Straw Blow Ping Pong Race

Your child blows a ping pong ball across the table through a straw, and races it to a strip of tape at the far end.

Age: 3 to 5, best at 3
Setup: None
Play: Under 5 min
Materials: Household only
Mess: None
You: Play along

Activity KG-A056

A ball, two straws cut down to hand length, and a strip of tape at each end of the table

3 year olds Talking, Reading and Writing Balance and Coordination Early Speech and Mouth Muscles Speaking and Communication Calm and Self Control Persistence Burn Off Energy Five Minutes or Less No Mess Costs Nothing Two Children at Once Start Right Now, No Preparation Kitchen and Pantry Items

What you need

This one is entirely a kitchen drawer. The only two choices that change how it goes are the weight of the ball and the length of the straw.

A ping pong ballx1 Or: a ball of kitchen foil scrunched to about 4 cm. Or half a walnut shell, which spins beautifully. Forty millimetres and very light is the sweet spot: heavy enough that it does not fly off at the first puff, light enough to move on a three year old's breath. It is also far too big to go anywhere near a mouth, which is why it is the one to start on rather than a pompom.
A straw, cut to about 12 cmx2 Or: a paper straw. Or a tube of paper rolled and taped along the seam. A full-length straw needs more air than a three year old has, and it waves about because there is too much of it past the fingers. Cut it to roughly the length of his hand, and the air arrives where he pointed it. Two of them, because this works as a race and dies as a test.
A table with a bare, smooth topx1 Or: the floor. Or a baking tray with a rim, which keeps the ball in play. A tablecloth stops the ball dead after 10 cm. Bare wood or laminate is where this works. A tray with a raised edge is the version where nobody spends the afternoon under the table.
Masking tape for the lines2 strips Or: two books laid on their sides. Or a spoon at each end. A start and a finish turn a ball rolling around into something with an end. Set them 60 to 80 cm apart for a three year old. The full length of a table is too far, the ball stops halfway, and the middle of a table is a dull place to give up.

How to set it up

Put a strip of tape at each end of a clear stretch of table, about 70 cm apart.30 sec
Cut two straws down to about 12 cm, one for you and one for him.20 sec
Both of you sit up at the table, elbows on the table, feet on the floor or on the chair rail.20 sec
Blow the ball slowly from one line to the other so he sees that a long steady blow beats a hard one.20 sec

What to say and what to do

Say

Long and slow beats hard.
Point the straw at the bottom of the ball.
Blow alongside him for the first few goes. At three, copying your cheeks works far better than any instruction about them.

Sit opposite and race rather than watch. This one dies the instant it turns into a test.
Let him win about half. Three year olds keep going at things they are winning, and there is no lesson hiding in the other version.
Swap the straw for a fresh one when the end goes soft, without making anything of it.

Let be

Cheeks puffed right out like a trumpet. The efficient version comes later, and the puffed one still moves the ball.
The ball chased round the table instead of raced down the line. Most three year olds play it as a hunt first and a race second.
A hand used to help it along. If the hand is doing all the work, take the tape lines off for a while and just blow the ball about.

What it looks like when it is working

The blow gets longer rather than harder.
He stops between goes and lines the straw up before the next one.
The ball travels in something like a straight line instead of veering sideways.
She starts announcing what she is going to do before she does it.

What to expect at each age

At three

Short hard puffs, straw held in a fist, and the ball goes about 20 cm and sideways. Wants to chase it far more than aim it.

A long steady stream of air comes later. At three the win is getting the air out through the straw at all, rather than around the outside of it.

Lasts 3 to 5 minutes

At four

Holds a blow for two or three seconds and steers the ball roughly where he wants it. Starts making up his own rules about the lines.

Blowing the ball round a bend or through a gate arrives around five, once the aiming has separated itself from the effort.

Lasts 5 to 10 minutes

At five

Aims, controls how hard, and will happily run a course with turns in it. Invents scoring and enforces it.

This is where one ball between two players, both blowing at each other's line, turns it into a game with a defence.

Lasts 10 to 15 minutes

When it goes sideways

Each of these is the straw or the ball telling you something, and three of the four are fixed by swapping one object.

He blows around the straw, not through it

The lips have not sealed on the straw yet, and that seal is the actual skill this is building.

Give him a thicker straw, a smoothie straw or a rolled paper tube, because a wider tube is much easier to seal on. Blowing bubbles in a cup of water with the same straw makes it obvious to him, since the bubbles stop the moment the seal leaks.

She chews the end flat

Paper and thin plastic both go soft in a mouth at three, and a flattened straw passes no air, so the ball stops moving and the activity quietly stops working.

Swap it for a fresh one and say the ball goes further with a round straw. If it is being chewed rather than blown every time, park it for a month and bring it back.

