Our participants at the Fishtown Community Library have been pre-k or younger. So, we’ve been focusing our art projects on developing their fine motor skills. This week’s lesson concentrated on identifying similarities and differences. One of the books that we read was Different? Same! by Heather Tekavec. This book compared and contrasted different animals. The children really engaged with the reading. They not only identified and learned new animal’s names but then they had to figure out what the animals on each page had in common!
In response to this book we had the children take different colored beads and loop them onto pipe cleaners that were the same color. The beaded pipe cleaners were formed into a rainbow arch and each end was stuck in some white play dough. Children had to match two different materials based on what color they were; red beads for the red pipe cleaner. They also had the additional challenge of beading it themselves, which requires a lot of focus and hand-eye coordination.
