Cotton Ball Fun

The first set in Spielgaben is the set of cotton balls. These by far have to be our favorite!! All four kids have thoroughly enjoyed these and the many things we have done with them.
With Buddy I asked him if they were hard or soft. He discovered they were soft, so we talked about how we could squish them. The older three discussed the balls different properties and we made hypothesis about how far we could throw them and if the ones with tails would go farther.
We then decided to put the cotton balls with tails on the fan.

This provided so much fun. The kids kept asking to do it again and again. They enjoyed being able to turn the fan on and off or just watching with anticipation when the cotton balls would fly off.

Now one might think this to be a simple and childish game. I beg to differ and this is what I love about Spielgaben, it really gets your mommy brain thinking. Some of the things we gained from this were opposites on/off and hard/soft. You can look around the room for other soft things that are squishy like the ball and then read a book about opposites we have a favorite one that is part of a set. Also all four kids did well at following directions turn the fan on, now turn it off. Its good for kids to be able to listen, think and then react. And then we have the colors oh my the lessons with colors, we named the colors but that can become dull and just a 'school' activity to the kids. So we mixed it up. Which 5 colors should I hang on the fan? Which one did I leave off? Once they flew off I asked the kids to search for them. KK please hand me the green one shows me she knows green! With the older kids I would tell them the five colors on the fan collect four and ask which one I was missing.
 Kids at this age are parrots they love to hear words over and over again and repeat those words. We have played with these balls or spheres as we later call them so much that my son at 19mns now knows a ball is a sphere. Can he define a sphere no! But it is a peg of knowledge that we drive in a little at a time. Its amazing too how after we played with these Buddy saw balls everywhere and in everything!
Thanks for reading today and now go play with some balls with your kids!