Benefits of Our Handle Ball

Introducing Gymboree Play & Music’s famous Handle Ball!

This large, soft, smooth, bouncy ball with handles can be used for lifting, pushing, rolling, sitting on, rocking and bouncing on.

The Benefits

• Sense of touch

  

  • Touch is one of your baby’s key senses, especially in the early weeks. Our Handle Ball has many different elements to explore; its smooth vinyl surface, the rough texture of the handles, and its firmness.  When it’s filled with air it’s very firm, but when we release a little air it’s soft and squidgy. Sense of touch is essential to children’s growth of physical abilities, language, cognitive skills, and social-emotional competency.

• Support

  • Our Handle Ball can be used to support your little one during play time. For our younger babies we place them on their tummies, gently holding them round their torso. The firm air-filled Handle Ball helps them to strengthen tummy and neck muscles which are vital to early development. Later on, they can work with their adult or friends to either push or lift it together which continues to develop key muscles and strength.

• Imagination

  • As our little ones develop we encourage the use of our imaginations in class. Imagination play enhances social development, language development, and builds self confidence. Our Handle Ball may become a banana tree in the jungle, a rocket to the moon, or even a wrecking ball on a construction site.  The possibilities are always endless!

• Hand-feet co-ordination

  • One example of hand-feet co-ordination is using our Handle Ball as a giant walker, our little ones will walk and push with their hands whilst the grown-ups walk behind them to offer physical support and verbal encouragement. Hand and feet co-ordination is a vital skill to develop from a young age to support us in all aspects of our daily lives.

• Visual impact

  • A bright, cheerful object with many colours helps stimulate your infant’s vision development. This is also true when their eyes follow moving objects. A great example of how we work on this with our Handle Ball is pushing it to top of one of our large wedges and encouraging little ones to watch it roll to a stopping position at the bottom of the ramp. Or they could roll it to a friend or their adult.

• Colour perception

  • When babies are born, their vision has not fully developed, and their vision will go through several changes during the first few months of life. By the time a baby is 5 months old, their colour vision will have developed fully. We use our Handle Ball in class to introduce them to new colours and then as they grow we can start to also encourage them to name the colours that they see.

Back to the Cushion. Next up our Wavy Wavy Slide!