The present invention discloses a system and method to enable a capacitance sensor to further recognize a capacitive action on an object after the capacitance sensor has recognized the presence of the object. The system includes an object, an interactive surface embedded with a capacitance sensor, and a processor that is configured to continuously receive capacitance values from the capacitance sensor. After an object is placed on an interactive surface and within the detection range of the capacitance sensor, the processor is configured to deduce that a first significant change in capacitance value has occurred, and that an object has been placed on the interactive surface, based on one or more heuristics. And further, once an end-user touches the object, the processor is configured to deduce that a second significant change in capacitance value has occurred, and that the object has been touched by a finger, based on one or more heuristics. The present invention may be valuable for a variety of education, entertainment and productive applications by providing enhanced human machine interactivity through the manipulation of physical objects.