Fine motor skills activity- nuts, bolts and screws

I'm planning on having a quite a few fine motor skills activities in my classroom...they are fun to make and kids enjoy them too, and they are great for those kids that are 'do-ers' and like to keep busy!

What are Fine Motor Skills:

Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the body that enable such functions as writing, grasping small objects, and fastening clothing. They involve strength, fine motor control, and dexterity.

How Fine Motor Skills Affect Learning and Living Skills:

These skills are important in most school activities as well as in life in general. Weaknesses in fine motor skills can affect a child's ability to eat, write legibly, turn pages in a book, and perform personal care tasks such as dressing and grooming.

I've seen variations on this  'nuts and bolts' activity on lots of blogs, especially ones that are into Montessori teaching materials. This one is such a good one for developing fine motor skills plus it's awesome for problem solving, maths, learning new vocabulary and lots more.  Also it can be a pretty budget friendly activity as you only need to buy the nuts, bolts and screws (if you don't have some already.)  Here are the details for my one (my hubby Ben made it for me.)

Fine motor skills 'Nuts, Bolts and Screws' board

You will need

-piece of wood- this one is about 1.5 cm thick and approx 25cm x 15 cm size

-bolts no longer than the thickness of your piece of wood

-screws - as above- I used flat head screws but it would have been good to have some Phillips ones as well so the kids learnt the difference between the 2 types of screws and had the challenge of matching the right screw driver to the right screw as well (although Ben isn't sure if they actually had Phillips ones)

-things that you use to screw the screws or bolts into the piece of wood- I don't know what they're called but you'll find them with the nuts and bolts -see pic above.  I'll call them base pieces-when Ben went to Bunnings he found individual base pieces already matched to a bolt or a screw which was handy 

-screwdriver the right size for your chosen screws (a short one with a large handle like the orange one on the pic below is easiest for younger children)

-spanner that fits your bolts (Super Cheap Auto had spanners for $1.50 when I went in yesterday)

What to do

1. Drill holes into the piece of wood where you would like the screws/bolts to go

2. Hammer in the base pieces

3. Screw in your bolts and screws

Nuts and bolts sorting and matching activity

One of the things I am always on the lookout for when I go op-shopping is any sort of small divider type bowls like the one below- this one was $1 but I've picked up plastic ones for as little as 20c- they are so handy for kids to sort things into and organise little things.  I got the nuts and bolts from Bunnings- each bolt was 50c - $1.50 approx and the nuts were from 15c - 50c approx.

For this I just bought different size nuts and bolts plus a wing nut and a carabina type thing.  Children will enjoy things like matching up the right size nuts to the bolts, ordering the nuts and bolts from smallest to biggest and also counting how many they can fit onto each bolt.

 

Another thing you can do with these nuts and bolts is write letters on the faces of each nut and encourage older children to see how many word they can make- great for spelling and learning rhyming words. I just used a sharpie to write the letters on so not sure how long they will last but this post explains how to make them with little stickers and mod lodge- don't know where I'd find those little stickers here in NZ though? Another idea would be to get enough nuts so you can write the letters of their name and they have to spell out their name. 

This post has a good idea too- write a word on the end of the bolt and have the children find the nuts with the right letters to spell the word. 

I've got a few more fine motor skills activities to make so will share those soon as well :)

Megan x

A Girly Girl Party: Goodie bags + present ideas

Well it's been a little while since I wrote a blog post but I've finally got a chance to write about the goodie bags I made up for Amelie's 'Girly Girl' party. I really love making up goodie bags-it's one of my favourite party things probably!  I love finding little things that go really well with the party theme and putting them all together so here are the details if you are interested in a girly girl party for your girly girl...

I found the pink boxes from Poppy Seed.  I was actually searching for a handbag shaped one but didn't have any luck so these gable style boxes were the next best thing- still pretty cute!  I made the tags on each box by cutting some of the glitter card I used for the invitations into a luggage tag shape and glued on a pink circle and a gem stone sticker from Spotlight. 

Here are the things I put in each box- I didn't want to put actual make-up in the box but still stick to the party theme so this is what I came up with...

* a lipstick pen- I found these  on Trade Me- they were perfect for the party theme and were only $1 each. I can't find them on Trade me anymore from the same seller- I can only find this one selling for a lot more, hopefully the original seller will re list some if you are interested in them

I also put in

*a butterfly clear lip gloss ring from Poppy Seed

*a candy necklace from Crazy Candies

*a packet of lolly fruit charms- from the supermarket

*a packet of Hello Kitty Biscuits- from the supermarket

*sheet of make-up stickers- from a pad I bought at Spotlight for $2

And if you were after some present ideas for a 6 year old girl then these were a few of Amelie's favourite pressies....

