Baby Archives - Page 2 of 3

Make a hide and seek baby jigsaw

By Cathy James on May 24th, 2011%

Transform an ordinary jigsaw into a special puzzle just for your baby with this idea for a hide and seek personalised jigsaw puzzle featuring some of your baby’s favourite people.

How to make a peek-a-boo jigsaw

Wooden jigsaw puzzles are great for babies:

They help your baby develop their pincer grip as they pull out the pieces using the peg handles
They develop fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination as your baby turns the pieces around and passes them from one hand to the other
They’re good for learning about size and shape and orientation
They give you and your baby lots to chat about as you look at the pictures

To make a jigsaw even more fun try this idea for a personalised jigsaw for your baby:

1. Choose a jigsaw puzzle with large pieces and peg handles.

2. Print out some photographs of your baby’s favourite people.

3. Match up each piece of the puzzle with one of your photographs and use the puzzle piece as a template to cut your photographs to the right size.

4. Glue each photograph into one of the holes in the puzzle and you’re ready to play hide and seek.

More baby play ideas

Check out our baby play archive for lots of lovely play ideas for the youngest learners.

Un-toys for babies #2

By Cathy James on April 11th, 2011%

Our last SUPERbaby post was about all the wonderful play items you can find around the home and use to make a treasure basket for your baby to explore. As you can see from these picture our SUPERbaby poster girl has discovered something else which makes a fabulous, frugal and fun toy for little ones: shoe boxes!

Sturdy enough for some baby-handling, they make great discovery boxes. Take some of your treasures and hide them inside for your baby to find.

Pop the lids on and let your baby begin to understand the concept of object permanence – that even if they can’t see teddy, he is still in the box. Once your baby has played with this idea for a while you could sneak teddy out and watch their surprise when they discover he’s relocated behind your back.

Offer your baby a pile of goodies and let them put things in and take things out to their heart’s content.

How about stacking the boxes to make a tower? As you baby begins to shuffle or crawl you can place the tower a little out of reach to entice them over to know it down.

And as your baby grows, shoes boxes can transform into trains or cots or houses.

Have shoe boxes? Go play!

Our SUPERbaby play series focuses on simple, playful ideas you can use with the youngest of children to have fun and encourage them to develop important early learning skills. The emphasis is on ideas you can easily fit into a busy week, using materials you’ll have around your home. View all our SUPERbaby ideas here.

happily shared with Sunday Best and Fridays Nature Table and For the kids Friday and Frugal Friday and It’s Playtime and Upcycled Awesome and We Play

Aromatherapy play for babies

By Cathy James on February 21st, 2011%

It’s the half term holiday for us this week and I’m off out and about with the girls, so I thought I’d share a favourite idea from our archive with you today. Using some things from your kitchen cupboards you can give your baby a lovely sensory play time.

Have you thought about how your baby uses their sense of smell as they explore the world? Babies love tubs and pots to put things in and out of and with our aromatherapy box play idea you can give them a smelly sensory experience too.

Games for crawlers

By Cathy James on February 13th, 2011%

When baby’s start being on the move a whole new world of adventure opens up to them. Whether they’re crawling, shuffling, or hitching along on their elbows makes no difference – once they’re off, there’s lots of fun to be had exploring their surroundings from this new perspective.

Of course, you need check your play space to make sure things are safe now your baby is mobile, but you can also see which new play possibilities you can add in. The easiest thing to do is set up some ‘play stations’ around the room, with something enticing in each place for your baby to crawl over to and explore. You don’t need to buy anything new but it’s a great idea to keep changing what you put out so you catch your baby’s eye with something new, and you provide lots of different shapes, sizes and textures for them to explore.

How about a little peek-a-boo treasure hunt. We talked about babies loving seeing familiar faces with last week’s lift-the-flap love book and you can extend this into a game too. Take some photos of favourite people (you might want to laminate them or cover them in sticky backed plastic to make them a little sturdier) and ‘hide’ them around the room. You’ll want them to be easy for your baby to spot, so have them down at crawling level, poking out from behind the sofa or the corner of the toybox. Then it’s ready, set, go! to see how fast your baby can round up granny and grandad from behind the bookcase!

These ideas encourage your baby to practise their crawling and develop their gross motor skills. They encourage exploration and give you lots to chat about together as you play.