Why peg games and activities are good for kids
A tub of colourful pegs can mean many hours of play and learning. Peg games and activities are a fun way for children to:
- learn colours and counting
- improve fine motor skills
- engage in experimental play.
Most young children are fascinated by the way clothes pegs open and close.
What you need for peg games and activities
You probably already have all the things you need for peg games and activities with your child:
- clothes pegs
- small containers like plastic bowls or small buckets
- something your child can clip pegs onto, like a clothes rack
- small things for pegging, like socks or face washers.
How to do peg games and activities with your child
Here are ideas for peg games and activities for your child:
- Peg small items on a clothes rack. The pincer grip your child needs for this action is similar to the one needed for learning to write.
- Sort pegs by colour into different containers. Encourage your child to name the colours. If your child can count, they could count the numbers of pegs of each colour.
- Experiment with sound. Try dropping the pegs into the bowls from different heights. Do they sound different? Do different bowls make different sounds?
- Practise sharing. Talk with your child about how you might share the pegs. Maybe your child can have the red and yellow ones, and you can have the blue and white ones. Maybe your child can share them equally between 2 containers – ‘One for you, one for me’.
- Be playful with the pegs. See how many pegs you can fit on your sleeve or on someone else’s. Peg them onto toys – Teddy might like a set of peg earrings. Can you make a chain of pegs joined together? Can you stack them?
How to adapt peg play for younger children or children with diverse abilities
Your younger child might have fun just handling the pegs, trying to get them to open and close, or putting them into a tub and tipping them out again.
This sort of play is important because it helps your child learn about the world around them and how they can make things happen.
You can get more ideas for adapting this activity from our articles on play and autistic children and play and children with disability. You might also like to explore our other activity guides. They can all be adapted to suit children with diverse strengths and abilities.