Pom poms and tongs

I've noticed a trend with all my Preschool posts- they mostly focus on fine motor development.  And I realized why; my class has 3 children under 3, a first for me considering they all came toward the last half of the year.  (Remember me complaining about that here?)  And to prepare them for success for next year (they will be in my class again) we are starting some skills early.  These are bright children and you can never start fine motor development too early.

This activity involves the ever present ice cube trays (hello, compartmentalized bins!) and pom poms.  Who doesn't love pom poms?  They are bright, colorful, soft and just plain fun!  And to up the ante, tongs.  Tweezers could work for this activity too.  (And in some places are labeled as the same thing.)

Materials:

Plastic tongs/tweezers
Pom Poms
Ice cube trays

The children naturally started to grab pom poms by the handful, so I redirected and showed them how to manipulate the tongs.  The older students (4 years) began to sort by color and the 2 year olds were just enjoying themselves and heaping pom poms any which way.  The end results look different but the process is the same; and all ages benefit from this activity.