Today, since Shannon and Jaspreet noticed our new friend Emma was trying to pull the tape off the cardboard blocks and pictures hanging on our windows, Shannon wondered if she would enjoy a tape activity to explore. It was ball reaching, which is where you tape balls at different heights on the wall with painters’ tape so the infants can pull the balls off and practice balance by pulling themselves up and reaching to grab high ones.
Emma, Beau, Ari and Atlas could easily pull the balls off the wall and the tape. Each infant felt the sticky texture of the tape but Beau wasn’t a fan as the tape kept getting stuck to his fingers. Beau discovered that if he shook his hand fast enough the tape would fly off. Emma explored the balls by kicking them and chasing them when they rolled away, and tried sticking them back onto the wall. Beau got two balls stuck together by the tape and used his gross motor skills to pull them apart.
Beau tried to stretch up to reach the highest orange ball, but discovered something that was more enjoyable. Beau would push the ball in his hand on the wall and it would pop up and fly away in the air. This made Beau laugh and repeat this action. Beau would pass Shannon the tape so she stuck it onto her forehead. Beau would pull it off and then copied by sticking it to his own forehead.
Ari pulled some off and tried to stick it back up onto the wall, but he preferred to push the ball making it roll then army crawled on his stomach to go get it.
Atlas pulled off each ball and threw it watching each ball bounce across the floor. Atlas got to the last highest ball and stretched up high. She then looked at Shannon and signed, "help." Shannon said, “Move a bit closer,” and with assistance Atlas moved closer to the wall. Atlas smiled and tried again reaching up high and got it. Then instead of taking the tape off Atlas was pushing the tape flat onto the wall. After she pulled it off, she passed it to Shannon who gathered it into a ball. Finally, Atlas pulled one piece at a time out of the tape ball and stuck it back to the wall.
The next day we continued our tape textured fun will balls covered in tape, sticky side out!
