Pom Pom Pick-Up: A Fun Activity for Toddlers
Pom Pom Pick-Up is a fantastically fun game for kids of all ages. It’s also a great way to help toddlers and preschoolers develop important skills, which older kids can refine by playing too. You have to try it with your kiddos!
If you’re looking for a super-quick game to set up that will keep the little ones entertained, even on rainy days, then Pom Pom Pick-Up is a fun activity to try.
I tried this out with my girls – aged three and very nearly eight – and I’m not sure which one of them loved it more. In fact GinGin – my eldest – has asked to play Pom Pom Pick-Up everyday since we first played it.
It’s so simple. No mess. And it’s really quick and easy to set up. Perfect for impatient little ones.
Related: try making petal art with your kids too.
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What Is Pom Pom Pick-Up?
Pom Pom Pick-Up is a game that can be played by a single child, or a small group of kids playing together. It’s great for toddlers, preschoolers and older children too.
Just be sure to supervise younger children while they play, because those pom poms sure do look delicious to tiny tots.
The aim of the game is to sort a heap of multicoloured pom poms into a colour order of your choosing, by transferring them into pots, using only tweezers or tongs.
We used no spill paint pots, but you can use any kind of cups or bowls if you don’t have paint pots at home.
Add in a timed element to make this game more exciting and challenging for bigger kids.
Why Play Pom Pom Pick-Up?
This is such a fantastic game for toddlers, preschoolers and school-age children.
Important childhood developmental skills are encouraged, learned and practised by playing this brilliant pompom game.
Your child – or children – will need to show resilience and patience. They will need to concentrate and keep focussed to be able to achieve the aim of the game.
It’s a game that can be played together – so good for bonding and playing together. But it can also be played alone (depending on age, obviously!) so it’s also good for independent play.
What You’ll Need
One of the things I love most about this game is that you don’t need much to set it up. And it won’t cost you a fortune either!
In fact most of our best play ideas have been so simple. But they’re engaging, active and often child-led. And that’s the key to what our children really enjoy.
Anyway, for this game all you’ll need is:
- pom poms – I like these ones because there are different colours and sizes. This pack also comes with googly eyes, which you can use for other fun learning and play ideas!
- easy grip tweezers – make sure the ones you choose are chunky so little hands can grip onto them
- non-spill paint pots – ones with coloured lids work best for colour sorting activities
- plastic tubs – food containers with lids are just so useful for keeping all your kids crafting and play things in, and they always come in handy for games like this one.
You may well have most of these things at home. But, if you don’t, it’s a relatively small investment for items that you will use again and again in lots of different activities.
How To Play Pom Pom Pick-Up
Give each child a pair of easy grip tweezers and a tub full of pom poms. Make sure there’s a good mixture of colours and sizes in each child’s tub.
Set up three or more non-spill paint pots in between the children playing, and try to make them equally spaced apart.
Decide with your child / children which coloured pom poms are to go in each of the pots. Agree on how the colours are going to be sorted.
(We agreed that yellow and green pom poms would go in the yellow pot; blue and purple into the blue pot; while red, pink and orange were to go in the red pot. All the white pom poms should be left in the original plastic tub.)
The aim of the game is to sort all the pom poms into colour order using only the tweezers.
Once everyone is clear on the aim of the game you can start playing. It’s up to you if you want to join in, or simply referee.
As I said above, you can make this a timed game or even a race to make it more challenging and exciting for older children.
Related: try making sunflower bird feeders – it’s a great nature activity for kids of all ages!
What Skills Is My Child Developing?
Children of all ages, from toddlers right through to tweens, will benefit from playing this game. It’ll help them learn, develop and practise some key childhood development skills, including:
- Fine motor skills – being able to use tweezers correctly to be able to select, grab and drop the pom poms at the right time
- Colour recognition – select and sort pom poms according to colour
- Emotional development – participants will need to concentrate and keep focused. They will also need to show resilience to keep on trying if they don’t succeed straight away
- Hand-eye coordination – picking up pom poms with tweezers and being able to transfer them into the correct pot
- Confidence and independence – this game can be used for independent play. Plus your child will feel proud of themselves when they successfully move a pom pom from their tub to the correct pot.
It’s important that older children also practise these skills too.
GinGin, who’s nearly eight, found the game challenging because she’d often squeeze the tweezers too hard. This caused the pom poms to ping out of the tweezers. So she had to adjust her grip to keep the pom poms in the tweezers.
Playing the game also taught her that sometimes she needed to slow down, focus and concentrate to be able to complete the task. She also had to practise her resilience and keep on trying when her pom poms went pinging out of the tweezers.
Roo, who’s only just three, sometimes resorted to using her fingers to push the pom poms through the hole in the paint pot. But she really enjoyed the challenge of using the tweezers!
What Next?
Come and join us in my new Facebook group Toddlers to Tweens: Fun Learning and Play Ideas where we share activities, crafts and play ideas that can be done at home, with stuff you already have!
Read these posts next or bookmark them for later:
- 7 Reasons We Love to Play Yahtzee!
- 21 Non-Toxic Toys Your Toddler Will Love
- Positively Puzzling With Ravensburger LOL 3D Puzzle
- My Epic Parenting Fail And How I Overcame It
- How To Make A Sunflower Bird Feeder
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And if you’d like to work with me, then drop me a message here, or email me at [email protected] and I’ll get back to you.
Hi, I’m Jennie and I’m the blogger and content creator behind the award-winning blog GinGin & Roo, a UK parenting and lifestyle blog.
