Popsicle puzzle

Hi guys, thanks for dropping by,

Today, I'm sharing a super easy toddler activity that you can prepare in 5 minutes using wooden sticks, glue, and a printer.

Cartoon Popsicle Puzzle

Everyone loves a good puzzle, the thrill of finding the right fitting pieces and the sense of satisfaction when you look at the end result... an odd feeling of completion

Toddlers are exactly the same! However, sometimes, they may feel pushed by parents or carers (nursery, childminders) to start and finish a puzzle and may reject the game altogether. I know it for a fact as it is what happened with my son.

This easy puzzle is a bit different so it may attract your child by its simplicity while still achieving the fine motor skills you are expecting him to learn while playing with a normal puzzle.

Material

I purchased a big bag of Jumbo popsicles so if you have been following me recently, you probably have them too so no need to spend extras. if you haven't, here is a reminder of the ones I chose, along with the cheap glue I bought:



Method

1. Find a nice image from Google image or else to print out. It's best to choose a landscape type of picture as opposed to portrait so it's longer than it's wider. NB: Bear in mind the copyrights!
2. Copy paste it on a power point slide so you can guesstimate the size of it
3. Print it out on a quality paper, so when you glue it on the wooden sticks it doesn't tear the paper
4. Prepare as many wooden sticks as required on a line
5. Sellotape them together on one side to keep them in place
6. Paste the other side with glue, making sure that there's no glue between wooden sticks otherwise they will be stuck to one another
7. Place your image carefully on the wooden sticks and wait for it to dry
8. Optional: You can draw lines or patterns on the rest of the sticks to help with correct placing
9. Remove the Sellotape from the back
10. Separate the wooden sticks by carefully cutting between them using a scalpel-type sharp blade
11. Optional: You can write the numbers at the top of the sticks

What your toddler will learn

• Recognise the image pattern
• Learn how to associate colours
• Learn numbers
• Fine motor skills by adjusting the sticks next to one another

Let me know if you do it and how your toddler received it. It would be interesting to know everyone's reaction.

See you Soon,

Toddler fine motor skills popsicle activities

Hi and thanks for visiting my blog.

Today, I would like to share with you an activity for >2yo toddlers. You may have seen my previous post on cartoons popsicles.
So naturally, having purchased a big bag of wooden sticks, I'm looking for more amazing activities to do with my son that are using those.
For this activity however, I purchased the Jumbo sized wooden sticks because I thought that it would be easier to handle for my son.

Note: that the previous article could also be based on these Jumbos.

Toddler fine motor skills popsicle activity


I'm happy to report this is also made from only 2 things: wooden sticks and velcros!!

If you purchased the Jumbos sticks from the previous post, then you only need to buy one thing, the velcros - if you don't already have at home!
That's how good this activity is!
If you purchased the thin wooden sticks, then I would recommend buying the Jumbos ones simply because the smallest velcros I could find are the perfect size for the Jumbos and would be too big for the Thins (I tried cutting the velcros in 2 and sticking them to the Thins but the velcro grip is a bit flimsy and does not work as well).

Material



What your toddler can learn

1. He can learn the colours of the wooden sticks
2. He can explore the two different textures of a velcro
3. He can observe and work out how to use a velcro
4. He can learn to build shapes
5. He can learn to name shapes
6. He can associate shapes to single-coloured wooden sticks
7. He can learn to be quiet at a restaurant while playing with this unconventional and educational home-made toy ;)

Method

The only thing there's to do is stick the velcro on the sticks! :)

Now, because you can do pretty much anything, you can actually stick the velcros anywhere you want.
I did mine the simplest way you can:

• A soft velcro on one end and a grip velcro on the opposite end but same facing side. 
• A soft velcro on one end and a grip velcro on the opposite en but reverse side.

My original plan was to stick them all on one facing side but it turned out I couldn't close the triangle, ah ah!

But if you have older kids, you can try sticking velcro on the half-length to make more complicated shapes.

I tested these yesterday afternoon when we went to a pizzeria:

I took a box of his favourite toys, including the godforsaken Woody and BuzzLight, and our Velcroed Popsicles!
To my delight, he played with them more than any other toy that I had brought for him. Result!

I showed him how the velcro textures were different on each side of the sticks and how they stick together, and how - of course - they make weird noise when you try to separate them.

He was mesmerized by the magic glue, but then his 2 and 1/2 yo spirit took over and the shapes became weapons to dismantle while making big gestures and funny faces.

I loved watching him play with this oh-so-simple toy and it gave me the confidence that I can find, and easily make, educational and fun activities for him.

What do you do to keep your LO busy when out at a restaurant?

