Does you baby enjoy tummy time? While we always put our babies to sleep by lying them on their backs, giving them the opportunity for some daily tummy time play is important for their development. Here are some ideas you could use to make tummy time happy.
What are the best toys for babies? Do babies need toys? Here’s how to make treasure baskets for babies filled with interesting items from around the home to provide your baby with lots of shapes, textures and sizes to explore.
Babies change so much during their first year, developing in their physical, social and language skills. Think how different a new born and a one year old are. A good way to keep up with their development and make sure you’re matching your play to suit them is to borrow a practice from Early Years professional and carry out a play audit every couple of months.
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.
Zero to Two: The Book of Play is full of fun activities for babies and toddlers. Download you copy here!
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.
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.
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.
Zero to Two: The Book of Play is full of fun activities for babies and toddlers. Download you copy here!