Geleez sticker activity pack- these stickers are so cool- you use the special gel paints to colour them in and then stick them wherever you want- they are reusable so can be removed easily. I got the pack from The Warehouse but they are easily found online as well. Probably Amelie's favourite pressie!

 

I bought this book from Book Depository after seeing it on Pinterest- a very cute book for a girl who has a favourite outfit she wears over and over again like Amelie does!

 

I bought this from Book Depository as well as Amelie is Rainbow Magic obsessed- only $10 and full of activities, colouring and stickers

 

And these cool colouring in bags have been really popular as well- the brand is Cra-Z Art and they're at The Warehouse.

Well thats the end of my Girly Girl Party Posts - I hope you enjoyed reading about it and getting some ideas for your own parties :)

Megan x

A Girly Girl Party: Activities and Food

Hi all, I hope you had a great weekend. Here's a little run through of the activities I did for the Girly Girl party, and some ideas for food as well.  First off I made up a little make-up table so each girl could get a bit of eye shadow, glitter and lip gloss. I also found these Hello Kitty body sprays at the supermarket so we pretended they were perfume which they all loved. I also bought a couple of coloured hair sprays from the chemist- a bright pink and a silver glitter one (also very popular!) 

While each girl was getting their make-up and hair colour, I put some colouring sheets on the table for them to do- these also doubled as placemats as I put a space for their names. I made these using clip art images from google. Here is a link to the pdf if you would like to use it  (for personal use as I just took the images from google!)

I am a big fan of a bit of colouring-in at the beginning of a party just while waiting for everyone to arrive and everyone getting used to being there- and you can make them to suit any theme.  I put a couple of plates with wafer biscuits, heart jellybeans and marshmellows for them to eat while colouring as I did a few activities before the main party food.

I just did two games for the party so once everyone had their make-up done we moved onto opening the presents, then Pass the Parcel, and a memory game. For pass the parcel I put a pink lollipop in each layer and then the final prize was this super cute Hello Kitty candy make-up compact and a Hello Kitty magic flannel. 

I saw the candy compacts in a google search in lots of UK and US online candy stores but I eventually found them online in NZ from this store...

http://www.remarkablesweetshop.co.nz/catalog/P9602_Hello-Kitty-Candy-Compact.html

I found the Hello Kitty flannels at Farmers.

The other game we did was this Memory game which I loved when I was little- I put 10 girly things on a tray and then the kids had about 30 seconds to look at everything on the tray, then I took it away and they had to write down everything they could remember on the back of their placemat. I was a bit worried that this would be a bit tricky not knowing the girls writing abilities but it was mostly fine and we just helped a couple of girls. I think I would still leave this game for 7+ for next time though. The prize was a Hello Kitty bath gel, also from Farmers. Luckily I bought a few as there were 3 kids that won the game (something to remember for games like this where there could be more than one winner!)

Next up was the food- I usually do the cake first so that it becomes part of the party food.

Shannon's cake

For the rest of the food I kept it pretty simple and easy- Amelie and Stella made the marshmellow and grape kebabs before the party and we made crown shaped fairy bread and individual popcorn cases. We also had home-made mini sausages rolls made by Amelie's nana (not pictured)

I made these cupcakes using pink butter icing and these cute lip lollies from Crazy Candies.

We also had Shannon's delicious nail polish cake pops.

For the drink we had lemonade and I made heart shaped ice cubes using raspberry raro - easy!

After the food and drink the girls just played with the new presents (I'll write another blog post with some of Amelie's presents if you are wanting some ideas for great pressies for 6 year old girls) and some played with the Polly Pockets. We are lucky to live walking distance to a little park so when there was about half an hour to go we took the girls for a walk to the park- yay for a sunny day as it is a great way to burn off some sugar!!

And I am giving myself a high five as I read back through this post as I did this party after having giardia for 2 weeks so thank goodness I started early with getting stuff ready because even keeping it as simple as I did regarding the games and food it's still a heck of a lot of work! (worth it tho :)

Next up I'll post about the goodie bags...

Megan x

A Girly Girl Party: The Cake

You may have already seen some photo's of Amelie's cake on my Facebook page but I thought I'd share some details as to how I got some ideas for the cake I had in mind and then some more pics of Shannon's amazing creation. 

First off I got some party cakes books from the library and came across these cute jewellery themed ones from the AWW More Cakes for Kids book. 

