Move over Land of Nod, Babies R Us, Buy Buy Baby and Target. No need for the light up toys or the expensive frilly toys. Here comes an inexpensive toy that captures the attention of infants, and toddlers. This simple clothes peg idea will have the young ones manipulate small objects, improve their fine motor skills, hand and eye coordination plus cognitive skills.
Around 7-18 months infants start to use their muscles more purposeful. Whether to scoot, crawl, roll or eat. Infants at this age start to gain better control over their muscles – they have not perfected the skills, but they are getting stronger at this stage. They will make advancement to participate in more activities, pick up cheerios, play with rattles, hold a book or other objects. For this reason, using tools to improve their fine motor and cognitive skills aids in their development. Prior to the activity, I played ‘open shut them’ with the infants, showing them how to open and shut the EpiPen case. I personally love this fun stage because parents or caregivers are actually teaching infants about the world -which they have formed no knowledge until exposure to.
This activity calls for:
Empty epipen case – or any long container with lids.
Clothes Pegs
Container/bucket for infants to take peg from…or you can place all pegs on floor. So adults – let’s grab some clothes peg and hit the ground for play.
An invitation to play. These materials are perfect for infants, pre- toddlers, toddlers – little ones working on fine motor skills.
This has been our go to bin on many days. The infants pull us to the bin, continuously ask for this activity.
Notice the finger grip…infant uses a lot of little muscles, trying very hard to get the peg in the bottle. No longer using the pincher grasp thumb to forefinger but, they are working all fingers. This grasp is ready for forks and spoons to self-feed.
Hope your little ones enjoy this activity as much as our little bunch did.
Here’s another Peg activity your little ones will enjoy and learn from – Peg the wooden box.
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