Future Master Griller

Alrighty . . . scrounge through your kitchen drawers (and maybe even your bathroom drawers) and find all of your tongs, 'cause we're tonging today!

Here's what you need: tongs (any size, any type), bowls, and items to be "tonged". :) Keep scrolling to see what items we "tonged"!

Here's why you should do it: This will help with fine motor skills and help increase concentration levels. It's also great training for all the barbecuing they'll be doing this summer. . . ha! :)

Place the items to be transferred in the left hand bowl (as a pre-cursor to reading) and the tongs in the middle so your child will naturally choose which hand they are more comfortable with.

Transfer all items to the right hand bowl, and then back again. Some children (especially younger ones) will/can do this over and over and over again. Let them continue transferring until they are tired of it.

Another variation: These are those plastic shaped ice cubes that you can find at the dollar store. Lawton tonged AND sorted by color this time. (Green fish in the green bowl, blue whales in the blue bowl, and purple starfish in the purple bowl.

Then he tonged and sorted the same color, but different shapes. This is the only compartmentalized (is that a word?) tray I have in the house. If you don't have one, you can find them for cheap just about anywhere. They are great for sorting!

Tonging fun, sparkly, shiny pom-poms. . .

And then, what in the world are these?

Plastic grapes that I plucked off the stem (from the dollar store!) Get creative - you've got a ton of stuff lying around your house! ***Just to clarify - these plastic grapes WERE NOT lying around my house - I used them in my teaching days. But hey, if you like plastic grapes decorating your house, that's cool.

This was his favorite thing - tweezing! Maybe because it was more of a challenge and the fun star shape was appealing. The star is just a shaped soap holder thingy with pony beads in each suction "cup".

Happy tonging!