This month, the children in Toddler 1 explored a simple yet engaging scooping and transferring activity, using a ladle to scoop balls and place them into containers. At first glance, this may look like a straightforward activity, but for toddlers, an activity focusing on scooping and transferring provides a wonderful opportunity to practise a wide range of developmental skills. Through hands-on exploration, children are learning through movement, repetition, trial and error, and discovery.
Holding and controlling a ladle encourages toddlers to use the small muscles in their hands, fingers, and wrists. As the children grasp the handle, they learn to adjust their grip, and move the ladle toward the container. They are working to strengthen their muscles and build on the coordination needed for future skills such as drawing, painting, using utensils, manipulating toys, and eventually writing.
Throughout this activity toddlers began to learn to visually track the ball, position the ladle underneath it, scoop it up, and then carefully move the ladle and ball toward the container. This encourages the child to coordinate what they see with how they move their hands and arms. These repeated movements help build their ability to plan and control purposeful actions.
As the children became more familiar and confident with the scooping activity, we began to look for ways to extend their learning and introduce a new level of challenge. To build on their existing experience, we added water to the activity: this change transformed the experience. Instead of the balls sitting or rolling within the container, the children now had to explore how to scoop them while they were floating and moving through the water, thus building new skills.
We look forward to finding new ways to continue our exploration.
