This activity encourages:

  • outdoor play
  • fine motor skills (movements of the hand and fingers)
  • gross motor skills (large movements of the body)
  • visual skills
  • math skills

Step 1:  Make a set of bug tweezers by folding a plastic straw in half and taping slightly closed at the top.  Another option is to use your kitchen tongs or any tweezers you may have.

Step 2:  Hide pom poms in the grass.  These will be the bugs.  Assign value to each bug ie small pom-poms = 5 points, large pom-poms=10 points and any green pom-pom=20 points. (I like to assign the points to work on skip counting and also adds to the game.  You do not necessarily need to have the most pom-poms to win if playing against other players)

Step 3:  On “GO” the child runs and picks up as many bugs as they can find using only the tweezers.

Step 4: When all the bugs have been found, spill them out of the cup, and add up the total points.

Want more activities that combine fine motor and gross motor skills? Check out the: Motor Magic Electronic Book