Monday, 30 October 2017

Spooky Potion Making With Learning Resources

Its Halloween tomorrow! We are so excited that we have already been doing some spooky activities. 

As you know, Lily's Little Learners is not just about having fun, it's all about children learning through play. We often work along side Learning Resources and their toys to help make this possible. So when Learning Resources gave us the challenge to make a spooky witches potion while using their Fine Motor Tool set, we got out our cauldron and rose to the challenge. 


The Helping Hands, Fine Motor tool Set is made up of 4 tools. They are all different so children have to figure out how to use their hands to make them work. By squeezing, pinching, scooping, dropping, grabbing, this set will really help with fine motor skills and hand and eye co-ordination. 

The set includes - 
  • A Gator Grabber
  • A Handy Scooper
  • A Twisty Dropper
  • A Squeezy Tweezer 


The first thing I did was get everything out for Lily. I filled her cauldron with some water, some leaves and some plastic spiders and snakes. I then got her some flour, and I made some blue water with food colouring. 

Lily was so excited to be making a potion, she had also been wanting to play with the fine motor tool set since it came. Which shows that children do and can get really excited over educational toys. 

The first thing she wanted to do was place some spiders into the potion. I encouraged her to use the Squeezy Tweezer for this. It took a few attempts but soon she got really good at it and managed to pick things up and grab the objects and pop them into the potion. The tweezers are the perfect size for Lily's fingers and squeeze quite easily. This tool is really good for developing hand and eye co-ordination.


After the spiders and snakes had gone in. Lily wanted to add some of the flour to the water. I encouraged her to use the Handy Scooper for this. I was quite impressed with how well she knew how to use this. She held it correctly and managed to scoop a decent amount of flour into it. She then understood how to let go of the flour so it fell into the potion. This tool is such a great one for working on pre-scissor skills. 



Next she added some leaves to the potion. I crunched them up so then she could try and use the Gator Grabber. Out of all the tools, Lily found this to be the most difficult. It confused her that she needed to squeeze them to make them open and then let go to close them back up. She soon got the hang of it and with my help, managed to get some leaves into the potion. This tool is really good for developing the pincer grasp which is the one they need to learn for writing. 


The last thing that she added was the blue coloured water. For this we used the Twisty Dropper. Lily had never used anything like this before so didn't understand how to use it. I had to show her that you squeeze and then let go, and all the water goes up into the tube. Then you squeeze it back out into the potion. Lily quickly learnt how to do this and it ended up being her favourite tool to use. Soon we had lots of the blue water into the cauldron and it was looking very potion like. This tool is really good for strengthening the muscles in the hands and fingers.



I gave Lily a spoon to stir the potion and we chanted a magic spell to finish it off. She then tried making me drink it, luckily pretending sufficed or I may have felt a little ill. Over all it was such a good activity and the four tools really helped make potion creating become lots of fun. 


You can buy the Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set from Learning Resources for £7.55

What would you put in your potion using these tools? 

30 comments:

  1. My Megan would absolutely love this set, she loves making things especially if it means getting messy xx

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  2. My kids would also love this, they like making potions out of mud, leaves and grass. This would make it more fun

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  3. I like your idea of colouring the water, and would likely do the same. The children would have fun putting in plastic spiders, plastic small skeleton, plastic lizards, etc.

    Rachel Craig

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  4. Something colourful and bubbly in the sink or bath I think.

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  5. My daughter Sheriah would have fun with this she would probably add all her toys 😂😂

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  6. My daughter loves playing with water and things this looks great

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  7. My kids would enjoy doing this and they would add shampoo and handwash

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  8. Depends who it's for
    Sweet delights for some
    Foul POTIONS for others!
    HAPPY HALLOWEEN

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  9. Oh, this looks great. I'm sure loads of kids would get a lot out of this set. Thanks for the write-up and photos!

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  10. Will look out for the products.

    Rachel Craig

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  11. Looks like Lily had lots of fun.

    Rachel Craig

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  12. This looks really good for little hands. Love the look of this for my nephew.

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  13. Lily is wearing a nice jumper.

    Rachel Craig

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  14. This looks like fun for little ones.

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  15. I think I'd enjoy playing this as much as the little one. Now...What to use for a cauldron.

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  16. Brilliant idea! Great fun for Halloween!

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  17. This looks like a great set of toys to help children develop skills while having fun at the same time.

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  18. this is so cute halloween is great time of year for kids

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  19. Looks like a lot of fun!

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  20. This looks great fun, I will remember it for next year.

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  21. The tools look really good at targetting their fine motor skills

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  22. My grandchildren love making a potion, the messier the better!

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  23. I might try and make a fruit punch with the kids with this. Maybe mix a few juices, add some fruit to it, edible glitter and stuff to make it more magical. I think the kids would love the fact they can drink it afterwards

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