Pom Pom Pull
The pom pom pull is a great activity for improving finger strength and dexterity and encouraging bilateral coordination. Little ones also need to problem solve as they work out how to position their fingers to grasp each pom pom, and different sized pom poms will require different pulling strengths to remove them.
At this age, children love containing things so providing them with a small dish or container will add an extra bit of interest to the activity and hopefully hold their focus for that little bit longer.
We initially tried this activity at 11 months, but our son was not able to coordinate the two hands. We tried again at 17 months and he really enjoyed it! We also tried the same activity with our daughter at a similar age and she never took to it so it just goes to show how different each child is.
Materials:
Whisk
Various sizes of pom poms
Container
How to set up:
Take an egg whisk, preferably one that is not too large and heavy.
Stuff the whisk with a variety of sizes of pom poms. Be careful not to over stuff as this will make it harder to remove the first few.
Demonstrate how to hold the whisk in one hand and pull out a pom pom with the other and place it in the dish.
Our son was 17 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.