PomPom Whisk: A Baby Fine Motor Activity

by | Aug 8, 2020

Activity Sneak Peak:

  • Under 1 minute set-up time
  • Requires only TWO household items
  • Multi-sensory and fine motor skills
  • For ages 9 months+

Babies are easily entertained by the simplest activities. Most of the time they don’t even need fancy toys, but everyday, household objects will do.

This pompom whisk activity is simple and only requires 2 items. This activity will encourage fine motor skills (using the small muscles of the hands and fingers) by requiring your baby to use a pincer grasp (thumb and pointer finger together) to pull out the pompoms.

Your baby will love the bright colors and softness of the pompoms. They’re also a worthwile purchase because you can use them over and over on other DIY projects or activities.

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This pompom whisk baby activity works on fine motor skills and learning. Using colored poms is a great fine motor activity for infants 9 months or older.

What you will need:

This pompom whisk toddler activity works on skills including fine motor, learning, and sensory. Using multicolored poms help to learn colors and count.
This pompom whisk toddler activity works on skills including fine motor, learning, and sensory. Using multicolored poms help to learn colors and count.

What to do:

This activity is so simple!

  1. Just stuff a bunch of pompoms through the slots of a whisk until it’s completely full. You can use a plastic or wire whisk- it makes no difference.
  2. Demonstrate to your child how to pull out each pompom from between the wires. Teach them to use a pincer grasp (thumb and pointer only) to grab each pompom one-at-a-time.
  3. Once some pompoms are out, scatter them around and have your baby pick them up one-by-one.
  4. Allow them time to complete it all on their own, but give them some assistance if needed.
  5. When they are doing pulling them out, have your child put them back in. This will require more assistance, however, it is good to show them that they need to complete an activity once they are done.
  6. Use language throughout the activity that goes along with what they are seeing, feeling, and doing (examples below).
  7. Always supervise your child when doing this activity because of the small objects (choking hazards).
This pompom whisk baby activity works on fine motor skills and learning. Using colored poms is a great fine motor activity for infants 9 months or older.

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Skills that this activity addresses

Play is one of the best ways to encourage our children to learn everyday. So many activities are teaching and encouraging your child, even though they may not even know it.

They can learn new vocabulary, problem-solving, cause and effect, shapes, sizes, colors, animals, and so many more skills through everyday play.

Hopefully your baby will have fun playing with the pompoms that they won’t even realize that they are learning!

This pompom whisk baby activity works on fine motor skills and learning. Using colored poms is a great fine motor activity for infants 9 months or older.

You can find skills that will be improved through any playtime activity. For this Pompom Whisk activity, the following skills are being strengthened for your baby:

  • Language/Vocabulary: Hearing and talking about different objects (pompom, whisk, soft, fuzzy, colors, pull out) 
  • Fine motor skills: Strengthening and coordinating the muscles of their hands by using a pincer grasp to pull pompoms out. Also, working on bilateral coordination (using two hands together in different ways) by holding the whisk still with one hand while using the other to pull out the pompoms.
  • Sensory: Feeling and seeing different textures can be calming or stimulating for a child. They will get to explore the softness of the pompom and hardness of the whisk.

Related Post: 5 Simple Ways to Practice Pincer Grasp for Babies

Ways to incorporate language

You really can and SHOULD incorporate cognition (knowledge) and language into any activity you are doing with your little one. It’s a great opportunity to teach your babies new words.

Just merely talking through the steps that they’re performing will help build their vocabulary and understanding about new words and concepts.

Remember that your baby is constantly listening and absorbing everything around them, including language. Repeating the same words frequently will help them to learn quickly.

This pompom whisk baby activity works on fine motor skills and learning. Using colored poms is a great fine motor activity for infants 9 months or older.

For babies, you want to stick to simple words and phrases. Here are a few ways to build cognition and language during this activity:

  • Point to a pompom and say the color: pink, green, orange pompom
  • Ask them to point to the pompom or whisk
  • Say things like in and out
  • Overuse vocabulary words such as pompoms, whisk, and color names

How this activity addresses fine motor skills

Fine motor skills allow us to use the small muscles of our hands and fingers. They enable us to grab, manipulate, turn, twist, and hold objects.

Bilateral coordination also allows us to use both hands together in a coordinated manner. It is usually used to transfer objects from hand tp hand and stabilize with one hand to manipulate with the other.

This pompom whisk baby activity works on fine motor skills and learning. Using colored poms is a great fine motor activity for infants 9 months or older.

This activity can help develop these skills in a variety of ways.

  • Have your child only use a pincer grasp (thumb and index finger) to pull out and sort pompoms.
  • Transfer the whisk from one hand to another 
  • Once some pompoms are out of the whisk, have them pick each one up one at a time using a pincer grasp.

How did your baby like this activity? Write in the comments below!