Building Fine Motor Skills with Cheerios

I wanted to give little S a chance to play with a sensory bin that was both a tactile experience as well as something that would develop his already great fine motor skills. I had a box of expired Cheerios and put that into our sensory play container, I added valentine colored pipe cleaners, and chopsticks with a kid helper attached. the thought was that he could thread the cheerios onto the pipe cleaners and play with the chopsticks trying to pick up the Cheerios to build muscle strength in his hand.

I sat down with him and showed him how the Cheerios thread onto a pipe cleaner and he came right over sat down and took all the Cheerios that I put on the pipe cleaner off. So I filled four pipe cleaners and he pulled the Cheerios off one by one putting them into the container with the other Cheerios. I showed him the chopsticks and how to pick up a Cheerio with them but they were cooler apart rather than stuck together so he removed one from the kid helper and stuck it back into the bin of Cheerios.

For those keeping score that makes this week

1 win for the cardboard box
2 losses for camping and Cheerios