your options in a child's education

It is easy to take for granted everything that you do with your fingers every day, from picking up small objects to buttoning your clothes. It can be difficult to remember a time when you were not able to do those tasks. 

Your preschooler is currently working on learning how to do those fine-motor tasks that as an adult it is easy to take for granted. It takes a lot of efforts for preschoolers to develop their fine motor skills and muscles. While your child is home for the summer, you can work on their fine motor skills with one of the following fun activities: 

#1: Colander & Pipe Cleaners 

For this activity, you'll need a colander and a package of pipe cleaners. Show your child how they can pull a pipe cleaner through the holes. You can even encourage your child to use their imagination and make creatures with the pipe cleaners and colander.

To make this activity even more engaging, cut up the pipe cleaners so they are different lengths for your child and provide them with multiple colors. You can even ask your child to think of other objects that they could also put through the colander, such as spaghetti noodles and play dough. Allow them to explore and play with different mediums. 

#2: Pipe Cleaners Through The Hole

This activity uses an old parmesan cheese shaker and some pipe cleaners. You'll need to clean up the old cheese shaker and you'll also need to cut up the pipe cleaners so they are short enough to fit inside of the cheese shaker.

Open the lid on the side of the shaker with the holes. Show your child how to pick up a pipe cleaner and place it through the holes. Show your child how much fun it can be to try and shake the pipe cleaner back out of the container. 

For an extra challenge, you can cut the pipe cleaners up into different lengths. You can also give your child a pair of kid-safe tweezers, and encourage them to use the tweezers to pick up the pipe cleaner and put it through the holes in the shaker after they master the initial skill. 

#3: Magazine Collages

If you subscribe to multiple magazines or newspapers, and you save the old issues, you can use them for a magazine collage. For this activity, you will need old magazines or newspaper, kid scissors, construction paper and a glue stick. 

If your child is just starting to learn how to use scissors, make sure you sit down with them and show them the proper way to hold and use them. Then, let them cut out whatever words or images they want and glue them to the construction paper as a collage. 

If your child needs a challenge, you can encourage them to cut out only items that are a particular color, and make a specific color collage. Or, you can have your child cut out only words for a word collage. You can easily modify this activity throughout the summer to make it more interesting and engaging for your child. 

All three of the activities listed use everyday household items or items you can easily pick up at your local dollar store. Each of these activities will help your child develop their fine motor muscles. If they do the activities listed above all summer, as well as similar fine motor activities, they will be able to easily perform all the fine motor tasks that will be required of them when they return to an accredited preschool, such as D & J Educational Inc.