PomPom Whisk: A Toddler Fine Motor and Learning Activity

by Marissa LaBuz | Aug 6, 2019

Activity Sneak Peak:

Under 1 minute set-up time
Requires only TWO household items
Multi-sensory and fine motor skills
Works on learning counting, colors, and sorting
For ages 12 months+

This pompom whisk activity is so simple and only requires 2 items. This sensory activity will help to improve fine motor skills (using the small muscles of the hands and fingers) and you can keep the activity going further to teach counting and color sorting.

My 2 year old was so excited for this activity and couldn’t wait to get started once I showed it to her.

Your toddler will love the bright colors and softness of the pompoms. They’re also so versatile to use over and over on other DIY projects or activities.

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

What you will need:

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 plastic or wire. 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. Allow them time to complete it all on thier own.

4. Once they are finished pulling out all of the pompoms, have your child count them all.

5. Place one of each color out to start color sorting.

6. Have your child separate the pompoms into piles by color.

7. Have them sort the pompoms into their coordinating color pile as they say the name of each color.

8. You can go back to counting by now counting how many of each color are in each pile.

Note: Be careful if your toddler still tends to put things in their mouth as these are small enough to slip inside. They won’t like the feel of it in there, but watch them carefully.

Related Post: Edible Finger Paint for Toddlers

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 toddler will have fun playing with the pompoms, that they won’t even realize that they are learning!

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

Language/Vocabulary: Hearing and talking about different objects (pompom, whisk, soft, fuzzy, colors, numbers)
Cognition: Learning and understanding new concepts (pull out, sort colors, counting)
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.

Ways to incorporate cognition and language

You really can and SHOULD incorporate cognition (knowledge) and language into any activity you are doing with your little one. 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 toddler is constantly listening and absorbing everything around them, including language. Repetition and overuse dramatically increase your child’s ability to learn and retain new words.

Here are a few ways to build cognition and language during this activity:

Point to a pompom and say or ask, This is pink or What color is this?
Ask them to point to the green pompoms, pink pompoms, etc.
Work on concepts like in, out, on top, under, sort, count
Vocabulary words such as pompoms, whisk, colors, numbers, pile

Ways to work on 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 usually to transfer objects and stabilize with one hand to manipulate with the other.