🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 🧠 Executive Function — Planning an activity, following multi-step directions, and seeing a project through to completion builds the executive function skills — working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control — that are the strongest predictors of school success.
- 🏃 Gross Motor Development — Large-movement activities develop the coordination, balance, and muscle strength that underpin physical confidence and school-readiness fitness.
- 🧩 Problem Solving — Working through a challenge — figuring out how pieces fit, how to balance a stack, or how to make something work — develops the perseverance and logical reasoning skills children use across every learning domain.
- 🤝 Social Skills — Activities done with others — siblings, classmates, or parents — teach children how to take turns, negotiate, collaborate, and read social cues that form the basis of healthy relationships.
By Julie Pirkle
Preschoolers love baking, but oftentimes recipes are too complicated or time consuming. Whipping up chocolate dipped treats will be right up your preschooler’s alley. Chocolate-dipped treats are not only tasty, but fun and simple to make too! You’ll want to make plenty of these delectable chocolate treats. Preschoolers will be so proud of their concoctions that they’ll want to share them with all their friends.
What You Will Need
Melting Chocolate
Pretzels, Fruit Slices, Ritz Crackers, etc.
Sprinkles
Tongs
Wax Paper
Cookie Sheet
What to Do
Step 1:
Line cookie sheet with wax paper.
Step 2:
Melt chocolate in the microwave per package instructions.
Step 3:
Have your preschooler choose a food item to dip in the melted chocolate.
Step 4:
Equip your preschooler with the tongs, and instruct him/her to use them to dip the treat he/she chose into the melted chocolate, coating evenly.
Step 5:
Shake off excess chocolate.
Step 6:
Move chocolate dipped treat to wax paper-lined cookie sheet.
Step 7:
Immediately shake a few sprinkles onto freshly dipped chocolate treat if desired.
Step 8:
Repeat steps 4 through 7 until the space on the cookie sheet has been filled.
Step 9:
Put chocolate-coated treats in the refrigerator until firm.
Step 10:
Enjoy!
Chocolate Dipping Variation
Instead of edible treats, follow the same steps and dip the tips of plastic spoons into the chocolate. Wrap up in saran wrap and tie with a bow for a sweet gift or serve with hot chocolate.
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Establish a predictable cleanup routine rather than reacting to mess with visible frustration — your emotional response to mess teaches the child's relationship to mess. Contain messy activities to mess-appropriate spaces (outside, a table covered with a vinyl cloth, the bathtub). Make cleanup part of the activity, not a punishment for making it. Children who participate in cleanup develop responsibility; children who are sent away while adults clean up in frustration learn that making things is risky.
New activities need low-pressure introduction. Set the activity up invitingly and let the child approach at their own pace — forcing participation in new activities creates resistance. Joining the activity yourself (playing with the materials in their presence) is the most reliable way to ignite curiosity. A child who watches a parent enjoy something usually wants to try it.
