Active fun: Hand-Eye Coordination and Sorting

We've had a few cold and rainy days in the past couple of weeks. This meant that we spent lots of time inside. Again. Santino can entertaining himself much better now, but I still like to spend time with him, incorporating some learning as we go.

For a while Santino would not remember colors. And then, a few months ago he suddenly started recognizing them and naming them correctly. This activity allowed him practice recognizing the colors, sorting balls by color, naming the colors in 2 languages. He also practiced hand-eye coordination, concentration and ... and... just simply having fun! (Why do I always need to list 3 things?)

This activity started as a fun imitation of golf, where we would try to shoot the balls and put them in a hole, or in this case - a plastic container. We didn't use any clubs today, just pushed the balls with our hands.

Santino really enjoyed this game, as he was pretty successful in aiming correctly and shooting the balls in straight line. A while ago, back in January, we already tried a similar activity, but I think Santino was too young to enjoy it, he couldn't shoot the ball straight and was just having fun kicking the balls in any direction. We still had fun though. I made a few lines on the carpet with the masking tape, so it would be easier to aim. We did our best to enjoy it, but it wasn't anything major.

This time it was a different story. After "putting" the balls for a while, we decided to sort them in the plastic containers. Santino sorted them without prompt from my side, came up with this task on his own.

He also suddenly found out that it is hard to put even three balls in one plastic container. You have to be very careful and attentive to balance. I think Santino nailed this task as well, by managing to add 4 balls in each.

 

We loved playing together. He clearly shows more interest in setting goals and achieving them. The activities become more structured and less messy. I am so happy and inspired! Can't wait for him to wake up, so that we could do more fun stuff together!