Fine Motor Friends for Little Learners!

The winter days can be long, especially when too cold for extended periods outside. Those are the days when I try to set up a fun and inviting sensory play activity for my four-year-old. During a recent snow day, she was desperately trying to convince me that we needed to set up a hot chocolate stand just like an ice cream stand we had set up the previous summer. I was game for the hot chocolate part, but I'm not sure about the standing outside to sell it! We compromised and decided to enjoy some simple sensory play with our Learning Resources® Hot Cocoa Time! Playset and a packet of cocoa powder.

What you need:

• Hot Cocoa Time! set from Learning Resources (Amazon exclusive)
• Bowl of warm water
• Cocoa powder
• Twisty Dropper™
• Tray or tablecloth (ours is an IKEA SMULA tray, they are great for sensory play and crafting with kids!)

Let’s Get Set Up

It’s a good idea to put the materials on some sort of tray or plastic cloth as things may get a little messy. I scooped a few spoons of hot chocolate powder into the brown cocoa powder box from the set. I also put out the kettle, spoons, two cups, some warm water in a bowl (not too hot, of course) and a Twisty Dropper to help encourage plenty of fine motor work.

It’s Hot Cocoa Time!

My four-year-old was beside herself with excitement when she opened the cocoa box, and there was real cocoa powder in there. She carefully scooped the powder into the cups, counting out the scoops as she went. Of course, she felt there needed to be plenty of chocolate flavor, so I guess it’s a good thing she got to practice counting nice and high! Then she used the dropper to add lots of water to the kettle, ready to pretend to boil it. It never ceases to amaze me how patient kids are when transferring water with droppers. My kids always love to use a dropper and will happily keep squeezing and releasing over and over until the job is done. Once she was happy with how much water was in her kettle, she pretended to flick a switch, and we stood and waited as the water ‘boiled.’

‘Click’! The water was ready, and so was my little one. She poured the water into the cups right over the cocoa powder. She then used the spoons to stir in the powder until it dissolved. She was giving a running commentary as she went, telling me how the water was changing color and that she could smell the chocolate, and it was YUMMY! We both pretended to sip on our cups of hot chocolate, giving it the occasional stir as we chatted.

With these sorts of set-ups, I always like to leave plenty of opportunities for my preschooler to explore the materials however she wishes. She asked if she could make a bowl of hot chocolate next, so that’s what she did. She kept transferring the water and cocoa powder, stirring, smelling, and eventually serving. She liked to ensure that all the powder was fully dissolved before serving it to me. This activity allowed for plenty of fine motor development and working on some science fundamentals. She predicted what would happen as she mixed the ingredients, observed the changes, and then analyzed and described the outcomes. It was science without us even realizing it!

Have you ever used hot chocolate powder for sensory play? What is your favorite way to play with your Hot Cocoa Time set? We’d love to try out some fun new ideas. Now I’m off to finish my sixth cup of hot cocoa!

Writer’s Bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind and on her blog, Find the Little Mind.

Any sorting set which doubles up as a small world invitation to play is such a winner in my book. The Learning Resources® Sort-’Em-Up Pups Activity Set is new for 2022, and it sure is a gooden'! In this blog, we will be sharing more about what is included in the set and the ways we have been playing with it so far.

What's Included?

I love how this set can all be stored in the cute little pup house. When you first pop off the roof to the house, you will find an orange, green, blue, and purple playpen fence, along with three varying-sized dogs in each color and a selection of paw print cards, as with most Learning Resources products, you also get a comprehensive activity guide which offers some great play and learning suggestions.

Ways to Play

My daughter is four years old, and she loves playing with animals at the moment, especially cats (bonus points if it is a cheetah) and dogs. As she was unpacking this set, she was very excited, especially as there was a little house for the dogs… and then she realized that they all had their little playpens too. The first play was about getting to know her new 'pet pups.' She carefully studied them and noticed that they were different sizes and had some differences in their features. For example, they had different colored noses, and some had polka-dots on their backs, and others didn't. It's always a good idea to encourage your child to share these differences, as this can help with language development. It also even allows them to develop scientific fundamentals such as observation, description, and analysis skills.

