Easy Bird Toy (and fine motor practice) {Fine Motor Fridays}

  I'm happy to be joining up with some great bloggers for Fine Motor Fridays, focusing on activities to help improve fine motor skills in toddlers and preschoolers. See the other awesome ideas at the end of this post. Enjoy!

    We made this simple bead toy for our late parakeet, Sophie, a while back. She was born deformed, with a crooked back, so she mostly just sat in the back of her cage, even when we left the door of it open. She did, however, like to swat at this toy with her beak and hit the beads around.

You'll need:   beads (we used colorful pony beads)
                    stiff string (we used gimp)
                    a twisty tie like ones that come on loaves of bread

 

We used two pieces of gimp, tied the ends of each, and had Kay start stringing.

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We then tied the other end of the gimp, and bent it in half. Since gimp is stiff, it held that way. We did the same with the other piece.

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Then we held them together and used the twisty tie to keep them that way.

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We used a clothes pin or clip to attach it to the side of the cage and Sophie was a happy camper. 
  

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We also made this one out of colorful wooden beads. Sophie wasn't as fond of this one, but all birds are different! :)

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  I promised you some more great fine motor ideas and here they are, from the other bloggers participating in Fine Motor Friday:

 Bottle Cap Soup {School Time Snippets}
Cut-Punch-Paste Grocery Store Play {Lalymom}
Color Sorting with Water Beads {Craftulate}
Soda Bottle Turkey {Stir The Wonder}
Fine Motor Skills Multi Activity Tray {Little Bins for Little Hands}
Montessori Fine Motor: Low to No Cost: {Racheous}

**You can also follow the Fine Motor Fridays Pinterest board.**