Those Are Some Fiiine, Fine Motor Skills You Have There....

I realized my huge blog neglect when I saw all my photos I needed to upload! So here we go! I noticed the majority of my photos were based on our fine motor activities we do in the mornings and during centers!  Hopefully someone can get some ideas!

During morning work my kiddos love to try to find different patterns to thread through metal loops.  The loops were super cheap at Wal-Mart and the wood was donated my by dad!  He actually did a little extra for me, by sanding and staining the wood, when I had only asked him to drill the holes for the hooks.  What a great daddy I have!! 

The kids loved making their names on large paper with balls of tissue paper!  I loved watching their little fingers try to figure out how to make those little balls, and to not use too many pieces of tissue paper.  The kids really learned a lot with this activity, and they definitely got a work out for their fine motor!  I wrote their names with marker and applied the liquid glue, while the kids picked through colored tissue paper squares. 

 Now, of course I had to do SOME fall stuff... really I did a lot, but this is the only one on this post. 
The kids had to tear orange construction paper and glue them to small paper plates.  I'd like to remind you that this is my first year working with the little.bity kiddos, so I was very surprised at how much of a fine motor work out this was for my students!  We have our super cute pumpkins in a 'patch' in the hall!

This is another activity my kids really love!  I can't remember where I got these from, but as soon as I find it I will edit this post and give you all the link! This activity originally had a set with numbers on the page.  The job was for each kid to make that number of pieces of food for the pet that was labeled on the mat.  Because my kiddos haven't yet learned to read all their numbers and to rote count, I just used the cover page of the set of pages, and my kids are just practicing making little balls of food for their pet.  You can see the top corner of the page still says "Sorting Mats 1-10".  My kids love feeding their pets!  They came with a set of Dog Food and a set of Cat Food.

 I really like this activity!!  My kids had to sort the colors of fruit loops to place on corresponding neon colored pipe cleaners.  The kids did a great job of not eating the fruit loops (we didn't let them eat the cereal they worked with because the same cereal was reused for each group, on the same pipe cleaners).  At the end of each group, we would give them a few clean pieces to munch on. 

My last activity for today's post is for peeling and sticking.  My kids really enjoy trying to peel and apply stickers, and this activity makes it even harder by making the sticker fit in the little circles.  I have multiple sets of this activity in many different shapes: stars, squares, rectangles, ovals and a circle, like shown below. 

I hope you all can use some of these activities, and if you know of anything for fine motor, please send me your posts/ideas and I will be sure to mention you and your wonderful help! 

Classroom Fun!!

Okay, so I finally uploaded my photos of our fun activities we did over the past two weeks in class.  This being my first year in Pre-K, I found myself taking a lot of photos because everything my little kiddos were doing impressed me so much!  I'm also linking up with CFC's awesome blog to let everyone take a peek in my planbook!  So be sure to check out all the awesome ideas everyone posted & be sure to leave feedback! :)

 Annnnndd.... here we go, my first linky party, annnnnd my first blog about things I'm doing in my classroom! I hope you enjoy!

The kiddos practiced their names with clothes pins on laminated sentence strips.  I was sure to write the clothes pin letters on BOTH sides of the pins, just incase the pins were backwards.  This activity really surprised me because it took the kids a good while to complete it.  We will definitely be working on more activities to improve their fine motor skills!  Either way, they definitely loved this activity!

 

Next, my kiddos made mosaic names!  I applied the glue for them and provided small construction paper squares.  We also discussed the letter formation of each letter, as I applied the glue in the way in which you write the letters.  Does that make sense? The kids were so impressed about how they were able to decorate their names!  They're really going to love it next week when we do a similar activity but with balls of colored tissue paper!

 

I really loved this activity!  I wrote each kids name on a sentence strip, and then again on a second strip and cut it into pieces, laminated and added Velcro!  Each kiddo had to match their letters to spell their names! 

 

I was really impressed with our first day of peg boards!  One of my little ones made a red border around the board, this was really interesting to me because from what I've seen most of my little kiddos just put the pegs in any order! 

 

We got a little creative this week with magnetic letters!  Each student practice spelling their names on magnetic boards, and also practiced matching letters on a ABC placemat!

The next few things were to practice our fine motor skills!  Each kid practiced the appropriate uses for scissors and learned how to manipulate them.  To make it a little easier on their first try, the kids cut up pieces of thick contact paper scraps!  I got these from another teacher!  I didn't think it was a great idea at first, but it worked out awesome and was actually a lot easier for the kids to cut than regular paper!  The thickness of the contact paper allowed them to grip it better and to learn to cut! 

  

 I also loved this activity from Lakeshore!  (Click the link to go directly to the product/item info)  The kids practice their fine motor skills by feeding the animals!  THEY LOVE THIS!!  They make munching noises as they feed the bunny, puppy and monkey (not shown).  I highly recommend this product if you teach students who need to work on their fine motor skills!