Pasta Drop
The pasta drop is a fun fine motor activity for those who love posting. It lets little ones practice their pincer grasp, hand eye coordination, bilateral coordination, and problem-solving skills. This activity can also be done with pom poms, straws, and anything else that can fit through a bottle neck. For an extra challenge, use a variety of shapes and sizes so that they need to adjust their positioning each time.
Make sure to always supervise to avoid mouthing of small pieces.
Materials:
Empty bottle
Dried pasta
How to set up:
Spread out a selection of items for posting.
Take the empty bottle and demonstrate posting the pasta through the top.
To make it a bit easier you can begin by handing each piece to them. Once they are able to do this, encourage them to pick the pieces up themselves.
Our son was 13 months old in this video
Great for:
Hand-eye coordination is required in everyday tasks such as grasping objects, handwriting, playing games, eating and cooking. As with other body skills, hand-eye coordination can be practised and improved upon. This development begins in infancy.
Fine Motor Skills involve the small muscles working with the brain in order to control small movements. Developing fine motor skills helps children do things like eating, writing and getting dressed.
Bilateral coordination is when two sides of the body are being used at the same time to carry out an activity. Many daily self-care and play activities require bilateral coordination skills including eating, getting dressed, tying shoelaces, playing sports, running, walking and skipping.
Focus and concentration help children to learn. Most skills are learned by practising them over and over, so being able to block out distractions and focus on particular tasks will help the rate in which they learn.