Mirror play for babies

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super baby play ideas

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. This week we have some ideas you can use for mirror play.

Babies love looking at faces, so sit yourselves down in front of a mirror and have some fun.

  • Start by sitting your baby on your lap or propped up between your legs, as you look at yourselves in front of a mirror. At first just let your baby look at their reflection and notice how they react. Do they try to touch the baby in the mirror or smile at her?
  • Try changing your expression and seeing if your baby notices. Sit with a calm expression and then change to a happy, animated face. Can you make your baby laugh? Do they copy your expression and smile back?
  • You could play peek-a-boo with the mirror too. Drape a scarf or piece of fabric over the mirror and wonder where the baby has gone – then whip it away with a flourish to find the baby is still there. This is a great opportunity to include an older brother or sister in the play, as they can be in charge of pulling away the scarf and can join in some fun play with their little sibling.
  • It’s always good to include some chat with any game you play so you could touch and name the different parts of your face. ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ would be a perfect song to sing.
  • If you have a safety mirror (a polycarbonate unbreakable one) you might think about fixing it up somewhere your baby can lie next to, or crawl over to. You could prop it up near to them when they’re having some tummy time and let them enjoy looking at the other baby.

Babies naturally like to look at other people and this mirror time lets them become familiar with faces and different expressions. It helps them practise focusing on things and tracking images with their eyes. It’s an early step towards their emotional development too because they’ll begin to notice how their own expression changes which once they are older can lead you into talking about how they’re feeling.

Does your baby enjoy looking at themselves in the mirror? What games do you play?


More activities for babies and toddlers

Zero to Two: The Book of Play is full of fun activities for babies and toddlers. Download you copy here!

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Literacy games: bingo

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>>> Download our guide to ABCs and 123s here 

Here’s how to make your own bingo game to help your child practise their letters.

1. Make several grids on paper or card. You can draw them by hand or print them from the computer. You need at least one grid per player but if you make more you’ll be able to swap cards and play the game several times. You can make the grid any size you like but 6 squares are a good start for pre-schoolers.

2. Add a letter into each square.

3. Make a set of square cards with a letter on each, corresponding to the letters on your grids.

4. Give every player a grid and then turn the square cards face down.

5.Take it in turns to pick a square card. When you turn over a square, see if you can make the right sound for the letter.

6. If the letter you picked is on your grid you can keep it to cover up the letter on your grid. If you don’t have the letter on your grid, place it back face-down.

7. The winner is the first person to cover all the letters on their card and gets to shout ‘bingo!’.

You can of course make different versions of this game to work on numbers, colours and words.

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 My guide to ABCs and 123s

Do you have a young child who is learning their ABCs and 123s, and do you want to make their learning fun? Our ABCs and 123s resource of mulitsensory, play-based letter and math activities is just what you need. See more here.


SUPERbaby play ideas

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baby play ideas 3

Welcome to the start of our new series of play ideas for the very youngest children: SUPERbaby play. Each Monday I’m going to be bringing you an idea you can use to give babies great start in life. I’ll be covering ideas to develop all of your babies senses, in a gentle, playful way. I’ll include ideas you can use with newborns right through until they reach their first birthday (when they can graduate to some of our grown up ideas!). The activities can be adapted to suit older children too, so big brothers and sisters can join in.

Why SUPERbaby? Well, I think babies are super. From birth they are clever little people observing the world and learning from everything they see, touch, hear, taste and smell. I hope the SUPERbaby articles will give you some ideas you can try as you nurture your tiny little learner.

The ideas I’m going to include in SUPERbaby play are Simple, because I know that parents with new babies are very busy anyway, and in need of sleep, so the activities will be things you can do without having to stick to a rigid regime, buy any expensive equipment or spend a whole hour getting ready. Most of the ideas just need you and your baby to join in.

I recognise that you and your baby are Unique. Although there are average ages when babies smile, sit by themselves, learn to crawl and so on, every baby is different. I also know that different babies (and parents) like different activities. The SUPERbaby ideas cover all sorts of sensory play and will fit with your babies stage, rather than their age – so you can use them all if you want, or just pick some of them to try.

The ideas are Playful. NurtureStore is all about learning through play and the SUPERbaby ideas follow the same philosophy of having  fun whilst encouraging your baby to develop to their full potential.

The ideas are Educational because, although your baby won’t realise it, by joining in with these playful activities they’re going to be developing their language and listening skills, practising gaining control of their bodies, and being introduced to maths and science and creative play.

The ideas are Relaxed. There’s no pressure, for you or your baby. If you’d like an idea to use this week – come and join in the fun. If you’re too busy, your baby’s a little cranky or you’re both having a nap instead, that’s fine too. The ideas are here for you to dip into when you want them – and they’ll all in the archive (which you can get to by clicking on the SUPERbaby play button on the right hand column) so you can come back and use them whenever you want.

So… Simple + Unique + Playful+ Educational+ Relaxed = SUPERbaby play.

More activities for babies and toddlers

Zero to Two: The Book of Play is full of fun activities for babies and toddlers. Download you copy here!

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Play Academy #21

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play academy

Welcome to the first Play Academy link up of 2011 – will you share a play idea with us?

Come and join the Play Academy community and use the Linky at the end of the post to add your link. Any kind of play posts are welcome – what your children have been up to this week, an idea, an activity, a craft, a game, anything goes. No adverts or competition links though please.

Please help to spread the word about the Play Academy by linking to this post from your blog, inviting your friends and readers to join in, sharing  a link through Facebook or Twitter, or by grabbing the Play Academy button from the column on the right to add to your blog.

**********************    Play Carnivals of 2011    *********************

Last year’s Carnival of Junk Play and Carnival of Messy Play were fabulous – encouraging us and our children to be playful and creative, and giving us a great resource of ideas to use when we need it. Shall we have some more themed carnivals this year? Do you like them? Will you join in?Are there any particular themes you’d like us to include this year? Maybe maths, literacy, outdoor play? What else would you like? Please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks everyone.

Thank you card calendars

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calendar thank you cards

Do you send thank you cards for your Christmas presents? It’s something I encourage my two to do but I’d like them to think of it as a fun part of our traditions rather than a boring chore. We try to make sure it involves something they love doing – drawing and making – and not too much of what they’re not so keen on – sitting for too long writing out line after line of ‘thank you for..’ This year we decided to make our thank you cards in to a little gift of their own and made these: New Year Thank You Calendars.

A simple design of one piece of card glued on to a larger one of a different colour, to give us our frame.

A chance for the children to be creative and come up with whatever drawing they thought Grandma and Aunty Jenny would like.

A little calendar, picked up for a few pence from the newsagent, glued on the bottom.

A thank you message they typed on the computer, copied and printed and stuck on the reverse side.

A ribbon attached on the top – and they’re done.

Here are all our other New Year ideas.

Happy New Year!

happily shared with Kids Get Crafty and Tot Tuesday and ABCand123

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