Pom Poms and the Spoons

This activity is so simple to set up and can be left out for your child to dip in and out of. It’s a great activity for your little one to practice using and manipulating a spoon, as well as teaching early maths skills such as 1:1 correspondence.

I decided to do this activity because my son loves peas but gets frustrated when he chases them around his plate while trying to load them into the spoon. And then when he does get a pea on his spoon they often roll off the spoon before he’s had a chance to get them to his mouth.

set up

All you need is an empty egg box, 12 different coloured pom poms and spoons. I cut the lid and sides of the egg box as I wanted to encourage my son to put the pom poms into the individual grooves of the egg box, not the lid. I put two spoons out, so that we could do the activity together.

I modeled how to complete the activity and kept repeating “one pom pom into one hole” so that he starts to identify 1:1 correspondence. He very quickly grasped what he needed to do.

Check out that concentration!!

My son can easily get frustrated when things don’t go his way and then things get thrown. I was blown away by my son’s resilience with this activity. On a number of occasions the pom poms rolled off his spoon onto the floor but he very calmly picked the pom pom up and tried again.

Since doing this activity my son can now confidently use his spoon to eat peas. Hardly any peas are ending up on the floor!

The activity is still out on his little table as he often goes and plays with it while I am distracted with making various meals / snacks.

If you have older children you can get smaller pom poms; therefore making it more challenging. You could also turn it into a race. This activity would also work well for matching colours by placing coloured stickers / or colouring in the bottom of the egg holes.