is also a great way to boost his confidence in his developing skills.  He gains a sense of achievement and his self esteem develops more as he succeeds in the fine motor tasks he is learning to master. It is also a good activity to build up attention span, focus and concentration.

 

Happy Adventures

 



Bolt Sorting, Matching & Stacking

Like all little boys Dimples loves anything that Daddy fiddles with in the yard. He is always keen to explore the shed, pretend to mow the lawn, build and fix things like Daddy does and play with tools. This bolt & nut play was perfect to keep him occupied on a beautiful sunny day as we tinkered around the yard.

This little activity is so simple and fits perfectly with role playing Mr. Fix it and with an extra learning bonus it offers some practise in fine motor skills, cognitive development in focus & attention, sorting by shape, length and by size, matching and stacking by size.



I started with a collection of different sized bolts and washes. A few different widths and a few different lengths, all with matching ends, Some had multiple ends. Just to make it interesting I added a padlock and keys in to see if Dimples could master it and find the right Key without guidance.



Dimples stacked the nuts up, it took alot of focus and concentration to do so.
Through cause and effect he learnt that he needed to stack it up with the large pieces on the bottom, decreasing to the smallest on top for the best and most stable stack of nuts.



He Balanced the bolts up on their ends. Balancing and sorting them from smallest to largest. Putting them all in a row and making a "fence".
Dimples matched the bolts to the right size nuts and had to concentrate on using his fine motor skills to twist and turn the nut up evenly onto the bolt without stripping it or getting it jammed.
He fiddled around experimenting on which way the nut goes depending on which way he spun it, up the bolt or back down.



Then came the Key, this was tricky. Dimples found the right key, at first it didn't fit so he turned it around and it didn't fit, after a few wiggles he got it in. The he had to manipulate it to hold on the padlock with one hand and turn the key in the correct direction with the other to pop it open.
He threaded some of the washes on to the padlock and lined it up, pushing it locked again.

 

 

 

Something so simple that we take for granted. I had never really considered the skills it takes to unlock a padlock or thread bolts. To a growing and learning mind of a 3 year old who has never opened a padlock before or had to use such focused fine motor skills, this is a huge accomplishment!

Rainbows in Salt & Goop

Rainbow Goop Messy Play

Dimples had a couple of friends over for a Messy Rainbow Play Date.

This is the colourful fun that they experimented with.

There were 2 Sensory boxes: One with Goop (Cornflour & Water Mix), Another with Cooking Salt.

There were spray bottles filled with Coloured Water, cups with coloured water and droppers & some plastic spoons. I pre-made some Rainbow ice specially for the salt box to.

Miss K Mastering the Double Spray.

Dimples, Miss K & Mr J got stuck into it using the spray bottles, strengthening their little hand muscles and experimenting with the colours. The goop box was first choice!

Within minutes the goop box was a Master Piece of Vibrant Rainbow Colours.

Rainbow Spray bottles in the goop.

 

Using the spoons and droppers they swished the goop around and made a discovery.

The white goop underneath was still White.

So they experimented making wiggly worm shapes with the spoons and mixing the white through the colours.

The result was some pretty cool looking patterns.

 

Rainbow ICE and Salt Sensory Box

Coloured Paper under the Cooking Salt to add to the Rainbow effect

The Salt box was a great big box of messy fun.

Dimples and his friends loved this one.

They started dripping different colours and spraying the salt.

The effect was really cool, they watched as the coloured water soaked through the salt.

Then they started getting right into it: hands in, feeling and squishing the salt between their fingers.

 Rainbow ice worked well slowly seeping into the salt and making a vibrant Rainbow box

The kids filled up cups with the salt and realised on their still goop covered hands that the salt stuck.

Sand Dough Small World

This was a fun sensory activity where we explored the creatures that live on the beach in Australia through small world pretend play.

Dimples loves walking our beachs and collecting me things, recently he went for a walk with his Nanny and bought me home a bag of beach things; shells, beach pebbles, spounges, the bottom clumps of dead seaweed, sea erchin shells and other bits and bobs.  We used these in our small world beach with some plastic palm trees.

First we made up our sand dough using 4 cups of flour, 1/2 cup oil and table spoon of cocoa and 2 table spoons of bread crumbs. The result was  "sand dough" a mouldable soft dough that crumbles and resembles sand.

The sand dough was put out in a tray with the shells and beach things, palm trees and plastic sea creatures;  Crabs, turtles, lobsters, seastars, octopus, seals and ofcourse, there had to be a treasure box and a pirate.

