🏃 Move🏃 Active
🥎 Soft Ball Rolling
Roll a soft ball just out of reach to invite rolling and crawling.
Ages
0–2
Duration
15 min
Cost
Free
👶 Kid challenge
Medium
🧑 Parent energy
Light · no prep
⚠️ Safety first
Stay in the room. Use a ball too big to fit in the mouth.
You know your child best — supervise the whole time and skip anything that isn't right for them. See our Terms.
Why this is good for your child
- ✓Rolling
- ✓Crawling
What you need
Soft fabric ball
How to do it
- 1Sit a short distance from baby.
- 2Roll the ball slowly just out of reach.
- 3Cheer every reach, roll, or scoot.
How it actually goes
The honest version — including what "going well" looks like at this age.
- ⏱ 30-second set-up
- Thirty seconds: put soft fabric ball on a tray or a clear bit of floor, and sit down next to it before you call them over.
- 🧑 What you do
- Show it once, slowly, without talking over yourself. Then hand it over and stop helping unless they ask.
- 👶 What they do
- Climb, carry, balance and wobble — and try it again faster.
- ✅ What success looks like
- Under 1, watching, mouthing and batting at it is the whole activity. Two minutes of real attention is a good session.
- 🧺 How to put it away
- Everything back into one basket or tray, carried back to its spot by them. Naming the spot out loud is what makes it stick.
- 📈 When they outgrow it
- Older? Add a timer, or let them design the next round.