Improve the grip with winter activities at kindergarten.

Use winter colours and materials to reflect and exercise grip.

 

 

 

With these immersive activities, we experienced a lot of different concepts while having fun, including more intentionally gripping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Materials required:

• Egg containers with 30 spaces
• Eyebrow tweezers
• White and silver tempera colours
• Vinyl glue
• Coarse salt
• Silver glitter
• Glitter with winter sizes
• Dropper
• Make-up lever discs

 

 

The choice to use egg carriers is born from the fact that they are made of a very porous and absorbent cardboard that can be wet, dried and reused several times without fading and for its irregular surface, made of full and empty, Highs and lows is very pleasant to color and is very stimulating for children.

 

 

 

 

Painting on an unusual and stimulating surface: activity for Monday.

 

 

 

 

In this first phase, the boys and girls have freely colored the egg boxes, first with white tempera and later, with silver tempera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the initial conversation we stopped to imagine and describe a winter landscape with snow and ice and we identified in white and silver the most suitable colors to describe it.

 

The activity of painting with the tempera this material is only apparently trivial, in fact if the children are left calm and free to act, they concentrate very long, they are gratified by the irregular surface and proceed in a very personal way, each with a different approach: who colors all the tips, who bases, who in regular rows, who random and so on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gripping with coarse salt: activities for Tuesday.

 

 

 

 

Once the tempera is dry, I proposed the use of vinyl glue and coarse kitchen salt, to perform a manipulation that stimulates the grip with pliers and the correct use of thumb and index.

 

Individually, I put the PVA glue in several places, asking the children to take pinches of salt to drop into the spaces.

 

Salt is an interesting material and similar to ice crystals, which lets imagine the winter and being unusual, stimulates manipulation.

 

Once they put the salt, with the same procedure, the boys and girls have dropped, always pinch even the silver glitter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Properly grip eyebrow tweezers: activity for Wednesday.

 

 

 

 

The third step we used glitter with winter shapes, such as snowflakes, stars, reindeers and ice skates, easy to collect with eyebrow tweezers.

Always individually, I put a touch of PVA glue in 5/6 different points. On those points the children placed glitter with tweezers.

 

The action is very complex: it requires the coordination of eye and hand, not only to perform the action of opening and closing the tweezer, but also to find, while moving, the right place on which to lay the glitter. Difficult, challenging, stimulating, funny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last thing to be glued, this time with greater ease, are the make-up lever discs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Encourage the correct grip using the dropper in a fun way: activity for Thursday.

 

 

 

 

The last step, repeated for two days because very fun and rewarding, was to use the droppers to drop into the spaces of the egg carriers, water colored in blue.

 

If it is the first time that children approach this instrument, it is good to let them experiment first with simple Montessori transfers, passing the liquid from one container to another, to practice and exhaust the natural curiosity.

 

This action, always done with thumb and index finger, requires attention, precision, care and intentionality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It also offers the opportunity to experiment and reflect on the concepts of full and empty, high and low, above and below, absorbent and waterproof and lends itself to the action of counting drops, both individually and together with companions.

 

It turns out that the coarse salt when it is wet, melts as if it were ice, that the discs are absorbent, that the water can be put first and then removed, because the droppers drop and then suck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All these discoveries, which were born from the spontaneous search of children, have engaged and absorbed their attention, engaging them for a long time, with interest and curiosity.

 

As we always do, also for this activity, we reflected together on the actions carried out and the discoveries made and, thanks to the guided conversations, it was possible to share in the group what we discovered.

 

 

 

 

Handling in the cold: activities for Friday.

 

 

 

 

To offer children an additional level of sensory stimulation, it is possible to add to the activity with water and dropper, even an ice cube.

 

The egg carriers are solid enough not to fall apart and allow children to play freely, observe, formulate hypotheses and search for answers.

 

Every day, before or after the activity, it is our habit to recall the experiences lived together in previous days, this part of the work is extremely important because it allows children not only to reconnect the thread of thoughts, but also to acquire the habit of reflecting on actions taken.

 

 For the adult, the re-enactment offers an opportunity to observe the different skills of children and their approach to activities.

 

 

Finally, after an intense sensory activity, at the end of the week, the boys and girls brought home their egg tray, thus documenting the work done and sharing with their parents what they experienced.

 

 

 

 

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