I'm so happy that I did this activity. I briefly underestimated Auggie and thought he wouldn't be in to it, that he'd try and eat everything or that he wouldn't be able to work a dropper but I need to follow my own guidance - NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR CHILD! He sat and did this activity for AGES and he was soooo proud of what he made! He's ran around with his shakers all afternoon.

HOW:
OK this is a tray full of small parts that I thought would make a cool noise when shook in a test tube. There's some beads, some rice and some cocktail sticks. There's also some water, beetroot juice and two droppers from used bottles of serums!!

WHY?!
Auggie loved the test tubes I made for him when he was little and he loves to make noise with things. Getting him to make them himself worked on a whole bunch of things including fine motor skills, pincer grip and hand eye coordination. He'd never used droppers before either - I'm sure there's some giant kids ones that would have been easier but he enjoyed exploring these ones!

LANGUAGE:
I used lots of coaching language to explain how to use the new tools and talk about what we were making. We used lots of equipment he'd never seen before so I repeated the names of things often to develop his vocabulary.

Watch Auggie make his shakers here