We had another playgroup and boy was it fun! I had all boys and one sweet girl, but she kept those boys in line. 🙂
We worked with stickers for our craft. I love stickers because the children get to place them where they want and it challenges their fine motor skills. Stickers are a great way to keep children busy and teach them how to concentrate, stay on task, and work those small muscles. Stickers also allow the children to be creative with their placement! During our sticker time, the children asked for markers. I think worksheets / coloring-sheets are overused but they are good if used in moderation for exposure to holding markers, pens, or pencils. This brought up great conversations with the moms. They all expressed how it’s hard to give their child a marker because they usually end up writing on something they shouldn’t! Exposure is important, but it’s also important to teach children how to use the marker and the appropriate place to color…understanding they might make mistakes by coloring on something they shouldn’t. 🙂
Hard at work….
Oops…we colored off the paper a little, but it all cleans up. Remember, it’s about exposure and opportunities!!!
We did a little Easter egg search and find! This is also a fine motor task! Building All Children brought in several fine motor tasks that would challenge the boys! Boys typically love the big muscle activities, but sometimes getting them to do the small motor muscle activities is more challenging! They loved everything we brought!
Who knew…tin foil balls and sport cones could be so fun! The boys worked hard on this activity! It not only worked on their small muscles, but it also worked on their eye hand coordination! We had a ton of fun playing this game!!!
We also explored their creativity …. They ended up taking the Kinetic Sand and our tin foil balls and pretended to make Hot Cocoa for the moms. The tin foil balls were the marshmallows. It is so fun to see how creative children can be!
We explored with seashells and sand! I love how churches provide great activities for the children during the church service times. The children loved playing with various sizes, shapes, textures, and colors of sea shells. This activity brought up great language skills and good conversations!
Building All Children loves our playgroups! We came together to hear a story but we didn’t get very far into the story because we were all about PLAY! We prayed together and ended our time together unwrapping a little gift and reading scripture. “Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men,” ~Colossians 3:23
Play is fun and can be hard work but it is well worth it!!!