We have been discussing Treasure Baskets lately on our Facebook page and thought we would put together some for our littlies as they are ideal to help enable them to explore their world. We found these photos here. Pretty well anything can go into these baskets but preferably nothing made from plastic.

We have some beautiful suede hearts given to us by one of our kinder children a few years ago. They feel very tactile with the soft smooth material and cute little knobbly glass beads sewn onto them.

We decided to introduce these first, simply nestled together on a beautiful piece of wood just to see what the children would do with them. Gradually we will include additional objects.

The girls felt them and shared them.

They took them off the wood and put them back on.

They counted them with our help …

and they posted them into their pockets!!

Quite a challenge for little fingers and tight pockets!

Then retrieved them again … Woohoo!!!

How wonderfully simple and versatile is this type of open ended play for babies and toddlers!

It is surprising how at quite a young age, many children like to try jigsaw puzzles.

We had two littlies over and the older of the two pulled out some very simple puzzles – graded circles …

and graded pigs.

It involved not only lots of fine motor work and lots of thinking …

but also heaps of talking about size like big, small, bigger, smaller, biggest, smallest …

and shapes such as round, circle and pig as well as positional language such as in, out and next to.

Her little cousin was watching her very carefully and wanted to have a go too.

Even though she didn’t have the skill of the older child, she tried very hard.

The beautiful thing that happened was that when she struggled, our little experienced possum helped her get the pieces in.

Such wonderful cooperation from two very young children.

This is a great example of why age groups should be mixed in our childcare centres …

 just like they are in families …

 rather than segregating them into their year levels.

We picked up these pimple balls recently from Resource Rescue. We envisioned the children doing some rolling painting with them on long strips of paper or rolling them up and down planks or using them to throw and catch.

Unfortunately they were very flat and we couldn’t put our hands on the pump, so we popped them in a basket on the floor for another day.

As usually happens around here, one of the children in our care had her own ideas on how she was going to play with the balls.

It turns out that slightly flat, soft pimple balls are perfect for little hands to pick up.

Perfect for little hands to throw.

Perfect for little hands to roll.

Perfect for little hands to put in …

and take out of the basket.

Perfect for little hands to group by colour.

Perfect for a little one who’s not yet walking on her own and still needs one hand to get around!

Among the treasures we scrounge up from our favourite recycling place are wooden blocks which appear to be left overs from furniture making.

The bigger children use them for a variety of things, particularly in their imaginative play, so we like to have a basket of them available for whenever they want to use them.

Interestingly enough, recently when we had the littlies over and they were attracted to this basket of goodies too.

They make wonderful building blocks.

Made from pine …

 a relatively soft and light weight timber …

they are fat and stable but different, interesting shapes, which makes the job a bit more of a challenge than the regular cube-shaped blocks. …

 light enough for the children to handle …

and knock down …

without hurting each other.

Sometimes we are searching our brains for different ways of engaging our chidren’s fine motor skills and forget that it can be easy as everyday food!

What wonderful incentive it is for children to use those finger muscles when there is a delicious result at the end of it.

We have chatted about the children shopping for and making their own lunches then chopping and cutting and buttering etc … which obviously needs a lot of work with their hands, but of course it can be as simple as peeling.

As part of the children’s lunch this day, they chose mini Babybel cheeses which they love, but have to get into somehow. There is a lot of unwrapping of paper …

and peeling off of the wax before the eating.

For afters they chose a mandarin each …

which again means quite a bit of work with those little fingers.

and lots of concentration!

Of course mandarin was the children’s fruit of choice …

but we did plan to bring out the bananas too …

 now that we don’t have to take out a mortgage to buy them!

We taught preschoolers for a long time, and when you have the same age group year after year, you get to know the developmental stages very well!! One we noticed (and which sometimes had us pulling our hair out!) was the urge of the younger children to post!!! Anything and everything, anywhere that was big enough to fit things into, or in some cases, not big enough! Fortunately as they matured we found this urge dissipated.

When we were having a play with a one year old and a two year old last week, we had a chuckle to ourselves as posting was back on the agenda with these two!!!

They were playing out on Sherry’s newly jazzed up back porch and the two year old started popping a collection of goodies onto the top shelf of the dolls’ house.

The one year old liked the look of this game …

and started doing the same thing on the bottom shelf.

It was great team work and such a lovely social thing for the two little ones to do.

They then moved on, of course …

transferring everything from the dolls’ house into the pram.

Then transferring them from the pram …

into the beautiful egg box …

which a long time ago …

the children claimed as a receptacle for more than just eggs!

Toddlers and babies don’t need anything too complex to keep them engaged, just the opportunity to explore their worlds and to do it over and over  …

and over!

Oh joy – sand and water!!! The children were having fun outside with sand and sticks (naturally) and we suggested they could perhaps wet the sand and write their names or draw in it.

We gave them a squirter bottle each filled with water to dampen down the sand.

Well they started off wetting the sand, then the fun of the squirter bottles took over!

The path was watered and the ants were given a drink (lucky them).

The walls were cleaned …

and the plants were drenched.

They did eventually head back to the sand …

and were interested to discover that only the top layer was wet when they started to draw in it.

Hmmm, sand does need a lot of water …

to get all the way through!

While having a wander around our local Reject Shop recently, we bought some magnetic photo sheets which are normally used to print photos onto, which often end up being displayed on the fridge for all to admire.

The children however had other ideas.

Using an assortment of stickers, including some we had left over from the rocks they decorated recently …

they had a lovely time peeling, sticking and creating their own pictures.

As well as being lots of fun for the children, it was also a terrific fine motor exercise.

While fine motor exercises are vitally important for all children …

we find that peeling stickers is a particularly good way to engage our boys in developing dexterity in their fingers.

History shows us that boys’ fine motor muscles are generally a lot less developed than girls of the same age, in the early learning years …

so we have to think smarter about ways to help our boys get ahead.

We were given a bag full of gorgeous driftwood pieces which someone had very kindly drilled holes into …

all so perfect for threading.

With some of the pony beads we had left over from our blue-Nashville-fly-swatter-guitar project …

and a roll of fishing line  - meaning no needles required …

the children were off and threading.

What we love about using unusual and natural object like this beautiful drift wood …

is that our children are generally more interested in having a go, simply because it’s  … ‘different’!

This was a really engaging fine motor exercise …

providing a great opportunity for pattern making  …

and developing the understanding of simple maths concepts.

Inside the pay it forward parcel we recieved from Scott over at Brick by Brick …

was this awesome genuine-blue-Nashville-fly-swatter-guitar! (Try saying that 3 times quickly!)

While Donna was away recently enjoying some family time with her young nieces and nephew…

her niece Kate, asked her if she had an orange bag she could sew into, an idea she got from an activity her big sister did in school.

Unfortunately she didn’t have an orange bag but she did have some hessian and an embroidery hoop! But it wasn’t really what Kate was wanting!

“Hey Donna, could I try using this?”

Sure! Go for it!

With the addition of some colourful pony beads …

she was off and sewing.

Great exercise for small fingers!

Who would have thought a fly swatter could be so versatile …

a great addition to the fly swatter painting idea we picked up from Teacher Tom!

Now that is one very cool genuine-blue-Nashville-fly-swatter-guitar!

Would you pay it forward?