Spring is here, and it’s the perfect time to take a nature walk with your child. These bracelets are super easy; they give you and your child an activity to do while you’re exploring, and they make terrific souvenirs of the outing! (Boys like them, too.) They’re so fun, your child might want to make more than one!
What you will need:
- Masking tape (A wider band is better, and it should be nice and sticky.)
- Nature and a beautiful day
What to do:
- Using the masking tape, make a bracelet around your child’s wrist, where the sticky part of the tape faces OUT. (You may want to go around twice to double-up and strengthen it.)
- Go exploring, and when you find interesting pieces of nature, like wildflowers, leaves, twigs, stick them on the bracelet.
(If the child refuses to wear the bracelet, the parent can wear it. And a child who isn’t able to stand or walk might direct the adult to pick things she sees.)
The benefits of this activity:
- Exploring, talking and describing help to strengthen language skills.
- Grasping objects, like picking flowers, involves fine-motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
- Stretching, reaching, and bending down involve gross motor skills, including balance, force, and motor planning.
- Re-telling the story of the adventure using the bracelet helps your child build skills in recall, story telling/story problems (what happened first, next, last), thinking in abstract, etc.
- Sighting on interesting small items helps develop visual figure-ground perception.
- Smelling flowers, leaves, etc. provides olfactory information for your child to process.
- Decorating the bracelet by bringing two hands together helps improve bilateral coordination.
This idea and many others can be found in the book, The Out of Sync Child Has Fun, by Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A.