I am always on the look out for quick, easy, simple to set-up activities! If an activity can also be adapted and tweaked to fit different learning level and ages, you can count me in for sure. Between having multiple ages at home who love new activities, to having such different leveled skills in my classroom, the kind of activities like our Watermelon Fine Motor Seed Hunt are a must. Add this activity to your must-try list this summer!
Watermelon Seed Hunt
Setting up this simple fine motor activity takes no time and can even be part of the fun!
The watermelon seeds we used in this activity were not real. It’s really too bad that watermelons are almost completely seedless because using actual watermelon seeds in activities would be even better!
To prep the Watermelon Fine Motor Seed Hunt, gather dried black beans. The dried beans make great pretend watermelon seeds!
Now find the play dough for your watermelons. We used pink, even though my girls insisted that red would have been better. Either will work! And if you want to make your watermelons even more real looking, use green play dough for the rind.
Different Ways to Play!
At first, I created a few play dough watermelons and added the dried black bean seeds on to the top of the play dough. I realized quickly that this was too easy for my daughter. She was able to find all of the seeds and get them off the watermelon in just a few seconds!
This would be PERFECT for toddlers though. I’m a fan of activities that can be adapted depending on the learning level of your child or a small group of children in your classroom.
Next, I added seeds to the play dough watermelons and covered them slightly with the play dough. I wanted to make sure the activity was still fun, and not frustrating. This was a little harder for my daughter to use her fingers to pull out those seeds, but in my opinion her fingers could work even more.
The best fine motor workout we found for my daughter was to completely hide those watermelon seeds!
She loved it.
Each time she thought she had found all of the watermelon seeds, I showed her that there was yet another still waiting for her to find.
After all of the seeds were hunted and extracted from the play dough watermelons, we worked together to make more. She thought it was just as fun hiding those seeds as she did finding them!
With each pinch, pull, squeeze, and wiggle of her little fingers, fine motor muscles were being strengthened. Not all fine motor skills activities require pencils, markers, crayons, or scissors. Creating activities outside the box, like our Egg Cracking Activity, and Bead Drop Jar are some of our favorites!
I think that this Watermelon Fine Motor Seed Hunt will quickly climb to the top of our activity list that we do again and again though! And I cannot wait to share it with my preschoolers.
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