motor skills

The Only No Cook Play Dough Recipe You’ll Ever Need

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I love love love love LOVE play dough.

When I was a kid, my sister and I would spend hours creating whole meals out of play dough. Burgers, peas, carrots, french fries, chicken nuggets…anything we could think of we would make.

Now that I’m all grown up, one of my favorite experiences to share with the little ones in my life is making play dough together. When my friends and their kids come to my house, they always go home with a bag of play dough that they made.

Here’s my super easy, kid friendly, NO COOK (yea!) recipe for play dough.

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More Than a Feeling: The Hidden Benefits of Sensory Bins

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You know those minivan and suv commercials where they make the car look like it can do literally anything?

That’s basically the same as a sensory bin.

What is a sensory bin?

A sensory bin is a container filled with a variety of materials cultivated to ignite one or more of the five senses: touch, sight, smell, sound, and taste. You’ve probably seen water tables and sand tables at Target or Walmart. You might even have one in your backyard! There are tons of tutorials on the internet that show how to use pvc pipe and storage tubs to create a cheap table. I’ve found that those plastic under the bed storage tubs straight on the floor work wonders. You can move it anywhere (speaking from experience, don’t try to move it when it’s full) and you can store your materials in it when you’re done!

Scroll to the end of this post for a list of materials for your sensory bin!

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Four Favorites: Fine Motor Fun

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Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Pexels.com

Last week we talked about the importance of fine motor development, so this week I want to share some of my favorite fine motor experiences with you! They all require gathering some materials but you can typically find most of these things lying around your house or at a dollar store. They’ll work to strengthen those little hand muscles needed to start writing and drawing and being more independent. These activities are sure to be home runs for your little ones!

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Where is Thumbkin?: Fine Motor Skills

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Late last year I read an article that continues to stick with me.

A surgery professor in London noticed a trend in his students over the last decade:  a decrease in their fine motor skills.

With the refinement and widespread use of technology, people are spending more time playing games on their phones, watching tv, scrolling through social media, and less time writing by hand, building things by hand, and basically doing anything by hand.

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Rough and Tumble Play

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“ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE????!?!!!!!!”

Everyone’s attention is centered on a gymnastics mat surrounded by a circle of excited preschoolers. Two children are on their knees facing each other. Hearing the starting signal, they lunge toward each other, collapsing in a tangle of limbs as each one tries to pin the other to the ground for three seconds. Shouting fills the air as children call out words of encouragement to their friends wrestling on the playground. Through giggles, one child shouts out “I want to wrestle Jacob next!”

WHOA! WHAT IS THIS?! LORD OF THE FLIES?!

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Nature Kids

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“Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart.”
— Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

Being outdoors is a magical experience. Even as adults, we love to “get away from it all.” We often spend lots of money so we can go relax on a beach, camp, hike, or sit on a porch in the mountains. We crave getting back to nature. It helps us forget about the mundane aspects of life:  bills, work, to do lists…

Recently, the early childhood field has seen an uptick in “nature schools” in which the outdoors is the classroom. At my last preschool in San Francisco, many of the children had limited outdoor space at their homes. Those who did often had small, shared, or hardscaped backyards. Thankfully, San Francisco has a great parks system and we took advantage of that. Nature wasn’t our everyday classroom, but at least once a week, our classes didn’t meet at our schoolhouse; we spent the day exploring in one of the city’s beloved parks.

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Music Molds Minds

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I love music. Like, LOVE music.

My mom was in high school band and sang in our church choir. My sister was in band and choir and became an elementary music teacher. My dad’s favorite pastime is driving down the road, his outstretched arm cutting through the warm summer air, belting out the classics and drumming on the steering wheel. Most family gatherings with my aunts, uncles, and cousins involve hymn singing in perfect four part harmony. I was in marching and concert band, sang in my church choir, play guitar, played bass and sang backup vocals in an early 2000s punk cover band with my best friends. Some of my most vivid memories have something to do with music.

I recently spent two weeks with my 14 month old niece and just like the rest of our family, she is a music fanatic. The second music comes on or someone starts singing, she immediately drops everything she’s doing to dance and clap. She’s a huge fan of funk, 70’s classics, really anything with an exceptionally good groove.

Music has an overwhelming power over the human brain. A moving melody can send a chill down your spine (a phenomenon called frisson — with all my heart, I really really really hope you’ve experienced it). It can trigger memories, soothe infants, get you excited to exercise, make a dinner more romantic, calm you when you’re stressed, and help you focus.

But did you know that our earliest experiences with music help us develop more than just our musical ability? I could write a thousand posts about the benefits of music and still only scratch the surface, but for today, here are just a few ways music molds minds. Continue reading →