Beading with My Little Girl – Building Fine Motor Skills

I have to say I just love shopping for craft supplies with my little girl and finding projects to do with her. She loves to go shopping and is always interested in almost anything I tell her we’re doing. Now add to this that she is the girliest girly girl ever, when I tell her we’re going to buy supplies to make jewelry, she was over the moon and couldn’t wait to get started.

It’s something I wanted to do with her for a while as it’s great for helping her build her fine motor skills. Also, she had recently acquired another beaded necklace so it was on my mind again. When I asked her if she’d like to make her own, she was all too eager.

Of course, we headed over to Michaels (because where else would I go?) and picked up some beads and cord to use. She had so much fun picking out the different beads to buy.

Here’s what she picked out:

I have to say, I particularly liked these the best. Something about the nice metallic colors really spoke to me. In the end, when we were actually making the jewelry, in typical three-year-old fashion, my daughter didn’t want to use any of these. Ah well, more for Mommy.

I’m glad we found this box as it’s super useful, contained and we can add more beads when/if we need. She liked these the best and used a lot of these when she was stringing them on the cord.

She like these too and used a good bit of them. She seemed to like how they matched and complimented the smaller beads from the box.

She particularly liked the letter beads best and kept calling them “dice” (what can I say, we play a lot of board games at my house and she’s obsessed).

For the cord, I went with a plastic stretchy cord as that should work best for her getting necklaces and such on and off easily. I picked up the thickest they had (1 mm) as I’ve had bad experience with thinner ones wearing out and tearing.

We both had such a great time designing and beading some necklaces and bracelets. She did really well stringing the beads and sat at the table doing it for almost and hour.

It’s such a great activity to help little hands with their dexterity and fine motor skills and.

I also took the time to make her a quick necklace and a bracelet with her name on it (you can see her wearing them in a couple of the photos above.

Once upon a time, I used to make beaded jewelry and tried selling them. I managed to sell only a few pieces and then ended up giving up. Sadly, I didn’t motivate myself enough to really push for it further and all the pieces I made ended up getting lost over the years. I still have some remaining tools and beads. Who knows, maybe I’ll try it again some day. I actually still have a few pieces that I still wear, so there’s that.

In the end, she didn’t quite have the patience to make a complete necklace or bracelet, but she did have loads of fun stringing the beads. We’ll absolutely be doing this again. It keeps her occupied, quiet and it’s great practice.

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