After all of the initial explorations of the dogs were over, it was time to start sorting. My preschooler carefully arranged the playpens and placed the colored dog families together in their pens. As she did this, she counted how many there were and commented on the size and unique features of the dogs. She was careful to line up each family of dogs in size order, biggest to smallest. It might not seem like it, but even this simple act is a way for preschoolers to develop and demonstrate early numeracy skills.

Once all of the dogs were with their families in their playpens, my daughter started to make the families interact with each other. She would make up playdates and would be chatting away in her magical world of pretend play. She finished her play session by making a stepping stone pathway for the pups to lead them back to their pup house. She used the numbered paw print cards and carefully laid them out in the correct number order. Then she let the pups take it in turns to jump along the pathway, counting the paw prints as they went. This would also work well if you added dice to the setup so that your child could roll and then move the pup that many paw print cards forwards. My little one was so engrossed in her play that I didn't want to interrupt her, so we will try that next time. She got all of the pups safely in their pup house and then proceeded to set up her playpens and pups all over again.

I'm looking forward to exploring many more ways to use this set in the future. I like that you can challenge your child to sort the pups in numerous ways because of their varying features, some more subtle than others. I'm also planning to add the pups to a sensory bin, maybe some play dirt or dyed green rice, as I know, my preschooler will love the added sensory element to the small world play. So many great ways to play and learn with the Sort-’Em-Up Pups!

Writer's Bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind, and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.

I am currently in the fun position of being a Preschool teacher and being Mom to a preschooler. It is honestly such a magical stage of childhood, and I love how much playful learning happens daily. I am always on the lookout for engaging new materials with my daughter and preschool class, so I was excited to test out Learning Resources® Preschool Letters and Numbers Skill Builders! Sets. In the second blog of this mini-series, we will turn our attention to the Numbers Set.

As I mentioned in the first blog, learning for preschoolers should be as hands-on and fun as possible. It is important to capture their engagement and keep those little hands busy. The Skill Builders! Preschool Numbers Set includes durable plastic numbers and shapes, foam color and number dice, colored ocean counters, number and picture cards, and a selection of paper activity sheets. As with all Learning Resources products, there is also a brilliant activity guide full of enriching activity ideas for your preschooler.

I let my four-year-old pick out the materials she liked the look off, and then we set up a little number tracing and matching activity. She chose one number card at a time and then traced the number with her finger after saying it aloud. She had to find the correct plastic number and place it next to the number card. The final step was to flip over the number card to see the objects and count them. So many excellent numeracy and literacy skills were at work here!

Next, up my preschooler decided that she wanted to explore the shape pieces. We placed the shape cards on one side of the table and the plastic shapes on the other. She chose a plastic shape, and I asked her to name it if she could. She then tried to find the matching shape card, telling me what the picture was of on the shape card. We worked together to figure out the names of some of the more difficult shapes, and we also counted how many sides the shapes had. A really fun extension of this activity was when my daughter announced that she wanted us to go on a shape hunt around the house. We challenged ourselves to find two examples of each plastic shape in our home for each plastic shape. It was lots of fun!

We finished our number session with a game of 'ocean counter collections' (at least that's what my four-year-old called it?!?). We took turns to roll the foam color dice, and then we had to pick out an ocean counter of that color. We kept taking it in turns, building our ocean collection and counting as we went. If your child wanted to make the game more challenging, you could add the foam number dice for some number recognition and vocabulary.

There are plenty more ways you can play with this set. My preschooler particularly enjoyed the large plastic numbers and making games using foam dice and ocean counters. The vibrant colors are such a fun addition!

Writer's Bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind, and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.