6 fun & simple ideas for toddler fun with pom poms
A while ago I made Eva some fluffy homemade pom poms and I was amazed at what she figured out to do with them. Below you’ll find 6 of Eva’s favourite things to do with her pom poms from when she was about 18 months old, but you can also find a ton of other inspiration on pinterest, though I find that most of them fall into one of the six categories below. Except anything involving glue or paint.
Tips: If you don’t have pom poms lying around you could make your own like I did, or use something else for some of the activites instead like Lego Duplo for size and colour sorting or cotton balls for praticing using pinzers and spoons.
1. Putting, stuffing, sqeeuzing and pouring them in different containers
So super simple, but one of Eva’s favourite things to do with her pom poms. She likes to put them in everything from old jars, bowls or empty water bottles to stuffing them into socks or down her shirt. Anything can be used as long as it can contain the pom poms. Sometimes she just shifts them from one container to another and other time she practices pouring them or sqeeuzes them through a tight container. Who knew little balls of cotton could be so entertaining?
2. Colour and size sorting
Sometimes Eva will start sorting the pom poms on her own. Othertimes she might need a bit of encouragement like placing a pom pom of each colour/size in different containers and asking her to help sort them accordingly. Since we don’t own a ton of different coloured bowls I’ve also tried coloruing circles on white paper in the different colours of the pom poms and asking her to sort them into the circles – and with great success.
3. Pom pom drop
This activity requires a little bit of preperation from Mum or Dad, but is well worth the two mintue investment in taping one or more empty toilet paper rolls onto the all and placing a container underneath. Just show your toddler how to put a pom pom into the hole on top and they’ll quickly follow suit. I’m not sure why this is so entertaing, but for some reason it can entertain a toddler for quite a while. After a while Eva started experimenting with putting the pom poms through the hole in the bottom and seemed quite content to find out, that it would not come out the other way. A short lesson on gravity.
In the photo below Eva has painted the paper rolls we used, but there’s really no need to for this activity. Though it was still a fun activity on its own!
4. Use them as food in play kitchen
I left the pom poms put one day. Usually I remember to put them back in the cupboard so Eva won’t become bored with them, but this time I’d forgotten. Eva grabbed the chance and decided to incorporate the pom poms into her play kitchen using them as food, pouring the pom poms onto the plates and into her cups, stirring them around in her pots and pans and in the end pretending to eat them (while of course offering her teddy a snack as well). I’ve have since then let her play with the pom poms in her play kitchen on several other occasions and she still loves it.
5. Practice using a pinzers and spoons
All of the other ideas can be made more challenging by using a spoon, pinzers or maybe even a cloth pin to grab the pom poms with instead of your toddler using his or her’s hands. It’s easy to forget how challenging it can be to use a set of pinzers when you’ve been doing it for years, but it can really be quite the challenge for a toddler still learning to use her fine motor skills.
6. Balancing/placing them on small areas
Draw a few dots on a piece of paper or find some smaller objects (that you’re sure your toddler won’t try to put in their mouth or choke on) and show your little on how to place them on top of the dots or objects. The younger the toddler, the bigger the challenge. I think I’ll try to make some drawings in the near future using the same colours as the pom poms and let Eva decorate them with the pom poms. Just simple line drawings like a smily or frowny face. I have a feeling she would love to decorate a face or two.