In our Infant corner, Educator Linh has observed the infants enjoying playing with balls and tape. She set out an activity called, “Balls Rescue” to spark their interest. This activity provided a great opportunity for our little hands working on their pincer grasp! This experience was also fairly quick and simple to set up.
Educator Linh used some painter’s tape/masking tape to tape down the colourful balls down in a muffin tin, starting with a few balls and then filling the whole tin, and letting the babies go at it! To encourage learning, educators tried incorporate math by counting the balls out loud one by one, or use multi-coloured balls to identify colours. It’s a simple and fun learning activity that also strengthens important hand muscles, improves fine motor skills, and practices hand-eye coordination. In their experimenting, children will come up with their ideas, satisfy their curiosity and problem-solving.
Many of the infant friends started discovering by slowly touching the muffin tin. Carter was very curious about the sticky surface and would grab at it and pull his fingers away. He also experimented with pressing the sticky ball against other surfaces to see if they would stick, instead of to his own hands. You could almost see the thinking and sensory learning happen, which is always very heart warming.
We wonder what other ways we could use the balls and tape to foster this emerging interest.
