There are so many ways that toddlers can play with pom poms, and no doubt Veronika and I will play more complicated games with them down the line. But today we kept it as simple as can be: pom poms, a muffin tin, her fingers, and that was it!

Since she’s learning her colors, my initial idea was to sort the pom poms by color and see if she could help with the process…

…but Veronika was so eager to get her hands into the mix that my color piles never stayed that way for long!

She loved the feel of scooping them up from one muffin cup to the other, and seemed very proud of her transferring skills! I wasn’t about to deny her the fun.

In fact I think she found it funny that I kept trying to arrange the pom poms one way, and she kept messing them about. She said the name of each color pom pom as she picked it up, so it turned into color learning in a different way.

Picking up pom poms one by one is of course also great for fine motor development.

She started to move them more deliberately in this way after she tired of big handfuls.

Eventually  I also handed her a pair of toddler tweezers. She was so proud to move the bigger pom poms from one compartment to another, using this tool.

This is one of those great ways to keep a toddler busy solo without too many materials or much prep work.