Friday, April 8, 2016

Busy/Quiet Boxes - Felt Ribbon and Snake

Ribbons and buttons


If you are unfamiliar with busy or quiet boxes, they are quiet, simple and can be implemented in a number of ways. A box can be created for each day of the week (or just the weekdays), bags can be created for each separate activity so you can pick and choose when to share certain activities, or bags can be created that can be taken out to restaurants and shopping trips.

felt and buttons

Ribbon Serpents

To assist our toddlers in developing their fine motor skills, I found several different activities that incorporated the idea of weaving and buttoning.  I choose two (button snake and chain) after reviewing several blogs that presented different ideas for using felt, buttons, and chains (Felt Button Chain Quiet ActivityCar Ride Activities (Felt Chain); and Button Snake).

For now, as children build their fine motor skills, they might only move the felt along the ribbon and not actually thread it. Or a child may be able to unbutton the separate pieces but not put them back together but children will quickly progress as they build the appropriate skills.

Ribbon with felt       Felt and buttons