Recently we have been enjoying lots of activities that involve scooping and dumping to help Buddy to develop his spoon control. He has an excellent grasp when using a spoon and he knows exactly where it needs to go, however his excitement and natural boisterousness often leads to the food ending up on the ceiling, carpet, fireplace and me…

If you haven’t seen our recent scooping activities yet, you can check them out on these links Toddler Raisin Scoop and Toddler Water Ball Scoop.

What you need

• A sensory bin
• Uncooked pasta
• Different objects to scoop with – we used a slotted spoon, a measuring cup and a plastic spade.
• A bowl to scoop into

Invitation to Play

I set this play up whilst The Train Driver was helping Buddy with his dinner.

As soon as he saw the invitation to play, Buddy ran to it. We have been doing so much scooping recently he immediately knew what to do and selected his weapon of choice!

Buddy enjoyed scooping the pasta into the plastic bucket because it made a really great noise! He also enjoyed scraping the metal scoop against the bottom of the glass tray and hitting it too (I am so grateful to whoever invented pyrex!)

After a while (and lots of noise) Buddy decided to switch to the plastic spade. He wasn’t quite as accurate with this, however he had just as much fun! The great thing about playing with pasta is the lack of mess, a quick scoop and it’s all back in the tray. Buddy really enjoyed scooping into the bucket and all over the carpet too,

It was great to watch Buddy swapping tools and switching his hands too. He also got lots of exercise walking around the tray, climbing over it and running around the room with his bucket and spade in excitement!

Skills We Used

Buddy really enjoyed this activity and it was super simple to prepare and clean up afterwards. Buddy worked really hard on his fine motor skills here scooping the pasta and keeping the spoon level to drop them into the bucket – great co-ordination practice! He also worked on his dexterity, holding different spoons and picking up individual pieces of pasta.

Buddy is always working on his gross motor skills (this kid never sits still) but during this activity he was practising lots of squatting and moving from sitting to standing in particular.

We enjoyed this activity and it kept Buddy occupied for a good 30 minutes. I plan on pulling this out again as one of our Nifty Parenting Hacks to keep Little Hands Busy.

If you enjoy No Mess activities such as this, why not check out our No Mess Painting, No Mess Salt Dough Leaf Painting or our No Mess Painting with Toy Capsules.

Please let me know what you think of this play, especially if you try it with your little one! I love comments so why not make my day!