As we mentioned in our “marble run fun” post this week our children have been having a lot of fun with marbles lately.

On our recent foray to Reverse Art Truck we found some pink sponges with holes cut out of them about the size of marbles.

We grabbed a few of them and then put them out on a tray with a lip with containers of marbles, tweezers and spoons.

That table was never empty of little bodies – they loved it!

They scooped the marbles with the little spoons …

moved them around with the tweezers …

and made patterns with them.

Not only did this prove to be a wonderful fine motor exercise …

but the squishiness of the sponge coupled with the polished finish of the glass marbles made for a great sensory experience as well.

As the day was very wet and we were inside for quite a long time, one of our boys who is a soccer and footy tragic, seized the moment when he noticed the table was unattended …

to make the tray into a soccer field. He cleared the decks, added goals at each end and used the marble as a soccer ball.

It became quite competitive when a mate joined him.

Life is never dull, is it?

Little pots of small interesting goodies such as beads, buttons, stones, corks etc…

… are just waiting to be popped onto the measuring scales to have their weights checked and compared.

We find adding the tweezers not only makes it more fun, but adds to the fine motor skill needed to accomplish the task.

The doll at the back in the chair is a prop to make the activity look more enticing, but of course, will probably become part of the play!

And there she goes!

Donna then brought along an old photo frame from home which has various compartments for different sized photos.

She took out the photos and glass and popped different coloured paper into each space with another selection of small bits and pieces.

Once again lots of wonderful fine motor activity …

and sorting took place.

More great play based learning!