Our exploration into Hama Beads started when my daughter was aged 5. She struggled to concentrate on any task, had poor fine motor control and lacked any inclination to finish a task.
I bought a set of beads, hoping to engage her in them and was astounded by the effect they had.

She was fascinated, filling board after board with beads, initially with no pattern i could discern but clearly absorbed in the task. Tiny set of beads were flowers, sets of 3 colours were mingled on endless geometric boards, slowly she began to explore shape by working with the geometric pegboards.

One of the great advantages of a value for money craft like this is that apparently “pointless” shape filling is not costly; relaxing and allowing a child to experiment and fill boards, even beyond any apparent use or reason, is acceptable. I kept boxes of my daughters early work, fascinated by the careful efffort she put into them.

By the time Fran was six we were exploring themes using these beads; flags, animals, pattern, countries. Two of our most notable projects was an exploration of African animals and making a set of 3D boxes depicting flags of Europe. The multicoloured elephant was my daughters first really thoguhht out project; i have always thought him beautiful!

There are instructions for the African Map Project on BeadMerrily and free animal patterns too. We had an awful lot of fun doing this; it still hangs on our wall and has featured in a BBC documentary!

The main educational benefits of Hama Beads are

* simple tool for improving fine motor control

* tool for learning colour, shape, pattern, counting

*imaginative play

*design concepts

* pattern following, patience, concentration

*opportunity to have a cheap, easily available, easily stored craft material that lends itself to a wide variety of themes and exploration

It is amazing how children grow and their abilities change; my 7 and 6 year old recently produced these designs, counting and copying carefully from a set of complicated patterns. What skills they have gathered since their first tentative steps into the world of Hama!