Threading - Why is it such a great activity for Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers?

Threading is a wonderful skill to introduce to your child around 18+ months, and there are so many fantastic resources on the market, plus around your home to support this learning.

But first... let's look at WHY threading is so great and what skills it helps develop.

1. Threading is fantastic for developing fine motor skills - those movements involving the hand and finger muscles. Threading requires a child to pick up resources, manipulate them and coordinate the movements.

2. Threading can strengthen hand and finger muscles meaning that children can do activities that require fine motor skills for a longer period of time.

3. Threading encourages children to use a pincer grip - where the first finger and thumb work together to hold something. This is an essential skill to develop for writing and drawing etc in the future.

4. Threading also encourages the development of gross motor skills, as it requires something called bilateral movement. This is the coordination of moving limbs across your body and is a necessary skill for lots of tasks in life. Bilateral coordination is also a way of strengthening brain connections!

5. Threading is a great activity to practise hand-eye coordination. This is when sight and hand movements are using simultaneously in order to complete a task successfully - another skill that's incredibly useful to have developed for everyday life tasks.

6. Threading can encourage the development of cognitive skills. For example: it can promote the skill of completing or creating patterns, colour matching, calculating measurements (if making something like a bracelet/necklace), as well as skills such as counting! It all just depends on the threading activity itself.

7. Threading is an activity that requires focus, concentration and resillience.

8. Threading can be used as a form of mindfullness. Often children find it quite a calming activity through its repetitive nature, its allowing-ness of creativity and the amount of focus it requires to do.

Great threading resources to buy:

- GRIMMS Threading Bobbins (Cheaper alternative: GALT Threading Cotton Reels)

- GRIMMS Threading Buttons (Cheaper alternative: GALT Threading Buttons)

- GRIMMS Threading Shapes

- Melissa & Doug Threading Set

- Tickit Threading Blocks

- Lacing Shapes

Threading resources from home:

- Shoelaces

- Curtain rings

- Pasta

- Beads

- Milk bottle tops (if you pierce a hole in them)

- Ribbons

- Elastic

- Nature finds (if you pierce a hole in them)

- Pipe cleaners

- O-shaped cereal

- Spaghetti (uncooked)

- Cardboard tube rings

- Play silks/ Sensory scarves

Plus so many more!

For threading activity ideas, head to The Play Space and take a look under 'Fine Motor Play'!

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