Pincer Grasp Activity: Clipping clothes pins with felt Ka'abas onto a box

Assalamu alaikum,

Hajj is coming insha'Allah. At first, I told myself that I would not do much here on the blog for Hajj because alhamdulillah, there is a plethora of Hajj activities for children already out there. But then I decided that I do want to do something here for the kids insha'Allah because a lot of what is out there is for children older than the 0-3 age range.

As you know the whole 15 month old threading activity went right into the mouth (literally) of the 'almost-15-month old'...hehe...so I said, "okay, let's try something else insha'Allah, just in case after a few days the yarn is still of no interest and the Cheerios continue to find their way into the mouth of the 'almost-15-month old'" (smile).  Then Hajj came back into my mind and I decided to do an activity that 15 months old can do and is related to Hajj insha'Allah and children who are almost 15 months old can do too insha'Allah.

This activity is for developing the pincer grasp insha'Allah. Again, that is important for children to practice because it will be needed for writing skills that will develop later insha'Allah. The pincer grasp is something that Allah Created the human being with. These types of activities only serve to give the child practice in developing it so that they have ample opportunities to work on refining this important skill insha'Allah.  You can read more about the pincer grasp here insha'Allah.

Here is the activity insha'Allah:

The clothes pins have little felt Ka'abas on them

(The first thing I was asked by the first person who saw them was, "What is that supposed to be?" *sigh*...well, insha'Allah if you do this activity perhaps your Ka'abas will be far better than mine...hehe)

A close up view of how they look when the child begins clipping them onto the box insha'Allah

The box the child uses for the activity is also where the pieces are stored insha'Allah

I painted (with a non-toxic black marker) one of the clothes-pins black to show how that would look but for ours I will not do so because for many 12-15 month old children what is in the hand must, by necessity, go into the mouth. If your child does not do that then I must admit the clothes-pin does look nice painted black masha'Allah.

For the box used, do not decorate it as you do not want decorations or varying colours competing for the child's attention while doing the activity insha'Allah. Also, as I learned this morning when doing this activity, glue the Ka'aba on the clothes pin higher up than what I did. This way the child can see the bottom of the clothes pin as he/she is attempting to clip it to the box insha'Allah.

Enjoy insha'Allah!