Practical Life + Art: Using a Dropper

Thanks to seasonal allergies and two year molar pain, Ty is no stranger to medicine lately. Luckily he's a kid who loves his medicine and will run into the kitchen ahead of you with his mouth gaping open, waiting for it (and whining if you take too long...what do they put in that stuff?!). All of this has led to interest in using the medicine dropper by himself and prompted me to start dropper work with him. Though the work associated with this seems to be color mixing, I wasn't sure how he would do with the concept of squeezing to suck the liquid up, so we made it more of an art activity to get some practice and see where he was. I fondly remember doing something similar when I worked in day care!

He learned how to suck the water into the dropper pretty quickly, and already knew how to release it. Not a lot of instruction was necessary.

The trouble came when one of the glasses spilled. Oops. Then came purposely dumping the other two all over the tray...

I was a bit frustrated with this, but bit my tongue and started again. I know he isn't being "naughty", just experimenting with his world. Toddlers don't have total impulse control. Yet again he dumped a glass on purpose. so I figured I would stop and show him how paper towels soak-up water. We put several paper towels over the wet mess, one at a time, patting the them to see the pretty water come up through.

He then enjoyed nesting the empty glasses. Though activities don't always go perfectly as planned, especially with little ones, something useful usually comes out of it!

We hung the paper towels over our shower curtain and by the end of the day we had a very colorful addition to Ty's bulletin board!