Sensory Fine Motor Magnet Fun with Recycled Materials

I’m always looking for new ways to incorporate old materials into the activities I provide for my family day care kids and also for my own children. I think it is important for children to realise we don’t always need new and fancy materials to have fun. I like to include them in my scavenging and then see what we can come up with…sometimes they have much better ideas than me (but we’ll keep that quiet).

I wanted to share this activity with you because the children absolutely loved it and it also evolved in so many different ways….and they were so proud of their end result and that means a lot.

I provided this activity for my 3 year olds but it could quite easily be adapted for younger children by using larger metal pieces so as not to provide a choking hazard.

Let me take you though the set up…it was so easy!

Here’s what you need…..

You’ll need a tub of rice (or other fine sensory material…will work with sand, beans, pasta etc)
Some magnets (I used some large horseshoe ones but smaller will work fine too)You could also use small tongs.
A tray for sorting (I just used a cutlery tray)
Some metal O Rings and Bolts from the garage…the older and more rustic the better!
Wood off cuts
Watered down pva glue and brushes

Fine motor sensory fun with magnets and recycled materials - See more at mummy musings and mayhem.com

Here’s what you do…..

I used my current sensory tub which already had some coloured pasta in it from a previous activity…you don’t need to add pasta but if you have other things already in there no need to take them out, I’ll tell you how to incorporate them into the learning later.

Ask the children to help you place the rings and bolts into the tub, don’t let them bury them as the magnet will need to be awfully strong to find and lift them out! My girls really loved this part and took their role very seriously!

Then ask them to see if they can pick up the objects with the magnets. It can be a bit tricky and really works their coordination and fine motor skills. You can also use some small tongs if you don’t have magnets, we used them as well.

If you have other items in the tub like I already had pasta you can engage the children in discussion about why some things are magnetic and some aren’t and can they find just the ones they think the magnet will pick up?

They had so much fun finding their ‘treasures’ in the rice and showing me how they stuck to the ends of the magnet.

Once they had them on the magnet they had to carefully transfer them to the sorting tray on a table nearby (I wanted them to have to walk a little way to extend on their hand eye coordination and balance skills)

We sorted the bolts as ‘long’ and ‘short’ and the rings into different slots for ‘small’, ‘medium’ and ‘large’.

They spent a lot of time getting their sorting just right and worked together to make sure the tray was ‘right’ according to them. I let them decide what pieces were which size and stood back as they corrected each other or changed their mind. There was lots of communication, problem solving and teamwork.

When every piece had been removed from the rice tub they took the pieces out of the tray, placed them back into the rice tub and then started all over again. It really did hold their interest for quite some time!

Using these sort of recycled and older materials also opens avenues for discussion about their original purpose, how they might have been used before by people and the discovery of different shapes, sizes, textures and colour.

When interest finally began to wane in the collecting and sorting I brought out a box of wood scraps we had collected earlier in the week for our woodworking, a little watered down PVA glue and the sorting tray of rings. The old bolts and screws were a little too bulky and heavy to use for this part of the activity so I left them out.

They were so excited to be creating their own little recycled masterpieces and I thought they did such a lovely job. We talked about small, large and medium as they worked and they told me which ones they were choosing and all about the patterns they were creating. Such self expression!!!

There was a LOT of glue used but that was part of the fun and it dries clear so it didn’t matter how much they used. And of course we were outside so I didn’t need to worry about mess!

Ruby and Tara (my twins) took great pride in decorating a piece of woodwork that their big sister made when she was in school. They presented it to her that afternoon and were so excited to share their creativity and gift with big sis!!

It was a wonderful morning of creative self expression and didn’t cost me a thing!

The possibilities are endless when you incorporate recycled or repurposed materials and resources into learning activities for children…why not have a look around the home and garage for something you could recycle into fun too!

What learning does this activity encourage for your child?

Strengthening of fine motor muscles and control
Investigating size and length
Sorting and classifying
Encouraging communication and language development
Problem solving
Opportunities to incorporate counting skills
Basic science concepts of magnetic fields, magnetic, not magnetic.
Using teamwork to reach a shared goal
Discussion and research around the recycled materials and how they were originally used. An awareness of items in our environment.
Opportunity for self expression and an appreciation of the process over product.

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A Little About Me

Jodie Clarke is an early childhood professional supporting educators who want and need to stay passionate about the work they do! She has 30 years hands-on experience in the early childhood and human services sectors across many different roles.

Jodie is mum to 3 in Australia and has already helped thousands of educators with their work through her popular blog posts, activity ideas, online training and e-books.

Here’s what you do…..

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