Pom Pom Playtime

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I bought a whole bag of pom poms for our pom pom stuffing toy, and decided to do something with the rest of them. I found this idea, and thought it looked like fun, so here we go. 

Let's gather our supplies:

-Pom poms

-Muffin pan

We dumped out the whole bag of pom poms into a muffin tin, and I sorted them by color while saying the color names. Erik doesn't really understand the color part yet, but he's got to start somewhere. After that, I just sat back and let him do whatever he wanted with the pom poms (other than eating them). He carried handfuls of them around the living room, put them inside any opening he could find to poke them into, and just had a ball. They do end up all over the place, but it wasn't too hard to pick them back up. Erik even got involved and thought it was fun to put them back in their baggie. 

We've done this activity more than once now, and he still loves it. One time, when I needed him out from under foot while I was cooking, I gave him the pom poms and a few pots, bowls, cups, etc and let him "cook" too. He thought it was great. He was right by me without being in the way, and he got to be doing the same thing as me (or close enough for him anyway). One tip for making cleanup easier: if the room is already clean than it's much easier to find all the pom poms, unlike when there are toys and things for them to get mixed up with and hidden by. Also, these could potentially be a choking hazard so be smart and watch your little one closely. 

This was a great activity for Erik to practice his fine motor skills. He had to use a pincer grasp to pick up the smallest ones, and he will often hold one or two in his hand while picking up more with the same hand. That takes some coordination and practice! Eventually, as he gets a little older, the sorting part of this activity will play a bigger role. We can use this for learning colors or sizes. 

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.