The goal of any activity is to practice and build skills in the developmental areas.  Activities can be planned by the caregiver or can happen naturally in response to what the children are doing.  At Little Charms, the following activities will be applied: 

Creative Art Activities:  The purpose is to allow children to use their imaginations, express ideas/feelings, experiment and explore in their own way.  Examples of creative art activities are finger painting, colouring, and gluing on paper; making puppets; using paper towel rolls; chalk drawing on sidewalk

Sensory Manipulative Activities:  The five senses of touch, taste, smell, vision, and hearing are their information-gathering tools.  They use these senses to gather physical knowledge about their world, learning about the properties of all objects around them.  Children must explore before learning to combine and manipulate to make things.  Examples include playing in the snow; water play; planting flowers; exploring trees, leaves, rocks, etc. in the park; collecting leaves, pine cones; making shakers from juice jugs with handles

Fine Motor Cognitive Activities:  The child’s growing ability to use small muscles of his hands in a coordinated way.  It is known as the “into everything” stage of development, exploring all the relationships of space, shape, size, and mechanics - putting the universe into logical order.  Examples include reading books; puzzles and stacking blocks; using scissors; and using various fine motor or cognitive toys

Gross Motor Activities:  The development of the large muscles of the body (arms and legs and trunk), is the most visible aspect of development.  Examples include playing with balls; large boxes to make cars; shovels and buckets; pull and push toys; riding toys; chasing bubbles; tunnels; obstacle courses

Dramatic Play Activities:  Also known as pretend play or make-believe, this kind of play is enjoyable for children and is extremely valuable for their development.  Dramatic play develops emotional, social, language and cognitive skills.  Examples include playing dress up with stuffed animals; playing doctor, firefighter, construction worker

Music and Movement Activities:  Children actually sing before they talk.  Music has important social aspects, is a cultural experience, and provides them with cognitive benefits as well.   Examples include singing or finger plays; pots and pans band; dancing to music; environmental sounds (eg. water, birds, ducks, etc.)