Threading and Fine Motor Skills

Doting grandma brought this from London a few years ago. My 4yo played with it for a while when he was 2+ before the set went into storage.

Recently, I took it out again for my 2yo. He already knows all these shapes and colours, so we focus on threading. Another excellent activity for these little hands and to help develop hand/eye coordination.

Threading is an activity done at Montessori school. It helps to strengthen the index finger and thumb which prepares our tots for writing and drawing in future. 

We also thread other materials at home such as varying sizes and types of pasta shapes and different sizes of beads. 

My 2yo plays with this set of lacing beads (suitable for 3+) in so many ways. He threads the pieces, stacks them up, sorts them by colors or shapes, piles them as 'rocks' in a quarry and be dug up by diggers and dumped into dump trucks etc....

His hands are really steady for a child his age. He could easily stake up a dozen pieces in a few minutes and as you can see, these pieces aren't cuboids or cubes either. 

This is one of those activities that I get him to do once or twice a week, for between 10 to 30 minutes. Perfect when I need that little breathing space in the middle of a long day. :)