Learning to Catch!

Catching and throwing are difficult skills for most children, even once they have better control of their arms and hands at around 2½ years old - learning to catch and throw can be great fun!  Have a go at the following activity to teach the little ones about size and weight and to practice catching along the way!

• Suggest you are going to learn about catching and find some different sized balls.  Roll them to each other and see how you do.  Talk about the colours, the sizes and the weight of the balls.
• Try to catch them wearing oven gloves or big mittens.  Is it easier or harder?
• Then try catching and throwing a potato or an orange and see how that goes!
• Roll up some newspaper or foil and then see whether that is easier or more difficult to catch.  These are smaller balls so may be harder.
• Blow some bubbles and see whether they are hard to catch or easy... or do they just pop!?

In all cases, make the game fun and laugh each time the ball is dropped.  Being confident enough to try throwing and catching is half the battle so this is an exercise in just having fun and enjoying the idea of ball games.