Peg and Hole Matching
Your child picks up a fat peg, lines it up over a hole that just fits it, and pushes it home.
- Age
- 2 to 4, best at 2
- Setup
- None once made
- Play
- 5 to 10 min
- Materials
- Household only
- Mess
- None
- You
- Set it up, then leave
Activity KG-A006
What you need
The board matters more than the pegs. It has to grip a peg just enough to hold it standing, and then let it go when a two year old pulls.
- Fat pegs, 8 to 10 cm longx9 to 12 Or: crayons. Or chopsticks snapped to 9 cm with the ends rubbed blunt. Or 12 mm dowel from the hardware shop, cut into 9 cm sticks. Long enough to stand up and be held in a fist, thick enough to feel. Under 6 cm a peg is a mouthing job rather than a placing one, so keep the short ones for later.
- A block of firm foam, about 5 cm thickx1 Or: three layers of corrugated cardboard glued flat and left under a book overnight. Or an upside-down egg box for the first few goes. Foam holds the peg upright with a little friction, and that friction is the feedback that says the peg is home. Cardboard does the same and wears out after a few weeks, which is fine, because another one takes two minutes.
- A pencil or a skewer to make the holesx1 The hole wants to be 1 to 2 mm wider than the peg. Too tight and it needs adult force. Too loose and the peg leans over, and a peg that will not stand reads as failure to a two year old.
- A tub for the loose pegsx1 Or: a saucepan. Or a shoebox lid. Pegs roll off tables. In a tub they stay where the hand goes looking for them, which is what keeps a run going.
How to set it up
- Mark three rows of three on the foam, about 4 cm apart, so a whole fist fits between them.1 min
- Push a pencil straight down through each mark and give it one wiggle so the hole ends up a shade wider than the peg.2 min
- Stand a peg in every hole and pull each one out again; it should come with a light tug rather than a wrench.30 sec
- Leave three pegs standing, put the rest in the tub within reach, and sit back.10 sec
What to say and what to do
Say
Find the hole.
Push it down.
- Then stop talking. The board answers on its own: the peg stands up or it does not.
Do
- Put three pegs in yourself, slowly, holding each one over its hole for a second before it goes down. The pause is the part that transfers.
- Let him empty it first. Taking a full board apart is where most two year olds start, and it is the same aiming run backwards.
- Leave the board on a low shelf with the pegs standing in it. This is one that gets picked up on the way past rather than offered.
Let be
- Pegs pushed in at an angle. It is standing, so it worked.
- A board emptied and never refilled, five times in a row.
- Two fists on one peg. The one-handed grip arrives when the arm is steady enough to allow it, not because it was asked for.
What it looks like when it is working
- The peg is lined up over the hole in the air before it comes down, instead of being dragged across the board until it drops in.
- She holds the board still with one hand while she pushes with the other.
- He does the row nearest him first and works away from himself.
- The pegs go in faster at the end of a run than at the start.
What to expect at each age
At two
Aims by touch, sliding the peg along the surface until it finds a hole, and gets about half of them in first go. Usually empties the board before filling it.
Lining up in the air, before the peg touches the board, comes a little later. At two the hand is doing the looking, and that is the ordinary way round.
Lasts 4 to 8 minutes
At three
Places each peg straight down into the hole he picked, fills the whole board, and starts imposing an order: one row at a time, or all the red ones together.
Matching thin pegs to thin holes and thick to thick is the next step, and it wants a board with two sizes in it.
Lasts 8 to 15 minutes
At four
Sorts by size and colour as she places, makes patterns across the grid, and invents rules about which hole comes next.
By four the placing is easy, so the interest moves to what the board could be: a fence, a garden, a track to drive something round.
Lasts 10 to 20 minutes, often inside a game
When it goes sideways
Each of these is the board telling you something about the fit, and each answer takes under a minute.
The peg keeps falling over
The hole is wider than the peg, so there is no grip to tell him it is in.
Move to a fatter peg, or make a new board with the holes punched by something thinner. A crayon in a hole made with a pencil is about the right fit.
She cannot get the peg in at all
The hole is too tight, and it wants adult force rather than two year old force.
Turn the pencil in a small circle in each hole to open it a millimetre. The peg should drop in under its own weight and stop about half way.
