What do you see 2….a craft activity….
Following our first successful ‘What do you see’ post we are having a look at another snapshot of CEBristol life in this one!
This time we are giving you 2 pictures of one child – you can’t really see in the photos but this was a group activity – there are 3 children enjoying this activity together 🙂
So what do you see??
Picture 1 Picture 2
**Now you may not have made homemade stress balls before but we love them in group for developing grasp and release (opening and closing hands), different pressure of squeeze, isolating fingers, fully extending fingers / thumb, use of both hands at the same time or seperately and experiencing feeling different textures. Not only do the children like using them during fine motor tasks they like making them too! – Quick note at this point – if you have children who put things in their mouths always be watching as if the balloon is bitten it will explode! Can be messy! and we dont want anyone eating bits of balloon!
So….What did you see?
- A steady crossed legged sitting position? He is able to use both hands while keeping his balance throughout.
- Use of both hands during both tasks? Using his hands in different ways.
- Turning wrists in different directions whilst maintaining grasp…
- A good pincer grasp on the balloon end..
- He has got the balloon over the end of the funnel – to do this he must have been able to stretch the end of the balloon apart to pull it over.
- The look on his face! Pride! In achieving what was a very tricky task! This took him many attempts but he did not give in. He was so proud when he achieved it himself!
- Choice making – there were a selection of balloon colours to choose from and materials to fill the balloons with – flour, rice and lentils. Choice making in itself is a good skill but it also demonstrates preference. Likes and dislikes – this also lead to conversations about which textures they liked and why (and also who liked/ didn’t like eating rice and lentils at home!)
- Problem solving skills – the rice likes to get stuck in the funnel! Poking the spoon handle in helped to push the rice and flour through. Some of the children used their finger tips too and shaking the funnel / stretching the balloon. How do you hold a funnel and stretch a baloon over its end with only 2 hands? – Answer wedge it on your knee!
- Learning from mistakes – this is how all children (and adults) learn – so what was learnt here?!! 1- never blow on flour!! Or if you are going to close your eyes first!! 2 – if you pull the balloon too hard it will pop off the end covering you in the flour/rice/ lentil mix!
- Concentration… throughout!
- Turn taking / sharing – We only have 2 funnels and there were 3 children taking part in this activity. Everyone waited their turn, while encouraging their friends, whilst keeping their steady crossed legged / side sitting position.
Did you notice all those different things? Have another look can you see more areas of learning?
The squeezy balloons were then used during a range of lying, sitting and standing activities – going under hips during bridging, kicking off feet whie lying in stomaches, passing along the line in half kneeling (working on turing the head and trunk to look behind whilst keeping the half kneel position), throwing at the skittles in stool sitting and standing……
So… a simple crafty / making activity can develop a range of areas – the activity just needs to be set up in a motivating way, with aims and learning in mind. This activity could have been done differently – with support to hold the funnel, support to put the balloon on, support in sitting / a ‘w’ sitting position… so what are we saying…. think about how you set up / run the activity /what are you aiming to achieve as much as what the activity itself is 🙂