Material: Clothespins

Push Ins

Start by making the shoe box and the cardboard discs. Cut a narrow slit on one side of the shoe box top and a small circle on the other side. The narrow slit will be used to insert the discs and the small circle will be used to insert the clothespins.

On the cardboard, draw 10 or more circles, about 3 inches in size. Cut out the circles and attach a clothespin to each circle.

Have the child separate the clothespins from the discs and insert the items through the right opening on the shoe box.

You can also place stickers on the circles and matching ones on the clothespins. After the child inserted the items, ask him to take them out of the shoe box and match each circle with the corresponding clothespin. You can also color the circles and the clothespins in different colors, and ask the child to match the items by color.

Stickplane

Use the wooden sticks or craft sticks as the airplane wings.

Let the child paint or color the sticks with markers and decorate with stickers.

Once sticks are dry, instruct the child to glue on stick at the bottom of the clothespin and one stick at the top.

Using pincer grasp, instruct the child to pinch and open the clothespin while placing the third wing in the middle.

You can have the child glue the middle stick or do not glue the middle wing to allow the child to practice his grasp by removing the middle stick for a two wing airplane model.

Matching Mittens

On colorful construction paper or paper with different designs (e.g. scrapbooking paper), draw 8-10 pairs of mittens. You can also let the child trace the shape a few times.

Cut, or allow the child to cut the pairs.

If using blank color construction paper (i.e. with no design), draw different designs on each pair (a pair with straight lines, a pair with circles, a pair with wiggly lines, etc.). You can also write letters or numbers on the different pairs.

Once the mittens are ready, place them on the table and mix them.

Provide the child with clothespins.

Ask the child to find matching mittens and clip them together using the clothespins