Developing Ball Skills
Toddlers love to play with balls and they come in many different sizes, textures and shapes. Balls are AMAZING, because children can use them in so many ways - ways that change as children gain new skills and discover what they can do with them.
For younger children, ball play can help them to develop many physical skills such as gripping and grasping skills, development of hand and finger muscles, hand-eye coordination and the ability to move objects from one hand to another. It also encourages the tracking of the eyes and supports thinking skills.
Treasure basket
Start by creating a treasure basket suitable for children to explore the properties of the different types of balls.
Bouncing
Using light balls or balloons encourage your child to bounce them off the ground as high as they can.
Next try introducing a washing basket and bounce the balloon or ball into the basket.
How many balloons will fit in?
Posting
Using old cardboard tubes or spare down piping, fix them to radiators using coloured tape.
Using the selection of balls collected from the treasure basket see which will fit down the tubes.
How long do they take to go through the tube, do the textured balls take longer? Do they bounce at the bottom?
Explore and have fun!
Additional Resources
