Fruit Loops are colorful and delicious, and now they can be stylish too! This fun, easy activity has boundless learning potential and will adapt easily to your child’s age and ability.
Help your special needs child or toddler strengthen common developmental issues like hand-eye coordination and focus, help your math whiz practice sorting, counting, and patterns, and help your budding designer experiment with color and creativity!
Whether your child is one of these or all three, make snack time a rich and supportive educational experience! You will help them practice skills that they will use in school.
What You Need:
- Fruit Loops (or other donut-shaped cereal)
- Clean shoelaces with plastic ends for easy stringing
- 2 bowls (or more for sorting)
What You Do:
- Have your child pick out a clean shoelace (or string) to begin with and tie a knot at one end. The shoelace can be plain or choose a colored or patterned one for extra pizazz!
- Portion out Fruit Loops into two bowls: one to string and one to eat! For sorting practice, have your child help you put the cereal into six bowls, one for each color.
- Involve your child in the stringing process, depending on his/her age and ability. You can string one bracelet as he strings another, showing him how to do it as you go, you can take turns adding one Fruit Loop at a time to make a bracelet together, or your child can select Fruit Loops for you to string.
- When your child thinks the bracelet looks done, wrap it around his/her wrist to make sure it’ll fit without falling off. If the bracelet is too big, you may have to remove a Fruit Loop or two and save them for the next bracelet! Tie the ends of the string together, and voila! Your child’s edible, wearable art is complete.
- For extra math practice, encourage your child to make patterned bracelets with the different colors, or ask him if he can complete a pattern that you start. He can count how many Fruit Loops it takes to go around his wrist. Whose wrist takes more Fruit Loops: yours or your child’s?
