Find the Animals

I have seen this idea circulating around Instagram for a while and we recently tried this activity. Take a puzzle apart and wrap aluminum foil around each puzzle piece for your child (ren) to unwrap. This is an easy way to work on those fine motor skills!

I chose an animal puzzle for this activity, but it could easily be done with any puzzle. My little ones love unwrapping a puzzle piece and discovering which animal was "hiding".

DIY Fine Motor Board

If your children are anything like mine, you most likely have pouches of some sort around your house. My kiddos like yogurt pouches and applesauce pouches. I kept wondering what I could do with those pouch lids to work on fine motor skills and I decided to create a fine motor board!

Materials:

• Cardboard (thanks Amazon!)
• Various pouch lids

Creating this was SO easy. All I did was cut out the piece of the pouch that the lid screw onto and then cut a slit in the cardboard. I inserted the piece into it and tightened the lid onto it. Voila! 

Drawing Lines

One skill we've been working on is drawing lines. Our occupational therapist gave us a great suggestion that I thought I'd share here since it's been helpful to us. Use dot stickers as beginning and ending points. I always encourage starting on the left so we can work on left to right progression.

You could use this trick to work on diagonal lines as well. We also use chalk outside to practice drawing lines. 

Valentine's Play Doh

Happy Friday! Today I am sharing a Valentine's themed Play-Doh set up that I quickly put together! To be honest, I haven't always loved Play-Doh, but it is SO good for fine motor skills so we pull it out fairly often for fine motor work!

For this set up, I used some of the materials I had in sensory bins and pulled the rest from various places around the house (the play kitchen and a wooden peg set). ANY materials will work for Play-Doh and we will use some tools to help roll the Play-Doh out.

Materials used:

• Play-Doh (Wal-Mart)
• Hearts table scatter (Dollar Tree)
• Cookie cutters (Wal-Mart)
• Wooden peg people (Hobby Lobby)
• Clear plastic divider (Hobby Lobby)
• Play food (Wal-Mart)

While the littles were playing with Play-Doh, I got the idea to take the mini hearts and "hide" them in the Play-Doh for them to find. It was great fine motor practice since you can squeeze the Play-Doh to find the hearts OR pull it apart to find the hearts. 

Valentine's Themed Do-A-Dots

One of my girls VERY favorite things to do is Do-a-Dots! It's so good for visual scanning and fine motor skills, so it's usually a weekly thing around here. I bought Minnie Mouse Valentine's cards for my girls, but I thought these DIY Do-a-Dot cards would be perfect for them to use!

Materials:

• Do-a-Dot markers (Amazon)
• Printable from Contented at Home blog

 These make the sweetest homemade Valentine's cards!

I also printed a few other Valentine's themed sheets for more Do-a-Dot fun! You can find them from Easy Peasy Learners here and iHeart Crafty Things here.

 I love how bright and colorful these are. They are perfect to display on the refrigerator this month!

Valentine's Fine Motor Activity

Today's activity is a wonderful fine motor activity that I got from @ot_mama_of_twins on Instagram. I thought it was such a good idea that we had to replicate it!

Materials:

• Deck of cards 
• Valentine's Day mailbox 

I chose Mickey Mouse themed since my girls love Mickey Mouse! 

The goal is for children to use their fine motor skills to place the card into the mailbox! Some mailboxes had a slit in the top and some on the side, as shown below. This could be modified by placing the mailbox so the slit it upwards facing, but I love the challenge thrown in with it being on the front side of the mailbox! 

Teaching Colors

I'm back to share a few activities that we have done lately to work on colors! We are working so hard on sorting and matching colors, as well as naming colors.

Activity 1: This is such a simple activity to create at home and cost less than $3 total. The goal is to work on fine motor skills while matching colors!

Materials:
cardboard box (I bought this box so I would have a deep enough box for the popsicles to go into)
colored popsicle sticks (linking similar ones)
markers (to color around the slits you make in the box)

Activity 2: This activity uses dot stickers, which are seriously the best! We use them all the time. We actually did activity on the go in a waiting room. It's perfect to add to a busy bag for on the go, or to do at home! I just laid out construction paper and had my girls match the dot sticker to the paper. So easy and it works on colors and fine motor skills with the stickers!

Materials:

construction paper

dot stickers 

Activity 3: For this activity we used our counting bears to match colors using a printable from Life Over C's. I printed and laminated the sheet and we placed the bears on top matching colors. There are so many ways to use counting bears - counting, matching colors, patterns, etc.

Materials:
Printable from Life Over C's 
Counting bears 

Activity 4: This activity comes from Kelly at Lattes and Lunchrooms. She is the sweetest and I always love to see what she is teaching her girls! For this activity, the child drives the colored car to the matching construction paper. She shared it on her Instagram and I just had to pick these cars up to try it. My two LOVED this activity. We started with the papers close, moved them apart, and eventually spread them all over. So fun!

Materials: 
set of 6 cars (Wal-Mart Valentine's section for $1.97)
construction paper 

Activity #5: This activity also comes from Kelly at Lattes and Lunchrooms! Told you she was awesome! She used dot stickers on an egg carton and had her kiddos match colors using popsicle sticks. Fine motor and colors - it's a win, win!

Materials:
egg carton
dot stickers
colored popsicle sticks (linking similar ones)

Snowflake Crafts

Happy Monday! Today I am sharing a few snowflake themed activities we did last week! First, I purchased this set of snowflake stamps from Amazon. These are great foam snowflake stamps that we will use in multiple ways! 

