Here are a few more simple activities that you can do with your 13 month old. You may also be interested in Part 1 and Part 2.
Stuffed Animal Hide & Seek: Emma is very active and loves to explore. One of the games that we play is to hide a few of her stuffed animals throughout the house, then hunt them out! Starting out, it works best to use toys that make noise so they are easier to track down, and as your baby gets more advanced, you can turn down the lights and search with a flashlight!
Paper Tube Megaphone: One of the ways babies learn is through their sense of sound. Distorting and magnifying your voice can be an interesting experience for your little one. Make a paper tube megaphone out of empty paper towel rolls or toilet paper tubes. I put painters tape (the first kind of tape I found in the drawer) on both ends of ours because Emma tends to put the end in her mouth when she talks into it and I didn't want the paper to disintegrate if it gets wet. Sit on the floor, facing your baby and talk through the paper tubes. Let your little one hold and talk through their own paper tube.
Forest Sensory Basket: Discovery baskets, or sensory baskets, are a simple way to engage your little one in learning about the senses as well as language learning. When Emma was younger, we had a lot of fun with our ribbon sensory basket, but now that she is older and less apt to put things in her mouth, we are expanding our sensory experiences! In our forest sensory basket, we have a variety of stones, twigs, leaves, acorns, and pinecones. Let your child touch and explore each object, and try to use many different words to expose your child to language as you describe the texture or appearance of the objects as hard, crunchy, shiny, etc. Let your child move things around, and you can describe objects as they are over, under or beside each other, etc.
And, as always...
Read! Reading is one of the best activities you can do with your child at any age!
A few of Emma's current favorites are:
Stuffed Animal Hide & Seek: Emma is very active and loves to explore. One of the games that we play is to hide a few of her stuffed animals throughout the house, then hunt them out! Starting out, it works best to use toys that make noise so they are easier to track down, and as your baby gets more advanced, you can turn down the lights and search with a flashlight!
Paper Tube Megaphone: One of the ways babies learn is through their sense of sound. Distorting and magnifying your voice can be an interesting experience for your little one. Make a paper tube megaphone out of empty paper towel rolls or toilet paper tubes. I put painters tape (the first kind of tape I found in the drawer) on both ends of ours because Emma tends to put the end in her mouth when she talks into it and I didn't want the paper to disintegrate if it gets wet. Sit on the floor, facing your baby and talk through the paper tubes. Let your little one hold and talk through their own paper tube.
Forest Sensory Basket: Discovery baskets, or sensory baskets, are a simple way to engage your little one in learning about the senses as well as language learning. When Emma was younger, we had a lot of fun with our ribbon sensory basket, but now that she is older and less apt to put things in her mouth, we are expanding our sensory experiences! In our forest sensory basket, we have a variety of stones, twigs, leaves, acorns, and pinecones. Let your child touch and explore each object, and try to use many different words to expose your child to language as you describe the texture or appearance of the objects as hard, crunchy, shiny, etc. Let your child move things around, and you can describe objects as they are over, under or beside each other, etc.
And, as always...
Read! Reading is one of the best activities you can do with your child at any age!
A few of Emma's current favorites are:
- Bread and Jam For Frances by Russell Hoban
- Numbers from Nature by PlayBac
- The Game of Finger Worms by Hervé Tullet
My 3 good things for today are:
- Emma and I had a lot of fun exploring the backyard for items to put in our forest sensory basket.
- I got to enjoy a long, hot shower this morning, while Emma babbled into her paper tube megaphone.
- We are having apple pie for dessert tonight!
I like the idea of a sensory basket. Fun! But where did you get items like acorns and pinecones?
ReplyDeleteGreat question! We actually have a fairly "wild" backyard, so everything in our basket was from a quick search outside. But if you don't have a yard like ours, I think it would be great to do a family nature walk or a nature treasure hunt at a local park!
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