- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- dads today articles
- dads today q&a
- message boards
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
 |
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Household "Toys" That Teach
Fun and Learning for Little Ones from Items Around the House
By Katherine Bontrager
Feldscher also suggests letting little ones play artist – but in an ingenious way that keeps everything, and everyone, clean. "With clean paintbrushes of varying sizes, a child can 'paint' to his heart's content using shampoo lather to paint the bathtub wall," she says. "Or he can use water to paint the outside concrete steps or wooden deck. When painting with shampoo lather, always have an empty, cleaned squeeze bottle available that he can fill with water and spray the wall clean!"
Want to build fine-motor skills while entertaining a little one? Lonna Corder, the founder and director of a Montessori preschool in the home of Ann and Gordon Getty in San Francisco, Calif., has just the trick. "Using tongs or tweezers can help strengthen small, fine-motor skills and help children with their pincer grip," she says. "Have children sit with two bowls, one full of dry beans, the other empty, and have the child transfer the beans, one at a time, from the full bowl to the empty one. For very young children, try transferring cotton balls using tongs from one bowl to another."
Once kids have mastered this, Corder suggests having them move colored water from one bowl to another using a turkey baster. "Pet bowls that have two sections built in are ideal," she says.
Corder also lets her students play with ice trays that have numbers written on the inside of each section. "Using small things like dried beans or elbow macaroni children count out and fill each section appropriately," she says. "For a more advanced extension, children can use a small eyedropper and fill the ice trays with drops of colored water to show the difference in volume."
Likewise, kids can have fun with their own piggy banks, Feldscher says. "Let your child empty the piggy bank, and have someone make a chart to keep track of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters," she says. "After making piles of each coin, your child can count them and fill in the chart, adding his totals as he continues to sort his coins. He'll see how rich he is while having fun with numbers and math."
