December 8 is Christmas Tree Day. Since we already put up and decorated our Christmas tree, I threw together two Christmas tree activities for Jude this morning.
Disclaimer: When I say threw together, I literally mean threw together with things we had. I also mean that I cut a felt Christmas tree on the fly and it looks crazy. Hopefully this shows people that not all fun play opportunities are super thought out.
The first activity was putting ornaments on a felt Christmas tree. Felt sticks pretty well to our Nugget, so I put it on there for Jude to play with. I chose the Nugget because of all of the benefits of children playing on vertical surfaces. I'm always looking for new ways to boost Jude's vestibular system. I would recommend if you do this activity to draw out a Christmas tree and ornaments rather than just blindly cutting like I did.
The second activity was dot marker Christmas trees. Jude got some dot markers for St. Nick's day and has been trying to hand them to me to play with ever since. This one was so easy. You just draw an outline of a Christmas tree and let the kid stamp with the dot markers. Other than the fine motor benefits of this activity, it also opened up a dialogue for Jude and I to talk about colors as well as count the dots.
I want to reiterate, fun, beneficial play activities don't need to be some extravagant Pinterest creation. They can simply be materials you have sitting around the house thrown together to create a learning opportunity! Sometimes my best ideas come from spur of the moment activities!
No comments:
Post a Comment