The ball flies off the table on the first blow

A ping pong ball on bare wood with a hard puff behind it travels a long way, and chasing it is more fun than the race.

Move it into a baking tray or a box lid with a rim, or run it on the floor. The rim keeps the ball in the game, and the blowing stays the point of it.

It is over in ninety seconds

Under five minutes is the whole activity at three, and blowing is considerably more tiring than it looks from the outside.

Leave it there. Two short goes on two different days beat one long one, and this is designed to be the four minutes before dinner rather than an afternoon.

Making it harder

Four rungs, one ball and one straw throughout. The last one needs a second player and nothing else.

typically 3

Straight down the table

Ready when: This is where everybody starts.
What changes: Two tape lines 70 cm apart, one ball, one straw each.
What is new: Sealing the lips around the straw and getting the air out through it rather than past it.

typically 3 to 4

Into a goal

Ready when: The ball goes roughly where he pointed it, most blows.
What changes: Two books on their sides at the far end, a hand's width apart, as a goal.
What is new: Aiming, which means the straw has to be pointed before the blow starts rather than during it.

typically 4

A course with a bend

Ready when: She can steer the ball down the table in a fairly straight line.
What changes: A path made from rolled tea towels or books on their sides, with one bend in the middle.
What is new: Changing the direction of the air part way along, and easing off so the ball does not overshoot the corner.

typically 4 to 5

Two players, one ball

Ready when: He can hold a long, controlled blow for a couple of seconds.
What changes: One ball in the middle of the table and both of you blowing towards the other person's line.
What is new: Grading the breath while somebody is pushing back, so it has to be steady rather than simply maximum.

Stop after a couple of runs rather than at the point where the cheeks are tired. This works best as four minutes on the way to something else, which is also why it comes back the next day.

How to keep it safe

One straw, and the instruction is about how he sits.

Sit up at the table with both feet down, and blow from there. A straw in the mouth stays at the table, and sitting up gives a better seal anyway.
Blow out rather than suck in. A 40 mm ping pong ball is far too big to be drawn anywhere near a mouth, which is why it is the ball to start with.
Swap a straw as soon as the end is chewed soft, and put the straw down on the table between goes rather than leaving it in the mouth.
Keep pompoms and small light balls for four and up, once the blowing is reliable, and use the ping pong ball at three.

Sitting down Straw down between goes From 3

Why this helps

This sits on the language shelf because blowing through a straw is speech muscles doing speech work. The lips seal in a ring around the straw, the cheeks hold firm instead of ballooning, the soft palate closes so the air goes out of the mouth rather than the nose, and all of it has to hold steady for a couple of seconds. That is the same equipment that makes p, b, f and s, and the same breath control that carries a sentence to the end of itself without running out halfway.

What the ball adds is that it makes the air visible. A three year old cannot feel his own breath control and certainly cannot be told about it, but he can see a ball move five centimetres or fifty. That is immediate, unmistakable feedback on something otherwise completely invisible, and it is the reason a child will do forty blows for a ball and none at all for an instruction to blow.

Skill practised: lip seal and a steady stream of breath, which is speech equipment

This is a game, not an exercise programme. A three year old blows the ball because it moves when he does it, and the mouth work rides along underneath.

One a week, at your child's age

We publish one new activity a week at each age, in exactly this format. The difference between a long slow blow and a hard puff is one of those things that takes three seconds to show and a paragraph to describe.

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Questions parents ask

Why is this filed under language rather than play?

Because blowing through a straw uses the same parts as speaking: the lips sealing in a ring, the cheeks staying firm, the air going out through the mouth instead of the nose, and the breath holding steady rather than arriving in bursts. Those are the muscles behind p, b, f and s, and behind getting to the end of a sentence without running out of air. The ball is simply the part that makes it worth doing forty times.

He blows around the straw instead of through it. What now?

That is the seal, and it is the thing being learned, so it is the right place to be stuck. Try a thicker straw, since a wider tube is much easier for a small mouth to close around. Blowing bubbles in a cup of water with the same straw is the fastest way for him to notice it himself, because the bubbles stop the moment air escapes past the lips.

Is a straw safe with a three year old?

Sitting at the table, yes, and that is the whole instruction: the straw stays at the table and goes down on it between goes. Cut it short, to about the length of his hand, which is easier to control and further from the back of the mouth. Swap it when the end goes soft, since a chewed straw passes no air and stops working as a straw anyway.

What can we use instead of a ping pong ball?

A ball of kitchen foil scrunched to about 4 cm is the best substitute, and half a walnut shell rolls in an entertaining way. Keep pompoms and cotton wool balls for four and up, once the blowing is reliable, because part of what makes a ping pong ball the right starting object is that it is much too big to be anywhere but on the table.