Hammering for Preschoolers
This is a fun early building activity for toddlers and preschoolers. If you have a child who likes to bang a hammer, this project is for you. It’s economical, contributes to strong hand-eye coordination, and can give you hours of fun.
Our Introduction to this Project
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My neighbor Liz is an incredible parent and preschool teacher. She introduced us to this early carpintry & building activity this summer, and my daughter has asked me to buy her golf tees on numerous occasions since. We don’t play golf, so I finally got my act together and ordered this set of tees.
And now that we own a bag of 75 golf tees? It’s nice to have a bowl of tees in the yard in case the mood to hammer strikes. Ouch, no pun intended!
A handful of tees and a toy hammer is all it takes. This hammer is part of the Plan Toy Punch and Drop Set and the tees are from Amazon.
Hammering for Toddlers
When my daughter was younger, I would poke some tees into the earth to help her get started, but now she wants to do this step herself. For easier hammering, we like to work with soft or wet dirt.
Resources:
- Our favorite Golf Tees were found on Amazon. I like how this pack is multi-colored. Kids love this!
- Wooden Hammer came from this toy.
- Montessori Services sells a hammering set, but you can also order a hammer and tees separately. I would recommend just the tees and hammer.
- If you don’t have access to dirt or want to make this an indoor activity, a good alternative is to pick up or find a huge chunk of styrofoam.
Hammering and Building Extensions:
- Older children may enjoy hammering real nails into a tree stump or piece of scrap wood.
- Pre-hammer holes into a piece of wood. Using a screw driver and large screws, show the child how to screw into the hole left by the nail. You could also practice screwing holes into a bar of soap.
- Cut small pieces of sand paper of various grades, and set out some blocks for the child to sand. Discuss the different textures of the papers with words like rough, course, and smooth.
There is nothing I can think of better than this!!!
I agree, MaryAnn! Hope all is well with you 🙂
Putting tees on shopping list 🙂
Hey Rad! I love the golf tees! Too cool. We also like to hammer them into pumpkins.
thanks for the great idea, perfect for the season!
Thank you, we had so much fun with the golf tees! I’ve just blogged about it. Congratulations on your blog, I LOVE it, so full of inspiration and great projects!!
Hi Lola! You just made my day 🙂 I love the photos of your daughter hammering away on your blog — they make me so happy! Now I have to work on my Spanish so I can follow you…
pumpkins and sturdy cardboard boxes are great to hammer tees into as well 🙂
we’ve hammered into cardboard, but my 2 year old had trouble with pumpkins this year. maybe next year?