Sweeping Up!

Ever since Hannah learned to walk her favorite activity has been to take mommy's broom and sweep up things.  She has even been know to shed a few tears when its time to move on to something else.  At the dollar store (probably a year ago), I found her a broom and dust pan set thinking I would surprise her with a broom of her own.  No, she likes mommy's broom and never took a liking the her cute set.  Well I finally found a way to put her little broom to work.  I saw the activity at The Adventures of Bear.  It is a very good practical life activity.  I have seen this activity done with beans, cereal, and other small objects, but I opted to use foam letters because then I can leave the activity out and Ethan won't choke on anything small.  The idea is to sweep up the letters into the square and then use the dust pan to transport the letters to the small container.

All you need is some masking tape, broom/dust pan set, and something to sweep up. 

Use the masking tape to tape off a square, with sides about the same size as the edge of your dust pan.  I didn't measure I just eye it.

Dump out your letters (or whatever you chose) and sweep it up.

Hannah enjoyed this activity and did a very good job of sweep the letters back into the container.  

I think this is a good activity for strengthening eye hand coordination.  Hannah has been playing with this all week and I started to notice that Ethan has started pick up things and put them back into the containers rather than to leave everything strewn about.  Who knows maybe Ethan can be reformed of his Tasmanian ways.