What is it?
This is a game where the child has to stitch up the felt cloth to make a soft toy bear.. He has to stitch up part of the cloth, insert the filling, then complete the stitching so the filling will not fall out.
How to make it yourself
2 small pieces of felt cloth, cut into 2 identical shapes of your choice, 1 long thick black thread, 1 big needle, soft toy polyester filling.
What purpose does it serve?
By stitching to make the soft toy, , the child engages in pretend play, which is important for the social and emotional development of the child. He can also use this to express his affection.
By stitching up the bear, he is making use of his fine-motor skills and visual-motor skills to hold the needle and insert it into the holes.
The child may also feel the different texture of the felt cloth and polyester filling which may be quite different from the everyday cotton clothing for children.
He also makes use of his Visual Sequential skills to decide on which hole to stitch up next.
When the child is asked to perform this task of stitching, he is trained in his Visual Figure-ground, which is the ability to attend to one activity without being distracted by other surrounding activity. This is especially so in this case as this is an activity that takes slightly longer time and visual muscle.
He once again uses his fine-motor skills and visual-motor skills to insert the filling into the cloth to make it puffy.
The child may also learn the concept of 'in' and 'out', 'up' and 'down', and 'into' while stitching and making the soft toy. This helps in his language skills.
When the soft toy is complete, the child may decide to pretend to give it to someone he likes, so that will be similar to pretend play which develops his social and emotional skills..
Summary of developmental objectives
Visual-motor, Visual sequential, Visual Figure-ground, Fine-motor, Social/emotional development, Tactile, Language, Proprioceptive.
No comments:
Post a Comment