Last week we used the stamps with Play-Doh and created pretty snowflakes! Our next goal is to paint with the snowflake stamps! 

To work on our fine motor skills, we used the 3D snowflake stamps and added them to a fun snowflake! Such an easy way to work on fine motor skills and kids always love stickers! 

Decorate a Christmas tree with dot stickers

Susie over at the Busy Toddler always shares fun ways to use dot stickers. We love dot stickers and use them often. I even purchased a large pack for stocking stuffers this year for my littles.

I used craft paper from our easel and taped it to the wall. I drew a Christmas tree and made yellow, orange, and green dots (those were the only color dot stickers I had at the time). 

Our goal was to decorate the tree by placing dot stickers over the coordinating colors. This was a great fine motor and visual scanning activity.

We had a beautifully decorated tree at the end! I love activities that are quick to put together and you get the most bang for your buck with skills being addressed!

Christmas Crafts with Do-a-Dot Markers

Do-a-Dot markers have been a favorite for all three of my children. Do-a-Dot markers are excellent for hand-eye coordination and visual scanning. My girls can't get enough of them! Today I am sharing two Christmas activities we did with Do-a-Dot markers. 

We recently decorated Christmas tree printables with them. I love how bright and colorful they turned out! It's a fun, festive decoration for our refrigerator now. 

I also drew a Christmas tree on paper and let the kids use Do-a-Dot markers to decorate it. They all enjoyed that. 

Gift Guide for Boys (ages 8-9)

A few days ago I shared my Gift Guide for Toddlers, ages 1-3. If you missed it, you can click here to read it. Today I am sharing my gift guide for boys ages 8-9! My son will be 8 1/2 at Christmas this year and I am sharing some of his most requested toys, as well as some of our favorites. Some are tried and true toys for us and some will be new to us this year.

We'll divide this into 6 categories:

• Experiences
• Science/STEM
• Outdoor
• Multi-use (indoor/outdoor)
• Books
• Stocking Stuffers

Let's start with experience gifts. 

• Zoo - Purchase a family membership to your local zoo for year-round fun! We have found this to pay for itself after only a few trips to the zoo and is well worth the price! Plus, everyone in the family gets to enjoy!
  
  
• Museums - We are lucky enough to have several museums around us: a history museum, a science museum, and a children's museum.
  
  
• Tickets for a special event - Movie theater, water park (for summer fun!), amusement park, a special show, concert, etc. Last year we surprised my son with an overnight stay in a hotel in a neighboring state with tickets to see his favorite wrestler, AJ Styles, at a WWE Smackdown show. Hands down - this was my favorite experience gift we've given him! 

Now let's look at Science/STEM related gifts.

• Sphero ball - This is one of my sons highly requested gifts this year. You can control this robot using an app.

• Vex Robotics - These robotic kits seem to be the rage this year! You can find them in multiple places. This is a fun project you can do WITH your child.

• Circuit kit - We purchased this circuit kit for a friends birthday recently. When I taught 4th grade science, my students LOVED working with circuits!

Let's move on to OUTDOOR gifts.

• Scooter - Scooters are always a fun gift! You can buy push kick scooters or electric ones.
  

• Go-Kart - We don't have room for it, but I know older kids would love this!
  
  
• Drone - Drones can be a fun toy and they even come with cameras now. 

My longest list of toys for boys ages 8-9 fits into this MULTI-USE category.

• Nerf guns - Nerf guns are ALWAYS a hit at our house! We have a space in our garage where we hung pegboard to store them.

• Vortex ball - This is one of my sons most requested toys this year. The Vortex ball is made by Nerf. 

• Magnetic dart board - My son recently received this dart board as a gift and it is so much fun! I love that the darts are magnetic. Even his two year old sister enjoys it!

• Lego kits - Lots of kids love legos, whether it's a classic set or Lego set.

• Remote controlled car - Classic and always fun!

• Sports equipment - Does your son play sports? Need a new baseball bat? Cleats? Glove? Basketball? Basketball goal? New soccer ball? Soccer goal? Christmas is the perfect time to stock them up on the sports equipment they need/want. 

• Action figures - Last year was the year for action figures at our house! My son got oodles and oodles of WWE action figures. You can get action figures for whatever character/people your son is interested in.

• Qixels - My son loves to create with Qixels sets!

• Hoverboard - You may think this was a popular option a few years ago, but if your son is just now at the age to enjoy a hoverboard, it may be a good option!  Do your research on the best brand! 

Next, let's discuss BOOKS & BOOK SERIES:

• Kindle - I'll be honest. I'm a book-in-my-hand type, but a Kindle is a great option to have!

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid series - My son is ALL about this book series and is a must have gift for him!

• Geronimo Stilton - This is another series my son is loving this year! 

Lastly, let's look at stocking stuffers:

• Rubik's Cube - Such a classic! 

• Special pens/pencils - This is the perfect time to stock your son up on new pencils or pens. My son loves Flair pens (like his mama!).

• Markers - Need new markers? Perfect time!

• Small Lego sets - Sometimes you can find small lego sets that make great stocking stuffers! Even Dollar Tree has little sets that would be great.
  
  

• Movies - A movie is an easy stocking stuffer!

• Small cars/trucks - Matchbox cars or other small vehicles make easy stocking stuffers, too!  

There you have it! LOTS of gift ideas for boys ages 8-9! I hope this was helpful to you. What items are on your sons list?