 

But then I googled 'make-up cakes' and came across the bottom left pic below of the make-up compact cake from KidSpot. I really liked the idea of a cake looking like a compact(I loved the idea of using edible glitter for the eye shadows!) Then I thought it would be cool to make it similar to the party invitation I made. 

Then I got a reality check and realised there would be no way I'd have the time or the skills to make a cake like this (and this was before I got giardia so it was doubly lucky!) so I asked the amazing Shannon of Tui Rose Cupcakes if she would be able to make it for me. I sent her the pics below for ideas ...

...and she came back with the most incredible, detailed and gorgeous cake I've ever seen! 

 

I have never ordered a cake before but I'm slowly learning that I can't do everything and the look on Amelie's face when she saw this cake was priceless.  Thank you again Shannon for all your time and effort into this cake- it was so much more than I expected and a true work of art!

But wait there's more...

The reason I actually got the idea for a Girly Girl make-up themed partywas after seeing this pic on pinterest of these nail polish treats - I thought they looked so cool and I knew Amelie would love them as she loves make-up and nail polish.

http://pinterest.com/pin/439593613598050060/

so I asked Shannon if she would be able to make something similar to these as well (I was going to make these myself but being sick put paid to that as well!) and look what she came up with...

 Instead of using marshmallows she used pieces of cake cut off from the make-up cake so they are really upside down cake pops! I love the detail in the icing and the cute flowers.

 
So go like Shannon's Facebook page if you would like to be inspired by more of her amazing creations or need a cake or cupcakes for a special event.

I'll be sharing more details of the party soon- some more food ideas, games and activities, and the goodie bags :)

Megan x

Christchurch + 'Little House' giveaway winner

I spent the weekend in Christchurch at the first ever 'Bloggers Connecting' conference. I've actually been unwell with some sort of tummy bug for 2 weeks now so the weekend was a little bit of a challenge as I wasn't feeling that great (and was feeling pretty nervous about hanging out with 60 people I hadn't met before!!) but it was still neat to meet lots of other bloggers and to see Christchurch first hand- I hadn't been there in about 15 years.  The conference was so well run and there were lots of different activities to keep everyone happy. I talked on a panel about blogging and it was good to hear feedback that although my blog is quite different from a lot of others in that mine isn't really a personal blog and is more a space to share my ideas and cool stuff I see, I could offer a bit of a different perspective to writing a blog- well that's what I hope I was saying! I really enjoyed meeting and listening to the other panel speakers too and their perspectives on blogging...

* Deb from Works in Progress

* Simone from Great Fun for Kids

* Kristy from Paisley Jade

Here are some pics from the weekend..it really was amazing to see the city in real life after seeing the photo's and footage on the news often- it really does look quite different in real life and is quite unreal. Here are some pics firstly of what we see a lot on the news, and then some of the beauty of Christchurch as well...

The cathedral...

cranes on the horizon

damaged buildings

empty lots where buildings used to be

piles of rubble and diggers

But still...

plenty of trees in the city still

 

The beautiful building that houses the The C1 espresso cafe- our Sunday morning brunch spot (shame I wasn't up for my usual big breakfast as the menu looked delicious!)

The peaceful Avon River

I posted this pic on my Facebook page of me and my new lovely friend Vanessa from Bubbalino and The Bubbalino Kitchen enjoying a cuppa in the Re:start mall with macarons from J'aime les Macarons in The Colombo

Colourful street art

Hotel view by day- the brightly coloured containers are the Re:Start mall- an awesome little shopping percent with plenty of cool stores...

...Hotel view by night. 

(I stayed at the Ibis Hotel right in the city and can thoroughly recommend it- great location and a really nice hotel.)

And some treats from the conference...

A beautiful hand stitched name tag and gifts from the very talented Leonie

And look what was inside the name tag!! (Here is Leonie's blog post about how she made it)

A beautiful brooch made out of silt from the earthquakes by Gill of Mudbird Ceramics

Goodie bag treats from Emma Makes, The Make Cafe, Rose In Thorns, Lush, Piece and more...

Thanks Miriam, Juliet, Treena Marie and Sophie for organising such a successful weekend, and hi to all the bloggers I met, wish I'd met more of you!

And finally the winner of my 'Little House' giveaway in collaboration with TeaPea is...

Number 16 - Chris C- Congratulation Chris! Please email me your address to megan (at) mouse house (dot) co (dot) nz and I'll send the parcel out to you :)

Thanks for all your comments everyone-it was really fun reading about all your different dream houses!
Megan x