Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Pom pom sorting

So, I'm not the only one who has this happen when I try to cook?

Emptying out of the cupboards

Or this?

Emptying out of the tissue box

It happens to us all, right!? (please say yes!) Well the easiest way to keep my little one entertained is to give her some things to 'cook' herself. I keep a ziplock bag full of pom poms in the kitchen cupboard right for these moments (and trust me, you want them in a ziplock bag!)
If she wants something to do while I get dinner on, then all I need to do is take out some pots and pans and wooden spoons and she can cook her own little masterpiece!

Mixing and stirring with wooden spoons and whisks are her fave, but you could also use scoops, tongs, jugs, etc (NOTE: If your child likes to mouth things you might want to keep an eye on them the first time they use pom poms to 'cook'!)

When we do this activity together we also spend time talking about the colours (she remembered "yellow" from the other day!) and sort them out using muffin trays (I've also seen people use ice cube trays or egg cartons)

At 16 months she doesn't do this herself yet, we talk about each colour and sort them out together

She also spends time practicing her fine motor skills by pushing pom poms into a container. I used an empty punnet of strawberries and cut a cross on the lid. She loves to push them all in then open it up and tip them all out again.

  

This activity used to be one of my Ladybugs favourites but she is beginning to grow out of it now and doesn't ask to do it as much, so I thought I had better get a post done quick before she moves on to new things with it... As she gets older we will begin doing trickier activities like creating patterns and sequences:

You could use pom poms to create patterns and ask your child to follow the sequence

Or using them as counters like this


There are many other variations of this activity you could try to mix things up a bit. Check out these blogs for a bit of inspiration:

Toddler pom pom push by Learn with Play at Home 
Surprise pom pom sorting by Toddler Approved

Easy peasy travel game by Just For Daisy


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