MINI MONDAY: UNDER MY UMBRELLA

Rain or shine, come hide-away under your own teeny-tiny umbrella! Dip and dab to decorate, and once it’s dry, let the peek-a-boo fun begin!

Materials

• Paper Plate
• Paint
• Pom Poms or cotton balls
• Pipe cleaners
• Tape
• Scissors

Directions:

• Cut a paper plate in two. Choose one half to be your umbrella, and one half to hold your paint!
• Pour some paint onto the plate
• Use a pompom or cotton ball to help you decorate! Dip the pompom into the paint and press it onto your plate to create a series of colourful dots!
• Give your plate some time to dry
• Put your fine motor skills to the test as you twist two (or more!) pipe cleaners together to form a handle for your umbrella
• Use tape to attach the pipe cleaners to the back of your paper plate
• Twist the bottom end of your pipe cleaners upward to create the handle
• Hold the handle, and practice moving your umbrella up and down as you play peek-a-boo!

Keep the fun and learning going! Can you…

• Sing a song about the rain?
• Practice moving your umbrella in different ways? Can you raise it above your head? To the right? To the left?
• Practice identifying the colours you used to decorate your umbrella?

ESSENTIAL LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Fine Motor Skills

Fine motor skills are developed when children learn to use their smaller muscles, like the ones in their hands, fingers, and wrists. Fine motor skills are used for everything from picking up a utensil to eat, buttoning clothing, and holding a pencil when learning to write.

This week’s craft helps to support the development of fine motor skills by inviting children to use their smaller muscles to manipulate the pompoms and pipe cleaners as they decorate their umbrella!

Exploring Position and Direction

Up? Down? Side to side? How do things move? As they play, children will begin to recognize and use vocabulary to explain how their own bodies, as well as objects in their environment, can move!

This week’s craft helps supports children’s exploration of position and direction by inviting them to move their newly created umbrella up and down as they play peek-a-boo with a friend or family member!

Stay tuned for more resources to help spark kids’ creative learning!

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