Montessori color-matching STRAW POKE DIY from a recycled paper towel roll promotes fine-motor control, dexterity, and bilateral coordination in babies and toddlers.
STRAW POKE Montessori color-matching DIY (Do-It-Yourself) from recycled materials is a fun way to promote fine-motor skills. Besdies, with little ones, it is all about early exposure! When we expose children early on to sensory play in an age-appropriate, stimulating, child-driven environment, we are providing them with a foundation to build confidence, knowledge, and mastery. Recycled PTR Straw Poke DIY is a fun way to keep little hands busy and minds active! Most importantly, with this color matching activity, your toddler or preschooler will be strengthening small muscles of the hands and learning color recogniton and matching.
YOU’LL need for this Straw Poke DIY
- a recycled paper towel roll (PTR)
- colorful drinking straws
- dot stickers
- a Stanley knife
Toddler Color Matching Activity
To make this STRAW POKE TODDLER DIY, place dot stickers on a recycled paper towel roll about one inch apart. Then, with a knife, make an insertion in the middle of each sticker, poking through the sticker and the roll. Finally, offer your child to color match each straw by wiggling and inserting each into a color-corresponding hole. This activity is suitable for a toddler eighteen months and over.
STRAW POKE TODDLER DIY SKILLs
✔️ hand-eye coordination
✔️color recognition
✔️fine motor control
✔️bilateral coordination
✔️dexterity and more!
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These skills are the gateway to cognitive development for your child!
You can see a shorter REEL on Instagram HERE.
This toddler color matching activity is perfect for promoting fine motor control, hand-eye coordination, and color matching in children of wide age-range! Moreover, threading or poking various straws, pipe cleaners, toothpicks, Q-tips, cotton swabs, and other items from around the house promotes precision, ability to concentrate, and small muscle control. The best part is that you can use items around the house, and it should not take you more than five minutes to put together.
TODDLER COLOR MATCHING
Development milestone to learn to identify colors emerges from age 12 to 18 months. Your child will become aware of different colors at around 1 year and can name different colors by the age of 2.5 to 3 years. Besides learning colors with this DIY your little one will be practicing bilateral coordination (holding a PTR with one hand and poking with the other!), while strengthening small muscles of the hand and having the hands and brain work together! Win-win!
PROMOTING TODDLER SKILLS
♡ HAND-EYE coordination ~ when brain and hands work together ~ the ability to coordinate the information received through the eyes to control, guide, and direct the hands in the accomplishment of a given task.
♡ FINE MOTOR CONTROL ~ when children exercise small muscle hand control by poking, tonging, pinching, transferring, threading, etc, they develop the strength, dexterity, and control needed to manipulate many everyday items such as a pencil, spoon, button, scissors, zippers, and more … “He does it with his hands, by experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence.” ~ Dr. Maria Montessori. The Absorbent Mind. Examples are learning to perfect a pincer grip (around 1 YO) that is plucking something with a thumb and forefinger.
♡ DEXTERITY ~perfecting skills and ease in using their hands. Poking and wiggling builds DEXTERITY and MUSCLE TONE while manipulating loose items builds strength in fingers and hand muscles.
♡ BILATERAL COORDINATION ~ the ability to use both sides of the body at the same time in a coordinated manner. For example, when a child holds a PTR with one hand and pokes a straw with the other, s/he is using both arms and hands together, while engaging both sides of the body at the same time. Small children have no preference for using either hand. So, learning to use BOTH hands together in a coordinated way is actually an important first step in developing a specialized/dominant hand. Reciprocal movements (using both hands together in an alternating way) leads to strong bilateral coordination skills.
STRAW PULL BABY MODIFICATION
Do you have a BABY? Well, calling all six months + to PULL the straws OUT, which is much easier than inserting straws IN! During this process, your little one is advancing hand-eye coordination, fine motor control, and pincer grasp. Not bad for a paper towel roll which generally gets recycled?
Always supervise your children while they are learning through play.
See more details about this Montessori Color-matching recycled fine-motor DIY HERE. You can see this Recycled Straw Poke DIY on Instagram here.
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Have you downloaded my NEW eBook THE BASICS? It has everything you need to know to get started on your Montessori journey, as well as a CURRICULUM outline reference guide, the order of lessons, and the age when they should be introduced, in my opinion. See details HERE.
Also, check out HERE Homeschooling Montessori MADE-EASY membership in case you are exhausted from swimming in the vast ocean of irrelevant information and saving activities you never get to! And if you sign UP, the eBook is included in the package amongst MANY other perks!
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