Pom poms. Who knew they could provide lots of fun fine motor play for a preschooler? For those that need to stay at home and keep their little ones busy, pom poms are a great medium. If you’re looking for an activity to keep your toddler busy or keep your preschooler busy, read on. All of these activities are mess-free and were a great way to pass the day. These pom pom activities cost me only one dollar (for the pompoms) and everything else I had around the house.
5 Simple Pom Pom Activities to Do with Your Toddler
My criteria for a successful activity mostly involves a ratio between set up time, to time played, where a 1:10 ratio is pretty much amazing….and that’s what we had on this fine day!
Last week we were home for many days in a row. Luckily, I had happened to pick up a bag of pompoms at the dollar store, and Little N found them under the stroller and brought them to me, asking for an activity. So we hopped on the computer and this is what we came up with.
1 Pom Poms Through Toilet Paper Rolls
Putting pom-poms through toilet paper rolls taped on the wall! Just use masking tape or painters tape to put some paper towel rolls or toilet paper rolls on the wall. We experimented with different sized containers and their positioning. Big hit in that it took 2 minutes to set up and kept him entertained for about 15.
2 Sorting Pom Poms by Color in a Muffin Tin
Sorting by color into a muffin tin. Another hit. We then went over the names of the colors together. To collect them back into the bowl, I called out the colors and he would find the correct one.
3 Putting Pom Poms Through a Hole in a Container
The idea came from mimicking the fine motor skill of putting coins into a coin bank. The only thing the set up involved was cutting a hole into a recycled container. This seemed like it was a little too easy and maybe he would get bored, but on the contrary, Little N actually loved it. This time when we were taking the pom-poms out of the container, we counted together.
4 Practice with Chopsticks
Our next activity was practice with chopsticks. Little N re-sorted the pom poms into the muffin tin by color, and then used the chopsticks to transfer and collect the pom-poms. This was nice for some fine motor practice and because he could do this entirely on his own.
5) Gluing onto paper
For our final activity, we were able to use our pom poms for crafting. At first I just put a ton of glue on a piece of cardstock and left him to make his own design but he was not really into it. So instead, I drew a caterpillar for him with circles, and he much preferred having a designated area to glue them on. He actually asked for more drawings, so we went on to make a flower and an elephant!
As you can see, it we managed to make a lot of activities out of one bag of pom poms. It was great practice for counting, identifying colors, and of course numerous fine motor skills and creativity.
