Stone Trajectory

Throwing stones can be a great learning experience but remember to always make sure you have enough space around you so you don’t hit anyone or anything else!

Implementation

Place a bucket a short distance away from you and see if you can gently throw the stone underhand into the bucket. If this becomes easy for you then start to move the bucket a little further away. You can count how many stones you get into the bucket or you could number the stones and throw them in in order. As an extension you could have two buckets and share the stones equally between them.

Intent- Learning Goals

Trajectory Schema is an interest in lines and movement. This is a nice way to say your child keeps throwing things around the room or repeatedly dropping food from their highchair. Small babies begin to work on this schema when they track movement with their eyes and reach in front of them to grasp objects. They soon move on to dropping and posting items as they discover the world around them and how they can influence it. Toddlers exploring this path of development will favour activities that involve throwing objects

 A great way to support this schema is to set up opportunities for posting and throwing.

  • Cut holes in a cardboard box and let your little one post balls and toys into the holes.
  • Set up different sized cardboard tubes for your child to post pompoms or cotton balls into.
  • Give your child a variety of different object to throw or drop from a height and listen to the sounds they make when they land.
  • Make ‘targets’ by drawing out circles on the ground outdoors or using buckets. Allow your child to throw toys, balls or even stones to hit the targets. This is a great exercise to work on their gross motor skills and get some of the throwing urges out of their system. Just make sure you move any breakables!

 Physical Development – Moving and Handling

  • Talk with children about the need to match their actions to the space they are in.
  • Show children how to collaborate in throwing, rolling, fetching and receiving games
  • Explain why safety is an important factor in handling tools, equipment and materials, and have sensible rules for everybody to follow.

22-36 months

  • May be beginning to show preference for dominant hand.

40-60 months

  • Shows increasing control over an object in pushing, patting, throwing, catching or kicking it.

Maths – Numbers

30-50 months

  • Uses some number names accurately in play.
  • Recites numbers in order to 10.
  • Knows that numbers identify how many objects are in a set.
  • Compares two groups of objects, saying when they have the same number.

40-60 months

  • Recognises numerals 1 to 5+
  • Counts objects to 10, and beginning to count beyond 10.

Impact

How did this activity go? Please use this space to record any findings, adaptions, reflections and quotes from your children. We would love you to email them back to us or share them on Tapestry, Instagram or Facebook.