Barefoot Play

Great reference

Looking for some easy fine motor activities to do with the kids at home? Try these 12 DIY sensory play ideas, from foam to slime using only 2 ingredients.

Via The Craft-at-Home Family
Download the PDF with clickable links here:https://thecraftathomefamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2-Ingredient-Sensory-Recipes-1.pdf

On the topic of process art vs product art.

“Product” art is like— doing a craft. There’s supposed to be a set result and everybody’s is supposed to look a set way. Sometimes I hear arguments for the positive side of product art in terms of teaching children specific fine motor skills; i.e., if everybody has to cut out their project in exactly the same way, then they work on cutting, or things like that. Sure, I can see an argument to be made there. I’m not saying crafts are evil. They’re fine. I loved crafts when I was a kid.

“Process” art is what young children (toddlers, preschoolers, early elementary) are drawn to if they’re not interfered with, though. They aren’t thinking about what the end result will look like when they set out—not if they haven’t been acted upon by an adult or other outside force! They might explore the way colors mix on the paper, they might pretend the pencil is a car zooming around the page, they might try to put stickers on the page and then take them back off to see what happens. They might mix materials in creative ways—stick stickers onto wet paint; squeeze out huge globs of liquid glue; try to color on the liquid glue with markers to see what happens. The focus is on the process.

I honestly find process art perfectly sufficient for learning new fine motor techniques too. Kids, in my experience, have just as much fun (if not more) and learn just as much (if not more) using the scissors to cut out whatever they’re imagining or processing or whatever weird material I’ve set in front of them — leaves from outside, wet noodles, dry noodles, straws, paper scraps — as they do cutting out a set craft material.

“What about waste?” people commonly ask me. “You say that you let kids learn how to glue by just squeezing out glue and not telling them any different, but isn’t that wasteful?”

Play is learning, and learning isn’t wasteful. It’s OK to preemptively only set out what materials you’re OK with them using all of. Put half the bottle of glue away, in a different container, to be returned to the white bottle after you’re done; or put only a bit of it out, in a cup with a paintbrush, or mix it with a bit of water or paint to stretch it, or involve the child in the exploring.

Ask yourself before entering into an art/play exploration: what would I be okay with them literally using one hundred percent of? Only give them access to that much of everything. Kids can be creative within limitations — some of the best art comes from working within boundaries!

[Image description: Six pieces of artwork, each made with what looks like watercolour paint but each one extremely different. One appears to show a butterfly, one shows something like the outline of an elephant, a few look like they have exploration of square-shaped stamps involved, and one looks like an exploration of color mixing. The caption says, “You know you’re doing it right when no two pieces of children’s work look the same.” The image was made by Cuddlebug Kids whose handle is also on the image. End description.]

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The power of audiobooks 🎧💙

Such a sweet craft idea!

A beautiful idea to make easter nature crafts that’s too good not to share.

Our tips:
🌸 When you go on your nature walk to collect found items of nature, encourage your children to collect a wide variety of colours, textures and smells.

🌸 Allow them experiment with what works and what doesn't.

Activity source: Sprouting Wild Ones & instructions: https://tinyurl.com/yc44tacz

😢 The Alfie books were the first books i remember falling in love with as a kid.
i always loved how Shirley Hughes made such delightful stories out of the quite ordinary moments.

Shirley Hughes, children's author and illustrator, dies aged 94 Beloved English author and artists behind more than 60 books, including Dogger and the Alfie series, was voted the most popular Kate Greenaway winner in 50 years

Shaving foam and animals.
Easy sensory fun, and a great way to get help cleaning resources as the end of year approaches.

Number dot stickers

This was an activity that I did quickly one evening for Barefoot Boy to do when he woke up.

Normally I don’t like to have super structured activities like this, however numbers and letters are something that he really enjoys and he particularly enjoys matching.

If a structured activity follows a child’s interest, is something they do willingly then it’s nice to do them amongst lots of free play activities.

The purpose was not to ‘learn the alphabet’ as I often see these activities labeled. Rather it follows his natural interest of letters and numbers.

Part of the goal was about looking and being aware of the whole activity in front of him; I wrote the letters in random order so he had to look for the right symbol to match, it wasn’t in the ‘normal’ order. he couldn’t just match quickly, instead he had to look and search for each particular letter or number. This was really helping his special awareness and problem-solving skills.

It also helped with his fine motor skills as I’ve talked before about how great stickers are for fine motor .

To make this I wry the alphabet on paper in lots of different spots and then wrote the same letters and numbers on dot stickers and left it out for him to do.

We got this long box with a Bunnings order. I knew as soon as I got it that it would be perfect for making a dinosaur head.
I turned it inside out so that the cardboard was plain (no writing).
I cut a slit half way around for the mouth and made a hole in the bottom for a head to go in.
Then we cut some triangles out of white paper and stuck them inside the mouth. We painted it and coloured it in. Barefoot boy really enjoyed stomping around the house wearing his dinosaur head.

Dressing up is an awesome way for kids to start processing how different people think and act, as they begin to take on pretend roles in play.

Nature faces

Spontaneous experience at the park a few weeks ago.

We were collecting leaves, sticks and gum nuts, then Barefoot boy used some to create a face on a tree stump.

Love the creativity!

Egg carton flower crown 🌸

There’s an episode of Bluey where they wear flower crowns and J was quite taken by them. I used egg cartons to create flowers and hot glued them onto a strip of cardboard. I happened to have two different coloured egg cartons to add some extra interest. (Swipe across to see how I cut the egg cartons to make a crown).

We then painted them and it looked awesome 😊