The K Junction: Fine Motor

Showing posts with label Fine Motor. Show all posts

Feb 23, 2018

Top 4 Benefits Of Mazes For Kids & Free Maze Printable

Mazes are great for working on various skills for kids. Read on to know the benefits of mazes for children & also featured is a FREE maze printable / worksheet (Spring theme) for kids, which is powered by education.com.

benefits of mazes kids free printable worksheet spring theme

Mazes are loved by most of the kids & they provide a challenge for children that they enjoy! How the child solves a maze also provides a window to a therapist into the skill set of the child if therapy session is in progress. Mazes can also be taped to a wall at your child’s eye-level. Working on a vertical surface helps to promote wrist extension in kids.

Here are some benefits & reasons to do mazes with your child -

Fine Motor

Mazes require the child to control the pen/pencil through the maze without hitting the black lines. Fine motor skills are mastered by this very exercise that helps in writing later.

Visual Tracking

Mazes require the child to use his eyes to scan the maze in order to find possible solutions. Scanning is a great skill used for reading and writing, as it is important to scan from the left side of the paper to the right side.

Problem Solving

Mazes help the child to work on planning and problem solving skills to reach to the end of the maze.

Confidence

Mazes boost your child’s confidence like anything. Starting from easy to difficult mazes, a child can glide into the mazes gradually.

There are many websites that offer free printable maze worksheets for a variety of age levels and themes.

Spring is in the air! This flowery maze is great pre-school practice for those fine motor skills.

Download this FREE maze printable from HERE.

This is powered by education.com , visit them for more fun educational activities.

MORE ABOUT EDUCATION.COM

Education.com provides learning resources in over 20 countries and six continents. Their digital resources, tools, and learning materials are developed by educational experts to incorporate leading pedagogical practices. They are useful in any type of teaching moment and many can be used to support national education standards. Their mission is to empower parents and teachers to help their children build essential skills and excel.

If you also have any activities ideas for kids, then we would love to feature them on this blog! Shoot us an email using the contact form HERE along with a brief about you & your idea & we will get in touch with you soon!

Do not forget to follow us on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

Sewing For Kids (Beginner) - Tutorial - Waldorf Handwork - Valentine Day Craft - Felt Hearts (VLOG)

This is a tutorial for Waldorf inspired handwork - sewing project for kids. This beginner level project is suitable for kindergartners & preschoolers. In this tutorial, watch my almost 3 year old son doing his first ever sewing project & making a stuffed heart from felt. We did this project as a part of Valentine's Day craft.

Watch the video below to know the step by step process of making felt hearts.

I would love to see what handwork you have done with your child. Do post your links in the comments below.

Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

My Hopscotch Journey - Story & Activity Book For Kids Showcasing India's Unity In Diversity - Book Review

My Hopscotch Journey is a story & activity book for kids showcasing India's unity in diversity. It has a story weaved into the festival of Makar Sankranti & how it is celebrated differently with different names in different states of India. Apart from the story, it also has an amazing set of engaging & educational activities for toddlers, kindergartners & little older kids too. It has over 200 stickers for the related activities & some craft supplies too. Check out the inside pages, review & buy link in this post.

As promised, here is a video review of this beautiful book - My Hopscotch Journey - written by Kajal Dharod from Your Learning Capsules. If you are a regular follower of my blog, you must have seen Kajal's previous books that were received so very well by fellow parents - Interactive Diwali Book and All About Christmas Book.

Publisher - Your Learning Capsules
Age Group - 3 Years +
Price - Rs. 249 (FREE shipping anywhere in India)

Click HERE to buy this book!

BUY NOW to showcase India's unity in diversity to your kids this Republic day. This will certainly give you child a whole new experience of the celebration of Makar Sankranti festival in India.

Related - You might also like these M ontessori inspired, fun, educational & hands-on engaging activities for the festival of Makar Sankranti that I did for my child last year.

Here are few pages from this book and my almost 3 year old son enjoying the activity of taking a dip in the river in West Bengal :)

You may like more of our featured products & discounts related to early learning for kids HERE.

