The One Drop Work

What you see here is the one-drop work. The child will use an eye dropper or small baster and attempt to put one singe drop into the shallow paint pallet. We color the water blue so that the child can see their progress as they continue their work all the way around the pallet.. sooo carefully. The purpose is to concentrate on dropping one tiny drop at a time, as you can see Perrin doing here. When the work is complete, the next satisfying step is to slowly go around cleaning the one drop from the palette with a cotton ball. This prepares the pallete for the next round of drops, or another friend who would like to try. This is easy to set up in the home, and can entice your little one to slow down and concentrate on an interesting purposeful activity.

Invite the child to have a turn.
Have the child clean the pallet using the cotton ball
Return the tray to the shelf.
Check the table and floor for spills. Clean if necessary.
Return aprons.
Invite the child to work with the exercise whenever he/she wishes to.
Invite the child to the shelf. Introduce the exercise. Show how to carry the exercise. Invite the child to carry the work to their table.
Explain the need for aprons. Put aprons on.
Place the tray at the top of the child’s table.
Introduce the exercise to the child.
Remove the materials from the tray. In order of usage. Introduce each piece of equipment as you go along.
Reintroduce the exercise to the child.
With both hands using three finger grip, pick up the eye dropper by the bulb.
Hold the eye dropper in front of the child. Squeeze the eye dropper three times. Each time saying, “squeeze”.
Squeeze the eye dropper once more. Insert the tip of the eye dropper into the bowl of water. Slowly release the bulb. With index finger of SDH, point out the tiny drop
Lift eye dropper straight up.
Repeat the above process until you have made tiny drops around the entire pallet
Check for spills and clean if necessary.
Point out the tiny drops and any drops that had just a tad too much water

POINT OF INTEREST

Water not being sucked up by the eye dropper.
Any spills in the work area.
Seeing drops that are too big
Squeezing the eye dropper under water so that bubbles form.
Eye dropper touching the bottom of the bowl preventing any water from being sucked up.