September 25, 2009

Styrofoam and Toothpicks



After seeing this popular activity in many spots online, I finally got ahold of some styrofoam and gave it a try.
I put B's name in dots on the styrofoam and had B stick a toothpick on each dot. My thought was after he was finished, he would look from above and see the letters of his name. I didn't take into consideration how many dots I was using and how close together they were. It was a little bit much. So I flipped it over and drew four different shapes with the dots and had him start over. That was more reasonable. B loved sticking the toothpicks into the styrofoam, but wasn't really interested in the final product either way.

Other Variations:
• Get colored toothpicks and use colored markers to make the dots. Your child can work on matching colors/color identification as they enhance their motor skills.
• Hammer golf tees into the styrofoam

3 comments:

  1. We've done this activity a lot too - kids seem to love it for some reason! Sometimes we put pony beads on the toothpicks and try to make patterns. Forming them into letters is a great idea!

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  2. I've seen the idea of hammering golf tees into styrofoam and I bought some golf tees when I saw them on clearance at Wal-Mart and now I am just waiting to buy something that has foam in it. I love how you incorporated letters into it, great idea!

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