Moulding the sand dough Dimples made a turtles nest, turtle eggs, a rock formation for the seals, burried creatures that were "fossils", buried treasure & rocks for the crabs to crawl side ways through.

Happy Adventures :)
Renee

Bright sparkley Rainbow Rice Box

Rainbow Sensory Box

To brighten up a gloomy rainy day this is the only way to play: Bright & Sparkley Messy Fun all in the one box.

Rainbow rice: Dyed with food colouring in individual cups then set out to dry.

Rainbow Sequins

Rainbox Pompoms

Rainbow Cups, utensils, tongs and funnels.

Filling up cups and pouring them out

 Scooping up the fine granules of rice

Using the tongs to collect pompoms

Measuring ingredients

Making Pretend cup cakes

Pouring through the funnel; what would fit?

Sorting through rainbow colours

Mixing Rainbow ice-cream

Glowing Sensory Glitter Bin

Using my newly found play essential, a UV black light globe, I put this super cool sensory bin together for Dimples and he literally sat and played for an hour in the dark.
If you have missed it we have done glow play with experimental glowing-vinegar- & with Glow water bath-play

I kept my mind open and looked for anything that glows in the dark or that was neon or fluorescent to put in the sensory bin and this is what I came up with.

Neon Play dough
Neon glitter dust
Glow sticks
Neon straws
Glow in the dark Plastic stars
Fluro pom poms
Fluro pipe cleaners
Fluro hair elastics
Fluro highlighters on white paper

Before: Flash on - UV light off

After: Flash off - UV light on

 Under the black light the neon/fluro play dough looked awesome, Dimples played around making caterpillars and bugs with the pipe cleaners and cut straws.

He threaded some of the pipe cleaner through the cut straws and then sprinkled the glitter everywhere. We were sitting in a dark room with a large mirror and he was laughing at the glitter on his finger tips. It was a crack up- Something good about the UV light, you REALLY see where all the mess goes, that normally you would not notice (like thousands of minuscule glitter dust specks).

Then he brushed by his face and looked in the mirror. Yep, he was covered in glow in the dark specks. Then he laughed & seen his teeth,  "Look at my teeth Mummy" they were glowing under the light as well.

 

He done some scribbling on white paper with the fluro highlighters and traced around some stars and then started with the glitter again.  He covered the play dough and filled some star shapes up.

After managing to sprinkle out all the glitter into the box I started to pack away some of the other bits so he had more room for the glitter.
Have you ever seen sand on a light box? Well the neon glitter under the UV light is by far much more interesting, bright and appealing but with the same affect.

Dimples used his fingers to draw in the glitter, do prints and so on, all the glitter glowed under the light and where ever he traced his finger, swished the pipe cleaners or pressed the play dough it was dark.

You must try it - Go on you know the kids (and you) will love it!!
Happy Adventures

Cutting the Snotty Gak

Gak, Goo, Obleck, slime, silly putty what ever you have known it as, we've never made it before......

So here goes -
You can find a good detailed recipe here : homemade-kids-gooey-gak
But it is so simple & easy to make, I let Dimples do it all on his own.

Using white craft glue, he poured the whole container into a bowl & mixed it with 1 1/2 cups of warm water. Our first attempt we added blue food colour & it turned out so vibrant, then we tried one with black (the texture was much better but it looked like snot)

while Dimples was mixing through the water, glue & colour, I boiled the jug & dissolved a teaspoon of borax in about half a cup of hot water, then i put it in for him.
Its really quite science like, as soon as it swirls through your mix you can see it separate then as you mix it it gets gooey.

This is where it gets fun, I asked Dimples to then mix it with his hands, with no hesitation he squeezed, kneaded and squished it around until it was no longer liquid at all.  It was gak!  Snotty looking Gak.

He loved the stuff, I gave him a pair of scissors & the cut so well through the gak, I think practising with scissors is made more fun using the gak but it seems to work better as well.

Dimples used his scissors to slice a long stringy piece of gak, it was easier for him to hold as he was working on his fine-motor cutting skills, trying to manipulate the scissors in the right direction to cut the "worm" into "baby worms" -
When the scissors cut he can see clearly the slice, it goes through easily whether the scissors are plastic or blunt or safety ones, where as sometimes the kiddy scissors struggle with paper.
And of course there is the sensory aspect of it, it feels soft and squishy & cool on the fingers.
The science of it, the way it moves blends, breaks, the way it mixed, the way it sinks & flattens.
To sum it up, we think its lots of fun & is an interesting thing to play with.

Dimples used it like play doh with his play doh toys, he cut through it for a long time, he used his knife & fork & pretended it was a slimy dinner and he just played about stretching & hanging it around watching it grow