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This blog is here for you to find fun learning activities to do with your children. We share great ideas we find and love on the Internet, as well as ideas we come up with on our own! We also like to share resources we find helpful.

To find ideas for your child, click on the age range blog label or on the theme/topic you are looking for (on the left side of the page). In each post, we try to list optimal age ranges for the activity, but you must judge for yourself if it is appropriate for your child. When you try an activity out, please comment and let us (and everyone else) know how your child liked it!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Pompom Fun

This is by far one of my children's favorite activities to do. I often have them do this activity at the kitchen table while I make dinner.

AGE RANGE
12 months and up. This is for toddlers and older. You child just needs to be able to tell two different colors apart and be able to sort them. She doesn't need to be able to say the name of the colors, just recognize that they are different.

SKILLS DEVELOPED
  • Sorting
  • Colors

SUPPLIES

  • Pompoms in various colors. For the young toddler, use no more than three.
  • Containers to put the pom poms in (one for each color and one to hold them all). I just use tupperwear.

PREP

  1. Gather your pompoms.
  2. Gather your containers.
  3. Gather your children.

ACTIVITY

  1. Put the pompoms for your child to sort into a container, all mixed together.
  2. For younger toddlers, put one pompom into each container. For examle, if you were doing red, blue, and yellow, you would put on red into one container, one blue into another, and one yellow into another. For older children, you can let them start it out of you want.
  3. Have your child sort the remaining pompoms into the containers.

VARIATION

  • Use pompoms the same color and have your child sort by size.
  • Once your child is good at colors, use shades of the same color (light purple and dark purple).

PHOTOS

Here are the pompoms ready to be sorted for Brayden and Kaitlyn.


Brayden working on his sorting



Kaitlyn working on her sorting


I used to store the pompoms in a bag. This wsa good for storage, but it took a long time to sort everything out in the beginning.



Now I keep them in little bags inside the big bag. At the end of the activity, everything is sorted, so it is easy to keep the pompoms stored this way.
TIPS
  • Don't use too many pompoms. When you first start this activity, use just a few of each color. Add more as your child's attention span increases. What I show here for Brayden and Kaitlyn would be too many to start out with at first.

CREDIT

I got this idea from The Toddler's Busy Book (see Book Review: The Toddler's Busy Book for more on this book).

7 comments:

Raegan said...

I'm doing this today. I already had pompoms, so this is perfect. Great Table Time activity!
BTW, we made the countdown chain and it's been great!

Valerie Plowman said...

The countdown chain is seriously awesome. I don't get the "how many days until..." anymore. He just looks at the fridge. It also helps him to have something to do that day. It points his energy elsewhere :)

This pompom thing is awesome. You will love it. We did smelly jars yesterday. Brayden was so funny. He loved it and was laughing, then it got to be too much for him. He would plug his nose when he walked anywhere near them...and by that point I had them in a plastic bag. I think he has has a sensitive sense of smell. I am about to do smelly jars with Kaitlyn today.

Amanda said...

Ooh, we are totally going to do this tomorrow! I've got plenty of pom poms from our small spaces activity. We'll see how it goes, I'm not sure how well Tobias knows his colors.

Raegan said...

That's so funny Val! Let me know how it goes with Kaitlyn. Charis has a sensitive sense of smell, too. She does a little "gag-choke" whenever she smells something strong, good or bad. Mostly when I cook...not exactly the compliment I'm looking for. :)

Valerie Plowman said...

lol...not the compliment.

Kaitlyn really liked it. She wanted to do it over and over and over...and we did. She didn't consistently match the smells to the right card, but I think she will get it over time.

Brayden is super sensitive to smell and Kaitlyn is super sensitive to noise. I wonder what McKenna will be? :)

Amanda said...

Alright, we did the pom pom color matching activity and it went pretty well. Tobias was very confused at first and didn't know what I wanted from him. By the 2nd time we did it he had started to catch on that I wanted the green balls in the green jar and the purple balls in the purple jar. I was very impressed, this activity definitely pushed his capabilities and he sat thinking very hard with his brow furrowed :) Oh, and I used baby food jars that I re-labeled with green and purple paper.

Valerie Plowman said...

I love the idea of baby food jars with the paper around it! I might have to buy some baby food just so I can get the jars! lol.

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