Click HERE to buy this book!

Check out YourLearningCapsules.com for more such awesome stuff for your kids and some free printables of activities!

Related - Check out HERE, how I welcomed Spring (harvest) season with my son during Sankranti, where we explored how grains like Jowar, Wheat after harvest, going through so many stages, finally come to our homes. This helped my son appreciate that efforts that go into farming & growing food.

Disclaimer : I received this book for free in return for a review but the views shared are honest and solely mine. I believe in using the products/service myself before putting up the review or opinion about them here.

Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

All About Christmas - Story & Activity Book For Kids - Book Review

All About Christmas is a story & activity book for kids based on the Christmas theme. It has the Nativity story, facts & stories about Santa Claus, and an amazing set of engaging & educational activities for toddlers, kindergartners & little older kids too. It has over 400 stickers for the related activities. Check out the inside pages, review & buy link in this post.

As promised, here is a video review of this beautiful Christmas book - All About Christmas - written by Kajal Dharod from Your Learning Capsules. If you are a regular follower of my blog, you must have seen Kajal's Diwali activity book few months back. Me & my 2 year old liked it a lot! You can check out Diwali book HERE.

Publisher - Your Learning Capsules
Age Group - 2.5 Years +
Price - Rs. 349 (FREE shipping anywhere in India)

Click HERE to buy this book.

BUY NOW so that the book reaches you well before Christmas this year! This will certainly give your kids an enriching experience!

Here are few pages from this activity book that my almost 3 year old son has done.

You may like more of our featured products & discounts related to early learning for kids HERE.

Click HERE to buy this book.

Check out YourLearningCapsules.com for more such awesome stuff for your kids and some free printables of activities!

I also have a FREE collection of 18 Montessori Inspired DIY activities for Christmas & New Year from the year 2016 & you can do those activities as well with your kids! Check out the entire collection HERE.

Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

Alphabet Tracing Prewriting Activity For Preschoolers On DIY Chalkboard Wall (VLOG)

Pre-Writing skills are needed before any letter formation or other handwriting skills are mastered. The little muscles of toddlers & preschoolers are first prepared by involving them in lot of fine motor activities before any formal writing work. Tracing is one of the popular prewriting activity & I am sharing one of the many methods of tracing here - tracing on the blackboard using a wet paint brush. Read on & watch the video to know the why & how of this technique. This was completely child-led in my case.

This is my 33 month old son doing tracing work on the DIY chalkboard wall using a wet paint brush. Listen to the audio in this video below where I talk more about the how & why of this tracing technique. This was in response to his repeated comments - mumma I dont know how to read & write, please teach me! And this is because we read a LOT of books everyday. I never planned to introduce tracing activity to him this early but since this was completely lead by him, I went with the flow.

We have done tons of fine motor & practical life activities in the past 2 years that has prepared his hand muscles for writing.

You might also want to read about prewriting exercises for toddlers HERE.

You can find the YouTube playlist of our literacy activities HERE & I will keep on adding new videos on teaching reading & writing.

Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

Book Review & Giveaway - iDiwali - Interactive Diwali Story & Activity Book For Kids From Your Learning Capsules (VLOG)

diwali activity story book the k junction review discount

iDiwali is an interactive Diwali story and activity book for toddlers & kindergarteners with crafts, coloring, greeting cards, lanterns and sensational Diwali stickers. Watch the inside pages & review in the video below. Do not forget to avail the limited time discount of 10%.

About The Book

The Ramayana story summarized in 10 chapters, with hands on activity in each chapter. Additional Diwali experience activities - Rangoli, fireworks, sweets and more!!! 18 activities packed in one engaging book.

Publisher - Your Learning Capsules
Age Group - 2.5 Years +
Price - Rs. 299 (FREE shipping anywhere in India)
Get 10% off till 19 Oct 2017. Use the discount code "kjunc10"

Try your luck & participate in the GIVEAWAY HERE where a lucky one can win this book for FREE! Giveaway will close on 11 Oct 2017 11.59pm.

