Try out this fun fine motor activity today. It will help your toddler not only to develop their whole arm but also their hand muscles. Furthermore, it helps your toddler to improve eye-hand coordination, develop pincer grip and strengthen dexterity.
Materials
This fine motor ball activity is still low-prep and it requires only two materials:
- A small rubber bouncy ball, that you can buy even in a vending machine, and
- A transparent plastic bottle with cap.
So, the only thing that you need to do is to cut out a hole in the plastic bottle. First, you can outline the shape and then cut it out with utility knife (blade cutter). Make sure, that the edges of the cutout are smooth and safe to touch. Your little one will probably try to put their hands in the bottle though the cutout to get the ball.
Note, that the cut out needs to be in particular big enough to get the ball into the bottle, but not bigger, so the ball remains in the bottle.
Bounce in the bottle – Fine Motor Activity
Finally, you can hand over the transparent bottle with the ball inside to your little one and let them figure out how to get the ball out of the bottle. However, if the ball bounces out of the bottle, be sure that they will search for a way to get the ball back into the bottle. Thus, the activity goes over and over again and can be repeated daily.
Our little one tried several times to “drink” the ball after shaking it for quite some time. And he was very delighted that it was “stuck” in the bottle.
The cap adds some extra benefits to the activity, as your little one will try to open and close the bottle several times.
You can variate the activity in different ways. For example, you can also add further balls in the bottle with slightly different sizes and colours.
Happy Playing!
Looking for more fun fine motor activities? Check out these today.