If you are new around here, I highly recommend you first read about the Montessori mobiles in the visual series. From week 9 onward, Anika was batting all her visual mobiles. At week 11, I set up the bell on ribbon mobile but she batted it and was not ready for grasping yet. So along with rotating the visual mobiles once again, we also used experimented with my DIY bell batting mobile from the ceiling hook. Alas, it oscillated too far and after a while Anika got frustrated tracking it. So then we placed all her batting mobiles on her Lovevery Play gym, which has Velcro hooks to replace mobiles.
We prefer batting at the play gym because the mobiles don’t oscillate as much, which sustains concentration and interest. I think any sphere shaped ball is ideal as a batting mobile. We used some open- ended sphere items that we already had at home…
- Bunch of bells- bought at spotlight during Christmas. I love open-ended objects like these! Mobile today, part of heuristic basket in few months, part of Christmas decoration again in few months and just so much more year after year.
- Felt ball sphere- bought by my mum from Nepal. Another open-ended item, I just happened to have and works perfectly for batting. It can be used as sensory ball, to study shapes in a few years, as a cards and counters extension and on and on!
- We also used the black and white ball, which is a part of Lovevery gym.
In this transition phase, where we are still working on our grasping skills and not yet ready for bell on ribbon or ring on ribbon; these batting mobiles have been heaps of fun!
I reckon any sphere shaped (safe surface) item works well or maybe even a soft toy? Would love to hear more ideas….
[…] After week 11 when she was bored of the dancers mobile and not yet ready for grasping mobiles, we rotated and went back to Munari mobile and started the sequence all over again. She loved them all once again. I also introduced a series of my own batting mobiles. […]