You may like more of our featured products & discounts related to early learning for kids HERE.

The Author Talks
"Love interactive apps, but not the media time"
As a mother I am always trying to balance between the interactive and engaging experience of the digital world and just simple story telling, I present this experiment of mine to you - an interactive hands-on book!

Review
Watch the inside pages of the book & my opinions here in this video

What I Loved About The Book

Absolutely engaging
Designing is really nice
Entire story of Diwali is covered in the form of activities
Whole range of activities for different age group kids - coloring, tracing, stickers, numbers, writing, sequencing, storytelling etc

Extra stickers so that if few are lost by kids, the activity can still be completed

Good quality thick pages & stickers are easy to peel off & use without getting frustrated
Even after all the activities have been done by the kids, this book can still be used next year as a simple storybook, so this book is going to serve you for the next couple of years surely & you can combine it with other storytelling setups with blocks or figurines etc

You may also like this "Story Of Diwali" book, a fun, non-preachy, simple-to-read rhyming storybook which talks about how five days of Diwali are celebrated. Review & buy links of the book HERE.

What Could Be Improved

I would have loved if the pages were of laminated quality so that the stickers could be reused couple of times & the book could be reused next year too. But with this competitive pricing, I would not mind the existing type.

All in all, a must have for little kids this Diwali season!

Buy Links

BUY NOW so that the book reaches you well before Diwali this year! This will certainly give your kids an enriching experience!

You might want to check out YourLearningCapsules.com for more such awesome stuff for your kids and some free printables of activities!

Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

How To Make Toran With Leaves - Montessori Inspired Activities For Kids For Dussehra

dussehra activity kids preschooler toddler children toran practical life montessori fine motor

Dussehra is here & I love to involve my preschooler in the festivities in a hands-on Montessori inspired way. If you are looking for activity to do with your child this Dussehra, this post is for you. I will also share some more activities in the coming days that you can try out. Traditionally we make toran out of Mango leaves & hang it on our main door. Check out how your child can make a toran step by step. This is a great practical life activity, enhances fine motor skills and is engaging too!

First we went out to our society garden to hunt a mango tree. We found it but I could not reach the leaves. So I offered my son to settle with Ashoka tree leaves & he agreed. I got a branch from that tree.

Here my son is plucking out leaves from the branch. It is a fine motor activity. It is not easy for a preschooler to do this exercise :)

You might also like these Montessori inspired activities that I did with my son last year for Dussehra.

Then I gave him a punching machine and showed him how to punch a hole in a leaf. He found it a little difficult to hold a leaf in one hand & press the punching machine using another hand because the machine was a little hard to press. So I held the leaves for him in between the punching machine & he pressed & punched the leaves one by one. Punching is again a fine motor practical life activity.

You might also like this ultimate compilation of Indian mythology books for Dussehra & Navratri festival for kids.

Then he laced the leaves into a fancy thread one by one. Again a fine motor activity.

He was so happy to make a toran finally :) he held it with pride!

He insisted to put the toran on our main door. Since the length of the toran was not enough, I just taped it on our main safety door at a low height :) He helped me cut the tape using scissors. Using a scissor is a great prewriting activity and he is loving using scissors these days!

So here is our toran made by my 2 year old son!

Do share what activities you did with your child this Dussehra!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

How To Make Eco-Friendly Ganesha At Home With Kids - Workshop

This Ganpati festival, I conducted a workshop for kindergarten kids on how to make eco-friendly Ganesha at home. I used the ingredients available in the kitchen to make these idols.

Ganpati Festival in Indian, specially in Maharashtra is very popular among kids as well as adults. People bring Ganpati idols to their homes and offer Him prayers everyday for 10 days before visarjan into the water. Now a days with the environmental crisis all over the world, it is necessary to be more aware of what we put into our water bodies.

You can check out this video on how to make your own eco-friendly Ganesha & do not forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel!

Here are some lovely moments that were captured during the workshop that I took. Kids loved this sensory experience!

