When your child seems to be in a destructive phase, rather than a constructive phase, it can really grate on your nerves as a mother. Instead of coloring, he’d rather throw the crayons. Instead of reading, he’d rather test the strength of the book pages. Instead of building towers, he’d rather knock them down. You get the idea. So the best thing to do is to remember the mantra, “If you can’t beat him. Join him.”
Today’s activity not only harnesses fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, it also spoke to Zach’s desire to tear things up and make a mess. It’s pretty simple. Tearing and crumpling up strips of paper. Yep, it’s a legitimate learning activity! I read about it HERE.
First I gathered up the junk mail newspaper pages that we get in our house every day. Mostly ads for the sales at the grocery store (clip the good coupons first, of course).
Making use of junk mail
Then I called Zach over and told him I needed help (this works better than, “Let’s do a lesson!” because he likes to be a “good helper”). I said I needed to make paper strips. I showed him how to tear the paper into strips and handed him a piece. You may not really think about it, but tearing paper into strips takes some dexterity. Dexterity that adults come by easily, but 2-year-olds are still learning.
Attempting to rip the paper
At first he was just trying to pull on the paper, as if he were ripping off little bits, or pulling it apart. So, I had to show him again how to rip it into long strips. I actually had to start the rip for him and then let him tear the rest of himself. After we ripped off enough strips (read: after he started showing some boredom in ripping strips of paper), I then asked him to help me make paper balls.
Crumpling paper is another activity that takes more dexterity than you think it does. I had to show Zach how to smoosh and crunch the paper up in his hands. At first, he just crinkled along the strip, but then he understood how to crunch it up between his two hands to make the “ball” shape.
Crumpling the paper
Then, the fun part. Throwing the paper balls!
Throwing? Easy! This part I got down!!
Yes, my living room floor DID look like this in the end. But thats OK, newspaper is not the messiest thing I have had to clean up in the name of crafts and learning!
What did Zach learn today? He worked on fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
What did Mommy learn? To think on my feet. We had another color learning activity planned and it ended disastrously (“No, no, no, no, no, we don’t put pipe cleaners in the toilet!!!”). I was super frustrated, but once I began an activity that fit his mood, things went much smoother.
