Fill a container with water up to the midline and put inside small floating objects (i.e. ice molds, fish toys, etc.).
Have the child use the tongs to catch the objects in the water and take them out of the water.
You may want to have some paper towels ready for this activity as it might get a bit wet.
Draw a geometric shape or a picture on the paper and fold it in half (i.e. square, pumpkin, a person, butterfly, etc.). Let the child cut out the picture and open the paper.
Cut a piece of yarn (about 6-inch long). Put paint into the container and ask the child to dip one end of the yarn in the paint while holding on to the other end. Instruct the child to place the painted end of the yarn on one side of the paper, at the top. Fold the paper again and tell the child to pull the yarn out, from the bottom.
Open the folded paper, place the painted yarn at the top again, fold the paper, and pull the yarn out. Repeat these steps until the picture is painted.
You can use different colors and cut a piece of yarn for each color the child is using.
For the purpose of describing the activity, we chose beans and foam sheets. You can use any media you would like to fill up your container (i.e. corn kernels, cotton balls, macaroni, bird’s seeds, send, etc.)and any objects to hide (i.e.buttons, pom-poms, pegs, coins, etc.).
Use the foam sheets and cut pairs of different shapes (you can also use different color sheets and cut a pair of the same shape in each color). Fill up the container with the beans. Hide one shape from each pair inside the container and place the other shape in front of the child.
Have the child dig his hands through the beans and find the matching shapes, taking them out one shape at a time.
Fill up the plastic container with beans, rice, or sand.
Add coins or beads to the container and mix with the selected container contents.
Ask the child to use his hands and pull out the different objects you hid inside the container.
To grade this activity, you can hide a variety of items in the container and ask the child to sort the items and put them in separate smaller containers.
Tape some ribbon around each cup. Use different ribbon colors for each paper cup.
Cut a few pieces of each color of ribbon.
Put the ribbon pieces in the container.
Ask the child to sort the pieces of ribbon, using the first three digits (thumb, pointer, and middle finger) and put the ribbons into the right container.
For grading: ask the child to use tweezers for picking up the ribbons and dropping each to the right cup.