SoreThumbThinking #4 - The Scientist

Re-blog

I've always wondered if being a scientist isn't closer to being an artist than most people think! What I mean is that we have to be incredibly creative in our experimental designs and particularly imaginative when we analyse data and need to find a meaning out of black and white lines!

I’ve always found that scientists despite their geekiness and nerdy looks could be super creative. When I was one of them (actually, I still am a scientist, it’s a way of life really…), I would see countless videos of fellow scientists parodying songs to depict the true life of lab researchers.

But of course, this goes completely against what we all know, which is that the left brain is the analytical, practical, organised and logical (i.e. Science) side; and the creative, passionate, arty part sits on the right side of the brain.

How do we then explain why scientists spend hours and hours pouring their hearts out and losing their minds over scientific enigmas if there is no passion and poetic craziness involved?

Although there is some truth to the left brain/right brain distinction, there is undeniably a more complex relationship between both sides of our brain.

(If you have time to watch it, this is a very interesting video… and his voice is very addictive!) 
 
For example, on the neuroscience of creativity, latest findings by neuroscientists have now shown that the entire creative process – from preparation to incubation to illumination to verification – consists of many interacting cognitive processes (both conscious and unconscious) and emotions.

Depending on the stage of the creative process, and what you’re actually attempting to create, different brain regions from both the right and the left side are recruited in large-scale networks to handle the task.

So if we accept that science is not just the left side of the brain and can be interlinked with the artistic potential of an individual, could it be considered as a mean for influential creativity?
From my own definition: “Influential creativity is about connecting with an audience on a personal, emotional or practical level; it is about understanding their lives, getting comfortable with them and letting them know that you are there to make them feel better, or be better, or make them question themselves by providing them with an emotion, an ideal, a service, or a product.“
I do think you could apply this definition to the concept of science by saying: “Science is about connecting on a practical level, understanding lives, and it is there to make us question ourselves by providing us with both emotions and product i.e. knowledge.”
What do you think? Is it too farfetched?

SoreThumbThinking #2 - Roses Are Red

Hello Beautiful Creature,

This post is a Re-blog from my company's employees' blog. I would like to share with you what I write over there. Feel free to visit it as well :)

Roses are Red

I’m new to the advertising world.
Not that I’ve never watched/been intrigued/shocked/appalled by TV adverts… But now, it’s my job to transform complicated medical data into appealing, exciting, influential information while being uncompromisingly scientifically accurate!!!
To do the best job possible, ideally I need to come up with ‘fresh’ ideas, to quote John Hegarty. However, as he explained his book:

‘Your idea only exists in relation to another idea’
‘In fact, the value of an idea is in how it draws its inspiration from the world around us and then reinterprets it in a way we haven’t seen before.

‘Hegarty on Creativity’ by John Hegarty

So naturally, I’m looking around… I am more attentive to ads on TV, on the tube, the bus, youtube, etc…
And what I came up with recently is that in the advertising world, we can encounter dramatically opposite messages that would still appeal to anyone and everyone in this day and age:

1. SUPER FRESH: The Coca-Cola ad on the Social Media Guard

2. Fresh-ish EE’s Kevin Bacon “It’s a no Brainer” advert
‘It’s a no brainer’ is the perfect opposite to the above Social Media Guard.
While EE and Kevin Bacon promote the possibility of accessing the same network whatever device each family member uses, Coca-Cola promotes bringing people together by guarding family members from the restricted view of a cyber world.

3. Not so Fresh (once you know about 1. and 2.) Vodafone Power to the family 
Vodafone latest TV advert is all about sharing important moments with family thanks to our increasing inter-connectivity. Power to the family encourages multi-generations to work better together, stay open about those all-important family values ie. stay “connected”.


Somehow, all three of them could appeal to anyone because although we think that we all need a reliable internet broadband, we also would like to respect traditional values.

Now, the tricky question: would you be able to choose the one that appeals to you the most? Did the execution determine your choice or did the message?

The title of this post refers to a song, can you guess which and why I chose it?

See you Soon,

SoreThumbThinking

SoreThumbThinking is a independent blog by employees of PAN Unlimited..., the healthcare advertising agency branch of Creston Health.

The Blog started a few months ago and as a blogger and employee of PAN, I was invited to write for it.
I was a bit skeptic at first: I'm good at writing crap on my life, and smart things on Science but never had to write essays-like article on advertising and influential creativity.

When I went through the interview process for this job, I had to prepare a presentation on what influential creativity meant to me. It was an exhilarating thing to do having so far only written on Science subjects!

To keep a record of my writing efforts for that particular blog, I'm going to re-blog my articles.