He only ever pulls them out
Emptying is the quicker half and the more satisfying one at two, and it is the same aim in reverse.
Fill it while he empties it. Two pairs of hands on one board keeps it running, and the filling starts turning up on its own within a few sittings.
It lasts two minutes
Nine holes is nine decisions, and at two that can genuinely be the whole activity.
Make a bigger board, twenty holes or more. At this age the length of a sitting follows the number of holes more closely than anything else you can change.
Making it harder
Four rungs on the same block of foam. Mostly it is the pegs that change.
Nine holes, one size
- Ready when
- This is where everybody starts.
- What changes
- A grid of nine, 4 cm apart, and pegs that all match.
- What is new
- Aiming a held object at a fixed target, and letting go at the right moment.
Twenty holes, close together
- Ready when
- She fills nine without a peg falling over.
- What changes
- A bigger board with the holes 2 cm apart.
- What is new
- The other hand has to hold the board and keep clear of the pegs already standing.
Two thicknesses
- Ready when
- He fills the board and empties it again without help.
- What changes
- Half the holes made with a pencil and half with a skewer, and two thicknesses of peg in the tub.
- What is new
- Choosing before placing, which is where matching actually starts.
Colour rows and patterns
- Ready when
- She matches thick to thick without trying the wrong one first.
- What changes
- A stripe of colour on the top of each peg, and rows drawn on the board in the same colours.
- What is new
- The hand runs by itself while the head does the sorting.
Stop when the board is full or the tub is empty, whichever comes first, and leave it standing. A full board on a shelf is a far more inviting thing than an empty one in a box.
How to keep it safe
Two year olds put things in their mouths, so the length of the peg is most of the safety here.
- Pegs of 8 cm and longer while a child is still mouthing things. That is longer than a toddler's mouth takes, and it is the single detail that makes this one straightforward.
- Round off anything you cut. A chopstick snapped to length has a point on it, and ten seconds with sandpaper or a nail file takes it off.
- Golf tees suit a child who has stopped putting things in her mouth, usually somewhere in the third year. Crayons and 12 mm dowel are the two year old version of the same activity.
- Count the pegs back into the tub and put it on a shelf, especially if there is a baby crawling.
Why this helps
From the guide The claims here follow our guide on hands, pencils and the grip question.
Putting a peg in a hole is aiming, broken into its parts: the eyes find a target, the arm carries something to it, and the hand lets go at the right moment. A two year old does most of that by touch to begin with, dragging the peg over the board until it drops in. The shift from finding the hole with the peg to finding it with the eyes and then placing is the whole development this one carries, and it happens over weeks of doing it.
The board is also self-checking, which is why it can be left with a two year old. A peg is standing or it is not, and nobody has to say which. That takes the adult out of the loop completely, and an activity a two year old can judge for himself is an activity he will do twenty times in a row.
Skill practised: eye-led aiming and controlled release
It is a satisfying fit, not a shape-sorting lesson. A two year old fills a board because the peg stands up when it is right.
One a week, at your child's age
We publish one new activity a week at each age, in exactly this format. How a peg board gets handed over, with three pegs already standing in it, is obvious in five seconds of video and fiddly to write down.
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Questions parents ask
What can I use for the board?
A 5 cm slab of packing foam or florist's foam is the best household one, because it grips a peg without holding on to it. Three layers of corrugated cardboard glued flat and pressed under a book overnight is the next best and survives a month of daily use. An upside-down cardboard egg box, with a peg standing in each dimple, works for the very first goes at around eighteen months.
Are golf tees safe for a two year old?
They suit a child who has stopped putting things in her mouth, which for most is somewhere in the third year. Until then crayons, or 9 cm lengths of 12 mm dowel, do the same job at a size that cannot go anywhere. A tee also has a point on it, so blunt the tip with a nail file before it joins the tub.
He tips the whole board out instead of filling it.
That is half the activity, and the half most children do first. Taking a peg out needs the same grip and the same aim and gives a faster result, which is what a two year old is after. Fill behind him for a few sittings without saying anything about it, and the filling turns up on its own.
How many holes should there be?
Nine to start, about 4 cm apart so a whole fist fits between them. Twenty is right once the first nine go in without a peg leaning over. At this age the number of holes decides how long a sitting runs more than any amount of encouragement does.