Today's Table Time

Each school day we have a scheduled 'table time' when the kids sit at the dining table and exercise their fine motor skills along with developing their concentration and attention span. Diligence at the task is usually rewarded with a snack for morning tea. We do colouring and free drawing with a variety of media (pencils, crayons, textas) and I also plan activities that aren't centred around having the correct pencil grip. Earlier this week we did a variety of jigsaws (Abigail works on fitting wooden puzzle shapes into their holes and Anna and Joshua are both able to complete cardboard puzzles carefully) and also spent time enjoying the delights of play-dough.

Today the kids worked on beading, making necklaces from penne pasta dyed with food colouring and some cheap wooden beads. Later in the day I was flicking through a kids' craft book and found a suggestion to cut up plastic drinking straws to make beads of varying sizes as another method. This would be a little harder than with the pasta because straws are flimsy and have a smaller diameter, so I think it might be the next step up for this fine motor skill activity.