Do you remember the first funky friendship bracelet you made? Or maybe your best friend gave you one with both your names strung together on colourful beads. While these pretty trinkets stay etched in our minds forever, learning to make them also teaches us beading skills that stay with us.
From friendship bracelets and junk jewellery to sewing and craft therapy, there are a lot of benefits in learning to thread beads together. Many of these can be enjoyed across our lives, but young children stand to benefit the most from this activity.
So if you have a toddler or preschooler who enjoys crafting, this week’s Co-Create activity is perfect for you! Read on to find out how you can make a zero-cost beading activity at home and spend some artsy quality time with your little one!
Benefits of Roll & Bead Rainbow Hair
This week’s activity is brought to you by Disha Shah, a DIY blogger and mom to 3-year-old Tvisha. You can see Disha’s previous Co-Create activities here.
This game is called Roll & Bead Rainbow Hair and is just as fun to make as it is to play since it gives your child a chance to cut, draw, and get creative! The benefits it offers include:
1. Improves fine motor skills: Holding and stringing the beads will better your child’s palm muscles, finger strength, and overall fine motor skills.
2. Hones hand-eye coordination: Inserting each bead into a pipe cleaner will strengthen their visual perception and hand-eye coordination.
3. Helps with bilateral coordination: Working with both hands to insert the beads into the pipe cleaners will teach them to use both sides of their body simultaneously.
4. Sharpens number skills: Counting the number on the dice and picking those many beads will help your child learn numbers and counting.
5. Strengthens cognitive skills: Deciding on how many beads to string on each pipe cleaner and then doing so will improve their cognitive skills like planning and execution.
6. Develops social and emotional skills: Playing the game with friends or siblings will teach them to work in groups and develop the social etiquette to play together.
7. Boosts confidence: Completing the game and keeping the cute face as decor in their own room will give them a sense of accomplishment.
8. Soothes the mind: Threading beads can also be a calming activity for when your toddler is agitated and needs some downtime.
Creating the Roll & Bead Game
Age recommendation:
This activity can be enjoyed by children between 2.5 to 5 years.
Materials required:
1. A piece of cardboard
2. A pair of kids’ scissors and a punching machine
3. A black marker
4. Dice
5. Different coloured pipe cleaners
6. Colourful beads
How to create the game:
1. Take the cardboard and cut it into a large circle.
2. Draw a happy face on the cardboard with the marker.
3. Punch a few holes along the hairline with the punching machine.
4. Tie the coloured pipe cleaners onto these holes.
Playing with the Roll & Bead Rainbow Hair
The aim of the game is simple — roll the dice and put the respective number of beads in the coloured hair!
Once your child has learnt to play, you can sort the beads according to colours and match the beads with the hair colour too. After playing, you can even hang the piece up as decor in your child’s room.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this activity. If you would like to share your experience playing this game, tag us at #CoCreatewithshumee. Take care and stay safe!
Disha Shah is a DIY blogger who creates smart play ideas for children. You can follow her @momkid.smartplay on Instagram.