Animal Rescue
This version of animal rescue is a fun activity that seems to come naturally to little ones. At this age they love peeling tape off things and it’s a great way for them to practice fine motor skills and to problem solve. It also requires bilateral coordination as they need to use both hands together in order to remove the tape from the animal.
Both my son and daughter loved this activity.
Materials:
Plastic or wooden animals
Decorators tape (it’s less sticky)
An accessible surface to stick them on.
How to set up:
Stick each animal down with a generous length of tape. For more of a challenge use more than one piece.
Spread them across the surface so that they will be required to walk around to reach all of them.
You can demonstrate how to rescue an animal and remove the tape from it. However removing the tape from them seems to be quite instinctive!
Our son was 17 months old in this video
Great for:
Bilateral coordination is when two sides of the body are being used at the same time to carry out an activity. Many daily self-care and play activities require bilateral coordination skills including eating, getting dressed, tying shoelaces, playing sports, running, walking and skipping.
Fine Motor Skills involve the small muscles working with the brain in order to control small movements. Developing fine motor skills helps children do things like eating, writing and getting dressed.
Focus and concentration help children to learn. Most skills are learned by practising them over and over, so being able to block out distractions and focus on particular tasks will help the rate in which they learn.