Having noticed how much my soon-to-be 3-year-old enjoyed helping his daddy fix things around the house, I thought, “Wow, I should get C a tool bench for his birthday.” Soon, I settled on the perfect one made in France… completely of wood. Surely that’s better than adding another cheap plastic import to our toy collection. I was 12 months dumber back then. Little did I know a wooden hammer on a wooden workbench can make so much noise. Every strike seems to reverberate up your spine, taking one small bit of sanity each time.
And so whenever poor little C would set out to play with his prized tool bench and beautiful French wooden tools, I responded with, “Not so loud!” or “Let’s save tool time for tomorrow.” or “Why don’t we play with a quiet toy?”
Can you just imagine if every single time you took out one of your favorite toys (for me, it’s my sewing machine), someone asked you to keep it down or take it to another room? MISERY!
And so when I walked into C’s preschool class and saw him pounding golf tees into a pumpkin, it was like the clouds parted and the angels started singing. When the hammer hits the tee, it makes the quietest little thud. It’s almost a pleasant sound.
And so I headed to Target to buy a bag of golf tees (took me three trips by they way, because even though the tees were my sole purpose for shopping there, I became distracted, bought other stuff and left without them. THREE TRIPS.)
The best part about this activity, is it swallows the munchkin’s attention. C went for an hour without saying one word. Look at his eyes! He stayed focused like this until he covered that pumpkin. So if you need a little help keeping your children occupied while you prepare the Thanksgiving feast, this is the ticket.
All you need is a pumpkin, golf tees and child’s play hammer.
I started some of the tees for him until he mastered that himself.
The baby even got a chance (UNDER EXTREMELY CLOSE SUPERVISION) to hammer those tees.
Thank you, Miss Jennifer, for inspiring this activity.
TODDLER TAKE AWAYS
- Fine motor skill development
- Eye-hand coordination
- A Fix for whatever toddler addicting sensation hammering produces
Enjoy!
Anna
P.S. if you want to take this activity to the next level, ask your preschooler or kindergartner to pound in the tees in the shapes of letters or to make words as they hammer away!