There are all types of pegs that we can find in the market.  We use pegs to hang our wet clothes on the string to prevent them from falling or blowing away by strong wind.  Do you know that pegs are also one of the most convenient items that we can find at home as a very useful tool to nurture our child’s development?  Moreover,  peg is a very low cost and handy play material that you shouldn’t miss!

Pegs help our child to refine his fine motor skills when he repeats his fingers movement to open and close the peg.  We can put up a string somewhere at a corner of our house, e.g. near the easel or painting area.  Place some pegs in a small box and put at a place that is accessible to the child.  The setting allows the child to freely hang up his painting on the string to dry it.  While he is doing so, he is practicing his body coordination (hand-eye coordination) in order to peg the paper properly.  Initially he might need a little assistance to help him, however he will be able to master the skills through repetition of the same movement from time to time.  We can even put some small cloth or old clothes for him to do pegging.

When a child is paying attention with the pegging activity, he is developing concentration which is important in his future learning.  Pegging also helps him to develop his intelligence.  For instance, he finds solutions to peg a paper without falling off by folding the corner of the paper on the string.  When a child’s intelligence develops, he will extend his play using pegs.  He starts applying his imagination to make his pegging activity more fun and creative.  The 3 years old boy in the picture used pegs to make his imaginative dinosaurs and indulged in his play.  He changes his play models using pegs as his creativity grows, e.g. castle, train, robots, Transformers etc.  The frequent he plays with the pegs, he is reinforce his fine motor skills.

You may use different pegs according to the child’s stages of development.  We can use big pegs for baby/toddler, while smaller pegs for older children.  Pegging is just a simple yet beneficial activity to nurture our child’s development.

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