Seaside Do-a-Dot Toddler Activities

Seaside printable Do-a-Dot toddler activities advance fine motor control and hand-eye coordination, help improve handwriting skills, and are a valuable pre-writing tool.

Seaside Printable do-a-dot toddler activities are excellent for improving many practical life skills such as fine motor control, hand-eye, and visual coordination. These activities also require a lot of concentration as a child matches a dot-a-dot! Moreover, do-a-dot activities are great for practicing matching, color recognition, and shade discrimination! Working on a dot-to-dot also strengthens hand and finger muscles, which is an excellent exercise in preparation for writing. Most importantly, you can start introducing these activities as early as 18 months and as a child grows, so do the skills s/he masters. So, do-a-dot activities can be enjoyed by toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and beyond! During each developmental stage, a child masters different skills. For example, while your toddler learns to discriminate colors, your kindergartner will work on precision while matching a do-a-dot.

During early childhood, starting at 18 months, it is crucial to develop vital muscles children will be using throughout their lifetime. For example, when holding a chunky marker with a fisted grip, a child focuses on a grasp and learns how much pressure to apply to paper. Fisted grip ~ also called palmar-supinate grasp, is the first pencil grip your child develops at around 18 months. Moreover, a child exercises rudimentary handwriting skills by holding a marker with a palm and thumb where the movement is initiated from the shoulder. Thus, do-a-dot activities are an important first pre-writing stage and a valuable pre-writing tool.

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TIPS AND HACKS to use Seaside Do-a-Dot Toddler Activities

• To laminate, you can use an IRON instead of a laminating machine. (I am using these thermal laminating pouches). HOW: set your iron at a low temperature, as if you would iron silk. To be safe, place plain paper OVER the laminating sheet and iron it over. (See HERE how I did it making a flower bookmark.)
• Alternatively, you can use sheet protectors and insert your pages into it, and then use a dry erase marker. 
• To erase the dot markers either use water or we love THESE smiley face erasers.

Adrian is 7 yr and he absolutely enjoyed these Seaside Do-a-Dot Activities!

5 Ways to use Seaside Do-a-dot Toddler Activities

1. Use rainbow dot markers (buy HERE or similar on Amazon HERE) ~ dot markers are thick and comfortable to grasp for little hands, being a perfect pre-writing tool
2. Use dot stickers* Adrian said using dot stickers was his favorite!
3. Use a wooden peg and a pom pom dipped in paint
4. Use a sponge to dot the circle
5. Finger Paint

Seaside Do-a-dot Toddler Activities Promote

Hand-Eye Coordination

Dot-to-dot activities are amazing for improving hand-eye coordination as a child learns to simultaneous use hands and eyes in a coordinated manner. A child learns and masters to perceive information through eyes (visual-spatial perception) to guide the hands to carry out a movement. A lot of visual and hand-eye coordination skills are developed through dot-to-dot work.

Handwriting Skills

Dot-to-dot activities also promote rudimentary handwriting skills and are a valuable pre-writing tool. For example, a child learns how to grasp and match shapes while determining how much pressure to apply to the paper.

Fine Motor Skills

Moreover, working on dot-to-dot activities is a great way to strengthen fine motor ~ hand, and finger muscles in preparation for writing. It is crucial to develop vital muscles during early childhood a child will be used throughout life. Children can focus on grasping and gripping chunky markers to strengthen their hands while working on dot-to-dot.

Other Skills

Lastly, a child develops concentration, focus, patience, and precission while working on dot-to-dot activities. And, it is fun to observe a picture emerge!

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Seaside Summer Kids Activities MEGE PACK

You can purchase an entire 77-page pack below! This Seaside Summer Kids Montessori Activities Printable MEGE PACK has it all!
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From DO-a-DOT, toddler puzzles, pre-writing strokes, to numeracy, literacy, shape, and color recognition, little hands will be busy while keeping the mind agile! Your little one will be practicing fine motor and spatial awareness with many puzzles as well as advancing sensorial and visual discrimination, exercising scissors ✂️ skills, and much more!

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TODDLER SEASIDE ACTIVITIES

Alternatively, you can purchase just the section pages 5-11 from the pack.

• PAGE 5 – 9: [AGE 18 M +]  DO A DOT | FINE MOTOR perfect for toddlers and preschoolers ~ use dot markers, finger paint or a pom pom dipped in paints to fill in summer objects.
• PAGE 10-11: [AGE 15 M+] TODDLER HALVES PUZZLE | LOGIC ~ Cut out the cards along the dotted lines. Thereafter, cut each card in half and invite a child to assemble the puzzle. (Optional: print another copy and leave it intact to use as control cards.)

For toddler HALVES puzzles, I like to tape the haves to magnetic tiles. This twist adds a color-control of error (both matching tile haves of the puzzles are the same color) and a fun magnetic component.

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eBOOK | THE BASICS Bringing Montessori Home

“Our work is not to teach, but to HELP the absorbent mind in its work of development. How marvelous it would be if by our help, if by an intelligent treatment of the child, if by understanding the needs of his physical life and by feeding his intellect, we could prolong the period of functioning of the absorbent mind!”

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Also, in case you are exhausted from swimming in the vast ocean of irrelevant information and saving activities you never get to! JOIN Montessori MADE-EASY membership! And if you do, the eBook THE BASICS is included in the membership amongst MANY other perks!

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