My children are older, so be sure your child is ready for this activity before you introduce it to him. If he's too young to manage the sticks on his own, perhaps pick up the little-kid cheater grips from your local sushi restaurant.
Materials needed: Dollar Tree cookie tray, ice cube tray, small loaf pan, Dollar tree puff balls and package of chop sticks, construction paper or foam to line the tray.
How to:
1. Set up tray as shown.
2. Using one of the extra sets of chopstick in the pack, review the proper way to hold chopsticks. Allow child to copy your hands with his own pair and practice the grasp until firm.
3. Demonstrate slowly transferring the puffs from the pan to the ice cube tray.
4. Once the child feels comfortable, you can suggest that he sort them by color.
If you don't have a chopstick trainer and your sushi/chinese places don't carry them (ours don't) you can fake one by rolling or folding a 1" piece of paper until it's a cylinder about a centimeter wide, then putting it near the back end of the chopsticks, between the sticks, and wrapping a rubber band around it so that it holds the sticks together and open.
ReplyDeleteLike this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Chopsticks-for-kids/#step1