Developmental benefits of beading and a trip to Mhai O Mhai beads in Barrie Ontario

Yesterday Sierra and I joined a homeschool group for an afternoon of beading fun at Mhai O Mhai Beads in Barrie, Ontario. Everyone was so busy creating and left abruptly afterwards that we didn't have a chance to talk with too many people but we had a great time creating and enjoying our "mommy & me" time.

The class room is upstairs overlooking the ground floor store. There were about 12 children and 8 adults present (not all the adults created but some did) and there was plenty of room for us all.

One of the two tables in the class area.

 When we arrived we had to choose what we wanted to make.Our choices were bracelets, necklaces, bookmarks and tiaras.

Sample table for ideas. Sierra loved this bracelet
she is admiring in the photo and we bought the
materials to make one at home

 Each table had a large selection of beads laid out and individual mats to help prevent your beads from bouncing or rolling off the table.

 If what you see on the tables isn't enough selection, there were two walls full of beads to choose from; a good variety of sizes, colours, shapes and bead types.

Sierra chose to make a tiara so I made one as well to take home for Aayla. The hardest part of making our tiaras was choosing which beads to use. The selection was amazing. Sierra chose a variety of blues for her tiara and I used pinks and purples for Aaylas.

 

Sierra was very thoughtful with the placement of each bead. You can see the concentration all over her face.

Almost done.

 Sierra models her finished tiara.

 And when she was finished she carefully put back all the beads she didn't use to help clean up.

Did you know that beading is not only a fun and relaxing activity, but it also provides many developmental benefits for children? Beading promotes many skills depending on the age and abilities of your child(ren) such as:

-hand eye coordination
-fine motor skills when grasping and manipulating beads
-visual discrimination
-cognitive skills with planning of beaded patterns for shapes or colours

Upon finishing a beading project, children can also feel a sense of accomplishment when allowed the freedom to create and express themselves through their choices in colours and patterns.

See THIS article  by Kimberly Voaden, OT Reg. (Ont) where she describes the developmental benefits in more detail. She also discusses ways to adapt beading activities to provide beading opportunities for children with special needs (these ideas  will benefit younger children as well so everyone can join in the creative, development process of beading).

Want to give beading a try but don't know where to start...

12 activities using beads to promote early learning

Click here for LINK

 A simple activity for younger children is to string beads onto pipe cleaners (they are more rigid and easier to manipulate). These can be made into bracelets or can be shaped into letters to practice sounds and letter recognition.

Directions HERE

Older children will love making these simple beaded and braided bracelets.

Directions HERE

This site has many patterns to make pony bead animals

Directions HERE

 Remember making these as a kid? Friendship bracelets with safety pins.

Directions HERE

Feeling brave? With Valentines day fast approaching I thought these would be fun gifts to make. The link takes you to Etsy to purchase a PDF tutorial.

Click here to buy PDF

Are you inspired to bead now? Do you have a favourite beading activity for children? I'd love for you to share it with us.

(I have not been compensated in anyway for this post. All opinions expressed here are my own)
 

Got Wood? Try these wood crafts

Recently I made a post called Got Snow? Try these snow ice cream recipes and it was a very popular post. So I thought I'd create a new "Got? series" to be posted every Friday.

This week's post is Got Wood? Try these wood crafts. Just click on the photos to be taken to each original post with the directions to create your own wooden goodness.

 Wood disc wreath

Pencil crayon holder

Make tree branch crayons...how fun!

Add sticks and branch blocks to your block play

Create your own tree branch blocks

 

Make your own beeswax polish to protect your tree blocks

Make castle blocks

Tree branch doll furniture

DIY twig chairs

Make a tree house for your peg dolls, fairies and gnomes

Whittle a gnome

Make a magic wand

Make a tea light holder

DIY ABC magnets

 Make branch butttons

Felted walking sticks for your hikes

Make a swing

I absolutely love these stools

Make a natural loom

Make a Stump garden

Now I am really looking forward to all our snow melting so we can collect some dead-fall to make some of these wonderful activities. Don't forget to follow along so you don't miss out on upcoming Got? Series posts. Or you can follow my new facebook page HERE.

Valentine Butterflies and Little Love bugs for Valentines

In the past we have made these Valentine butterflies out of paper (pattern and original directions can be found HERE). I wanted to try something a little bit different this year so we made them with fun foam (This activity quickly morphed into making Lovebugs).

I'll start with our Valentines Butterfly DIY and add the Pom Pom and cork Lovebugs to the end of the post.

Here's how we made our Valentine Butterflies:

1) Gather all your supplies.

You will need:
-popcycle sticks and tongue depressors (coloured or plain)
-fun foam sheets in pink, red, and white or cut out foam hearts
-pipe cleaners
-googly eyes
-markers (we used Sharpie brush tip markers and love them)
-scissors, glue
-magnets are optional 

2) Trace or draw a pair of big heart shapes onto the fun foam and cut them out.

3) Repeat with a pair of medium size hearts and a pair of small sized hearts or use pre-cut fun foam heart shapes (from the dollar store) for these. Make sure each size heart is a different colour so the colours pop.

4) Glue the hearts to the back of a tongue depressor or a pop cycle stick (we used a hot glue gun carefully so the glue would dry faster). We used a tongue depressor for our large butterfly and a popcycle stick for the smaller ones.

 

5) Optional: colour the tongue depressor body (our popcycle sticks were already coloured) and draw designs on the wings.

6) Glue on googly eyes and pipe cleaner antennas. Optional: Attach a magnet to the back.

7) Voila beautiful Valentine Butterflies ready to fly away and deliver love and happiness to a friend.

I saw THESE cork butterflies the other day so I ran and got my stash of corks so we could try them.

Here is how ours turned out... the creating evolved so quickly I didn't get DIY pictures of the process but they are pretty straightforward and if you have any questions feel free to leave it in the comments and I will get back to you.

 

 

Sierra designed this mouse herself

Sierra had a great idea of attaching a ponytail to the back with hot glue to make a Bee-utiful Valentines ponytail.

Aayla loved the ponytail Sierra made and modeled it for us. When she took it off she was quite sad she couldn't keep it. Sierra quickly asked for some bags and she wrapped it up for Aayla for Valentines day...and wrapped the rest for other family members and friends. Such a giving little girls she is.