Sweetlings: Work On Small Hand Coordination While Having Fun
Disclaimer: This sponsored conversation on Sweetlings was written by me on behalf of Alex Brands. I was also sent the Sweetlings to use for this post, still all opinions and text are my own. This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
For some kids small hand coordination comes easily. For other kids like my son Nick it can be a struggle. It is something that we work on in our house daily, and I love finding ways to help Nick work on it that aren’t just tracing or cutting lines. Toys are an especially good way to trick him into working on it, and I found Sweetlings to be really good for that!
Sweetlings: Work on Small Hand Coordination While Having Fun!
If you’ve read some of my other blog posts in the past than you’re probably aware that my son Nick never developed a dominant hand which causes him to struggle with things such as writing and cutting. He is finally starting to favor his right hand though, which means that now we need to work on building up the strength in that hand.
Getting Nick to do that isn’t always easy though. Sitting around pinching putty doesn’t get a six year old very excited. I do what I can to make it fun, but it isn’t always easy.
That’s why I was excited when I was asked to review Sweetlings. I had heard about them some already and I felt that they would be a great way to help Nick work on his small hand coordination.
What are Sweetlings?
If you haven’t heard about them yet you’re probably wondering about what Sweetlings are. They are a fun new product for kids that is both a unique craft and collectable toy all rolled into one! It really is a neat concept.
There are several different Sweetling toy play sets to choose from. With each of the sets kids get to “frost” their own food themed toy. Most of the characters are based on cupcakes, but there are also ice cream cone and donut characters as well. Each set comes with whipped clay, sprinkles, and other fun items to decorate with.
Once kids are done with decorating you put the new Sweetling character aside and let it dry over night. Then in the morning the clay is dry and kids have a fun new toy to play with! Many of the Sweetling sets also come with fun backdrops that kids can decorate and later use in their make believe play!
How Sweetlings Build Small Hand Coordination
Creating the Sweetlings characters is so good for working on small hand coordination. Between squeezing the tubes of clay and applying the small decoration items kids are constantly building up their hand strength while they design their Sweetlings!
Sweetlings are recommended for kids 6 and up, and you can understand why when you go to make them. Using the whipped clay to get a decorative look can be tricky for even a 6 year old. Nick was able to squeeze the clay out, but he couldn’t keep it going to give a continuous decorative look.
You can see that a bit when you look at the teal bunny (I think it looks like a bunny) cupcake toy Nick designed. That was the first one we did and Nick did some of the clay on that one by himself. His technique was a bit gloppy though, so my mother helped finish it up and then did the clay part on the other characters for him.
Even though Nick struggled a bit with the clay he did a great job pinching the small decorative items and placing them on his character. The tweezers that the kit came with the Sweetlings Sprinkle Shop didn’t really work for him, but honestly just pinching the items was still really good practice. I was really impressed with how well he did with that part actually.
Final Thoughts on Sweetlings
In the end I was really glad that we got a chance to try Sweetlings out. Nick had a lot of fun making them. He often can get very frustrated when working on hand strengthening, but he never got to that point with these. Even squeezing the clay didn’t bother him. He was truly more proud and excited about he was able to create.
Not every child needs to improve their small hand coordination as much as Nick does, but a large number of early elementary school kids could certainly benefit from the small hand work that Sweetlings provide. Plus they are a great way to help your child’s imagination and creativity flow.
Want to learn more about Sweetlings? Click on the banner below to check out all of the available products and to watch some videos on them. You can also find out which retailers near you carry Sweetlings!
