diy fine motor rainbows

 I know. Making a froot loop necklace in preschool is hardly revolutionary or original but it does have its moments. Tasty, sugary moments of course. I set this up as a side project to our rainbow study so that the children could work those fine motor skills and practice their color recognition.

 While the children were playing in the classroom, I hopped on over to our kitchen/craft area and set up. Each kiddo got a white tray (I love these trays), one of our small colored bowls full of froot loops, and a length of yarn that matched the bowl (I tied a loop of cereal to the end of each length of yarn to act as an anchor to keep the other loops from slipping off). The children got to choose where they sat and needed no introduction other than affirmation that it was okay to eat the cereal.

We talked about the colors in our bowls, what colors we would use in a rainbow and what colors we were using in our rainbows. All of the children decided to take their necklaces home rather than eat them up. It was a lot of fun to see their delight and wonder and to hear their discussion as they laced away.

wrap a rainbow

Here is another fun project from our spring week of rainbows...yarn wrapped-rainbows!The set up was a bowl full of balls of yarn, scissors, and pre-notched up pieces of cardboard cut from a box we had hanging around the classroom.

 

I teach 3s and my 3s are on the younger side so this project was one that many of them needed a little guidance with. Some of the children only needed a little help showing them what the notched were for while others found that holding the cardboard and wrapping was a bit too twisty for their little hands so I held the cardboard for them as they cut their yarn, slipped it into a notch, and wrapped itaround and around and around. They were so proud of their finished rainbows!

The children used all sorts of fine and even some large motor skills for this project. Fine motor for scissors work, holding the cardboard and wrapping the yarn near the end of their strands; large motor for the beginning wrapping as the kiddos may have cut very long lengths of yarn so the wrapping became a whole-body event. They used sequencing/ordering skills along with color recognition as they wrapped their yarn in rainbow order. Pretty cool!

fine motor rainbow play

This was one of the magical ideas that came to me as I was running out the door to sub a preschool class last summer. Back then I used a couple of oh-so-lovely toilet paper tubes which only kinda worked as the bands were to springy and powerful the tubes got quite a bit wonky. This time I grabbed a cylinder block and set it up at our fine motor table to see what would happen.

I teach threes and this was a tricky project for them to tackle. I need to find a way to give the cylinder some staying power...maybe I should glue it to a board. The slipperyness of the cylinder caused a lot of frustration for my students. Some tried once and then abandoned it after the third hair holder flew across the room. That in itself was super delightful to the kiddos. Some gathered up all the holders and stretched them over their own arms to create bracelets. One of them, this one, worked and worked and worked, exclaiming when it got tricky (her words not mine) but persevering until she got one of each color carefully placed around the cylinder. 

 

I love the look of this project and how it creates an activity to use those fine motors and to problem solve. I will definitely do this again next year. 

diy: rainbow clothespins

For our week of rainbow I dyed up a batch of wooden clothespins using the same method I use for dying pasta.

While I was at it, I dyed large craft sticks and small wooden cubes as well. These are not colorfast and do bleed onto paper and play dough when wet (maybe they would be colorfast if I had added rubbing alcohol). But that's okay, I think that only adds to their charm. 

 

 I set the rainbow pins up on one of my favorite trays along with a wooden storage box made of a thin veneer. I hoped the children would figure out that they could balance the clothespin on the side of the box and they did! I made multiples of each color so that they could sort or arrange as they wished.

Some of the children noticed that all of the colors of the rainbow were represented. Others counted out how many pins there were. The clothespins migrated all over the classroom but mostly they were balanced on the edge of the box. Fun!

making fairy bread in the classroom

For our week of A Rainbow of My Own it was all rainbows all the time. For our cooking project I set up a fairy bread station. While it is not cooking as we know it, it is a lovely food prep project that kiddos really enjoy. We talk about steps and sequence, ingredients, and tools used. We observe what is on the table and the children make declarations and predictions. They then use their fine motor skills to spread the butter onto their bread and sprinkle the sprinkles on top. Food prep is a wonderful opportunity for learning. I try to incorporate it into the classroom each week. When we are unable to work on food or drink prep we usually follow a recipe of sorts such as making play dough. Enjoy!