There were kids from Nursery, Junior and Senior KG and I loved how they enjoyed and chatted all the way making their own Ganeshas.

Here I am giving finishing touches to all the idols.

Check out all the 18 imperfect yet beautiful Ganeshas!

After few days, these kids did the visarjan of these chemical free Ganeshas by putting the idol in a tub of water and then using the water for plants. Absolutely sustainable, right?

I would like to thank Little Wings International for helping us with the venue & logistics!

Hope you like this version of the beloved Lord Ganesha. Do share how you made your eco-friendly Ganesha. I would love to see the pics!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

9 Benefits Of Gardening With Toddlers/Kids (VLOG)

It was me 2 years back who sowed the seeds and would patiently wait for the greens to grow. Now it's my toddler's turn :)

My then 25-month-old son sowed Fenugreek seeds and we harvested fresh and lovely Fenugreek leaves after few weeks. He said he will eat methi paratha with those tender methi leaves! He loves it! And that is why I chose Fenugreek so that he is able to appreciate the process from start to end - from sowing seeds to watering the plant to seeing micro greens to seeing mature leaves to harvesting to actually consuming it happily.

He now knows how important trees and plants are for us, specially in hot summers these days, trees provide us shade. And of course, that plants give us food.

This generation kids need to know the importance of going green so much more than our generation for obvious reasons!

My now 26-month-old son sowed Spinach seeds recently, here is a sneak peek of our cute gardening exercise.

Gardening in itself teaches a lot to kids of all ages, starting from toddlerhood! Let us look how does it benefit -

Multisensory Learning

Montessori focusses on learning through multiple senses because that is how toddlers learn! While gardening, kids can touch & feel the soil, seeds, water, leaves. They can see beautiful colors of nature. They can smell the earth & the plants & flowers! They can hear the lovely birds chirping on the terrace & the wind blowing. And of course, they can eat what they plant (conditions apply)

Motor Skills
As seen in the video above, a lot of large & small muscle movements are required end to end. A great way to enhance gross & fine motor skills while working in nature, no frills activity, no activity box needed!

Sequencing
A very important skill to master, in addition to using puzzles or printables to teach the lifecycle of a plant, it would be great if we can give toddlers a hands-on experience of the same. They would remember this for ever then.

Science
According to the age, we can talk about basic science concepts like photosynthesis, composting, worms, insects etc. And further, we can supplement it with book readings. This can be a starting point of deep conversations with the toddlers. They are super curious & answering their questions related to gardening would be fun science lessons.

Life Lessons
Caring & Responsibility, patience, cycle of life, confidence, focus - all these deep & profound lessons can be learnt while gardening, taking care of the plat & seeing it grow.

Healthy Eating
If kids grow their own food, and are involved from end to end, they are likely to eat better & of course healthy.

Hands On Maths Lessons

From counting number of seeds to sow to measuring the right depth to sow the seeds to counting petals in a flower or leaves in a green to measuring the height of a plant, maths is everywhere. And gardening in every way is helping the child to sharpen his maths skills.

Bonding
A Sunday morning sowing seeds with mom or dad - the child will always cherish such beautiful memories. Gardening gives us a chance to bond beautifully with our kids & have great conversations.

Relaxation & Mindfulness

Gardening for me is like a meditation. It is therapeutic. It relaxes & helps us to become mindful of our surroundings our nature. And it is the same for kids too. Read my post HERE about 6 ways to develop mindfulness in kids.

I would love to know how & what did you do with your kids in your terrace garden! Hop on to our facebook page or closed facebook group to be a part of this parent-tribe :) And do not forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, I would love to see you guys in my next video!

Happy Parenting :)

What's On Our Montessori Inspired Shelf - Hands-On Learning Activities For Toddlers - 25 Months (VLOG)

Today, I am sharing with you the hands-on learning activities that I set up for my 25 months old son on his Montessori inspired shelf! Hope you like them & get some ideas from the same.

I have listed the sources of the materials & printables used in the activities in the description box of this Youtube video. Do subscribe to this blog & my Youtube channel to get the updates first!