Toddler Fun with Beads
Earlier this week, after an evening of goofing around, wrestling, tickling and cuddling with the kiddos, I tried to take off my necklace, only to have it break from all the tugging the boys did. Big, beautiful, black and gold beads everywhere!
I mourned the passing of my necklace for a moment, then gathered as many beads as I could find and threw them in a little bowl with a few hand fulls of pony beads that I had lying around from a previous project. I knew these would come in handy sooner rather than later, and I was right.
Last night, our almost "threenager", was slightly overexcited before bedtime. I needed a way to calm him down, yet still have fun. Luckily, I had my bowl of beads, and a few colorful, unused shoe laces lying around. The prefect activity was born!
I told our Sweet P that we would be making a necklace and that he could give it to anyone he would like. To be honest, I didnt think that he had it in him to bead and entire necklace. I was just hoping that he would give it a try for a few minutes.
Lesson learned by this mama: DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE YOUR CHILD!
It wasn't without a few hiccups and bead spills here and there, but Sweet baby P made an entire necklace ALL BY HIMSELF!
Proud mama moment!
When he was done, he decided that this special necklace had to go to his mama. Another proud mama moment. Not to mention the proud baby moment.
He was so excited that he made a necklace all by himself, from start to completion.
Yes, I wore it to work, looking like a rave kid from the 90's. But this is the first handmade thing that my baby has ever made all by himself and the first handmade gift he's ever given me. Needless to say, I'm never taking this necklace off.
I know your little ones will love this activity as much as our Princeton did.
Materials
Pony Beads
Shoe Laces (the aglets make it much easier for little fingers to get the shoelace through the bead)
Start by tying one end of the shoe lace so that the beads don't slip off.
Let your kiddos choose their own beads, and make sure that they call out the colors along the way. Between calling out colors, we were also counting our beads.
So this was an all around great activity to do with a toddler.
