Age: 4 to 5 years

GET READY: Look around your house (grandmas have the best stuff!) for two small pretty bowls and a small pair of tongs (like the kind used for vegetables or sugar). Look at a craft store or dollar store for a bag of at least ten small eggs. Find a tray or plate large enough to hold it all.

GET SET: Place ten eggs into one bowl. The tray confines the space for the activity and promotes focusing on one area.

SIT BACK AND WATCH YOUR CHILD GROW: Show your child how to move the eggs from one bowl to the other using the little tongs. This may seem like a very simple activity to you but, for a child, the muscle control needed to use the small tongs on the very small eggs is just developing. He needs lots of practice, and this is just the activity to make it happen!

AS YOUR CHILD GROWS: Keep challenging him by replacing the eggs with marbles, beads, acorns or pompoms. Replace one of the bowls with a divided container (like an ice cube tray). Replace the tongs with tweezers.

YOUR CHILD WILL LOVE: Using the tongs; the challenge of holding the eggs without dropping them; the beautiful bowls; counting to ten; hearing the sound of the eggs as they drop into the bowl; seeing the contrast between the empty bowl and the full bowl.

YOU WILL LOVE: Watching the independence develop before your eyes; seeing your child’s intent concentration; hearing your child master concepts like full, empty, done, etc.