Jelly Sweets Tuff Spot

We have tried several jelly Tuff Spots over the past few months from Jelly Digging to a Halloween Jelly Hand Tuff Spot. Not all have been successful – we had a jelly digging fail for our first Tuff Spot activity! As part of our Tuff Spot A-Z Challenge we opted for J is for Jelly Sweets Tuff Spot.

It was the perfect opportunity to try out our new DIY sweets Tuff Spot mat. The Smarties Printed PVC fabric was only £2.99 per meter and looked fantastic in the Tuff Spot.

I set up a range of activities to develop Adam’s fine motor skills when playing with the jelly sweets. In clockwise I set up:

1 – Mr Tumble Clock we received free in the Something Special Magazine that Adam featured in. Adam could place the jelly sweets into each of the twelve small sections.

2. Colours Bowls. Adam could colour sort the different jelly sweets.

3. Cardboard Egg Box with six holes cut into the lid. Adam could post the sweets through the holes.

4. Small section of a Pool noodle taped to the Tuff Spot for Adam to push the sweets through the top and watch them drop out of the bottom

5. Wooden car ramp to watch the sweets roll down.

6. Dishwasher box – to post the jelly sweets through the numerous holes.

7. Ice cube tray – to place individual sweets into each section.

8. Another Cardboard Egg Box with four large holes cut into the lid.

9. Cardboard toilet rolls and kitchen rolls, small plastic bottle and a McFlurry container covered in Smarties Sticky Backed Plastic. All these items were for Adam to drop sweets down.

10 Chocolate Christmas tree tray for Adam to place a sweet in and move it around by titling the tray

For our Jelly Sweet Tuff Spot we used Jelly Babies, Jelly Beans and Jelly Wine Gums. It is important to note that these sweets could cause a chocking hazard with small children. As with all play you will need to supervise your child at all times. I was confident that Adam would not put the sweets in his mouth.

Adam has never eaten sweets before and spent ages moving his hand around the three types of jelly sweets to feel their texutre. He then headed straight for the plastic bottle. Adam concentrated for a long time to place each individual sweet into the clear bottle until it was full. At the end he got frustrated that he could not empty the sweets out himself as the bottle neck was just too small. It was all forgotten though when he discovered the McFlurry container. Not only was the hole at the top bigger so he could empty it himself but he realised he could shake the sweets too to make his own music.

He moved around the Tuff Spot trying out each activity in turn. We discovered that the Jelly Beans would not roll down the wooden car ramp despite how hard we pushed them and that Jelly Babies get stuck at the bottom of a Pool Noddle. Apparently Jelly Babies also like to have a bath in an ice cube tray.

Adam enjoyed pushing the jelly sweets through the lid of the egg box and was fascinated when I opened up the box later on.

The only activity Adam did not attempt was sorting the jelly sweets into colours. I suppose there were too many other activities on offer so we shall save that one for another day. As Adam isn’t tempted by the sweets (unlike Mummy) it is an activity we will be able to repeat time and time again. I feel jelly sweets will become an alternative to pom pom play!

Tuff Spot A-Z Blog Hop:

What Katy Said is joining us today for our Tuff Spot A-Z Blog Hop. Take a look at their J is for Jelly Tuff Spot. We love the photograph of Little G’s reaction to the activity!

Other Tuff Spot activities beginning with J:

Jelly, Jigsaw Pieces, Junk Mail, Jelly, Juicing Station