At OMO, we believe that every stain represents an important experience - mud stains are the stamp of adventure, grass stains are the sign of exploration and fruit stains are the aftermath of discovery. Encourage your kids to get messy with our fun activities for happy, healthy, confident kids. We'll be there to sort out the dirty clothes afterwards.
Tasty Treasure
A snack-time activity to help your child practice counting.
What you’ll need:
What to do:
Prepare the jelly snack in advance. Make the jelly according to the packet instructions and put it into the fridge until it has set just a little (so it’s not completely watery). Add the fruit segments to the jelly. The jelly should be the same colour as the fruit so you can’t easily see the fruit in the jelly. If you like, you can add some clean small toys in to the jelly as well, to make a themed activity.
When the jelly is set and it’s time for a snack, bring out the jelly and allow your child to dip their hands into it and feel for the fruit pieces. Tell them “there are five pieces of fruit” and ask them to tell you what kind of fruit they find. Ask them to count the fruit as they find it until they’ve found all the pieces. They can eat the fruit as they find it or keep it to count once more when they’ve found all the pieces.
Alternative Materials:
Change it up:
Make it easy: Put just a few pieces of fruit in the jelly and let your child dig around to find the fruit.
Make it a challenge: Put several pieces of fruit in the jelly and give your child a pair of tweezers to pull the fruit out with.
Play with Friends: A group of friends would each need their own bowl of jelly to keep things hygienic. You could make different colours of jelly for each child and encourage the children to compare the different colours and fruits.
Indoor play: This activity can be done indoors with a large tray or some sheets of paper under the snack table to catch sticky jelly blobs.
Developmental areas:
Fine motor skills
Concepts – numbers
Concepts – counting
Concepts – colour matching
Values instilled
Resilience; the importance of personal health.