Years ago, my co-teacher came up with this work while browsing through a dollar store. It met all of the qualifications for a toddler classroom — interesting materials, promoting fine motor skills, and most important on a classroom budget, cheap! I bought these materials months ago and was waiting for the right moment to introduce them at home.
Right around the time N was about to be born, I noticed that L was becoming bored with the trays on her practical life shelf. I looked in my materials closet and found this and decided to give it a try. I wasn’t sure if L would have the fine motor control and hand-eye coordination necessary to complete this work successfully, but I was pleasantly surprised.
I put unsharpened pencils in a basket and added a small container of pencil eraser caps. When L discovered the work on the shelf and brought it to the table, I showed her how to put one eraser on the end of a pencil. She quickly caught on and did a few by herself. L has chosen this work several times each day since I put it out.