Fine Motor Activities for Infants – Reuse Gerber Containers for Fun Play

ByAly Last updated:

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The very first solid food my daughter ever picked up and put in her own mouth was a piece of a Garden Tomato Lil’ Crunchies. She has been in occupational therapy since she was itty bitty for feeding and sensitivity issues, so this was a huge milestone for her (FINALLLLLY!!) at 11 months old!   In the last 9 months, we have gone through a lot of containers of Lil’ Crunchies and also Lil’ Beanies.  Her one-year-old birthday cake even had a few Lil’ Crunchies on it.  Guess which parts of the birthday cake my incredibly picky eater chose to eat?  And guess which mom never got that first birthday shot of her daughter pigging out on her first birthday cake, face all covered in icing?


Since we have soooo many Gerber containers around the house, I decided to put them to good use for activities for my daughter when she was a year old.

Here are some fine motor activities for infants using repurposed items.

To start with, I made a rectangle slit hole in the first Crunchies container that was as wide as a the diameter of a toilet paper roll.  I then cut paper towel and toilet paper rolls into many small circles.  My daughter likes to drop the small circles into the Crunchies containers.  The circles don’t last forever, but we always have more rolls available to cut into circles!


I then cut a circular hole in another Crunchies container.  The hole is large enough for her to put the toilet paper circles in.  However, her favorite activity for the moment is putting Keurig cups into Crunchies containers!  She also likes stacking K cups, too.


With one more container, I cut a big X in the top.  I gave baby girl a large selection of different sized and different colored popsicle sticks.  She loves to stick them in the top of the container!  She also loves to just play with them in general, especially to bang them like drum sticks.


And that’s what we’ve done so far with Crunchies containers!  Any other ideas y’all have?  What fine motor activities for infants do you prefer?

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