Water play for Baby

Keeping little R entertained while we bake is easy with water!

 

Making Fortune Tellers and Using Up Some Energy

I love paper crafts. They can be really simple, or complicated when you have the time, and can be wonderous for little kids. This one is super simple and easily fills 30 mins with fun and movement for the child. Fantastic.

My friends and I used to make fortune tellers (or chatterboxes or cootie catchers) at school all the time and somehow predicted wonderful things about the coming years. They are folded pieces of paper which can be moved in two directions. Numbers and colours provide choices and the ‘future’ is written under the hidden flap. This time, I put simple actions under the flaps and my son loved it.

This is how to make one:

Take a square piece of paper, fold it diagonally both ways and open again.

Fold the corners into the middle.

Turn it over and again fold the corners into the middle.

Turn it over again so that you are looking at squares and not triangles. Fold it across the middle. Open it. Fold it the other way across the middle. Open it.

Now, slide index finger and thumb of each hand under the squares and, using the folds you just made, pinch it together. Push index finger against index finger and thumb against thumb to make it move the other way.

I wrote numbers on the squares on top, coloured in the triangles on the other side and wrote actions under the flaps. My actions were simple things: jump five times, spin around, moo like a cow, touch your toes etc. Write things that you know your child will enjoy doing over and over.

This is how you play:

Ask your child to choose a number. Move the chatterbox that number of times. Choose a colour. Spell the colour and move the chatterbox with each letter. Choose another colour then look under that colour and do what it says.

The finished chatterbox can be packed in a bag for entertainment on the road. For a long trip you could make a few. I found a great site dedicated to chatterboxes with print outs which you just need to fold - great for a long drive. Have a look at this one for playing when flying.

Bananas and Knives

Some of the simplest activities involve food. It takes only a minute, or less, to put something in front of a child wanting to ‘help’ and you’re free for a few minutes at least, and if you’re really lucky you’ll get a whole half an hour to yourself.

Our favourite for a long time was a banana and a butter knife. He really enjoyed honing a skill he saw us doing daily. It works with anything soft enough to provide easy cutting for little hands. An over ripe kiwi provides lots of fun even without a knife. Tomatoes are great fun for exploring fingers.

Yes, there will be a little mess, but nothing a damp cloth can’t sort out in less than 10 seconds. You can wash clothes, utensils and hands easily too. Your child will probably eat most of the fresh healthy food so it won‘t go to waste. All in all a very worthwhile activity for your child to play and learn.

And sometimes he can't wait even to take the skin off!

Underground Train

We live in a big city with an underground train. My son loves it. He loves anything associated with trains. He must spend 90 percent of his time playing alone ordering his trains, cars and buses around the room. I decided to do something to add to his playtime which we could work on together. So we built our own U-Bahn (underground train in Berlin).

A while ago I spent an early Saturday morning drawing on a dissembled cardboard box to make a road and car park for all his cars. We took this, some empty toilet rolls and some tape, and started talking about how to go about it. It took a while to put enough rolls in place (it was a big box), and I had to do most of the work as it was a little tricky for a two year old. He started playing with something else in the room as I finished, but once I was done he was very pleased with his new toy.

The rolls looked a little like the pillars we see in some stations, and it was pretty dark under the cardboard so it looked quite realistic. It was a little wobbly, but this made him think carefully about his movements in and around the structure. The road on top became the way into the space inside the train track, where there was a shopping centre and a bus stop, according to him.

I loved watching him move around - on tiptoe, bending this way and that, peeking through the tunnel, reaching in to move the train. He made up a story about a man in a van. All in all, he practiced quite a few skills. These are some I noted:

• He used his limbs in different ways developing his fine and gross motor skills.
• He created stories by himself expanding his imagination and vocabulary.
• He watched me make a whole new level to his play area with a bit of card and some tape increasing his capacity for creative thinking.

We spent the next few days improving on the underground train to make it stronger and more adaptable to changes in the track.

Breaded Rabbit

I enjoy looking for new activities for us to do. There are so many creative ideas and fun activities. Recently we found our own - at the dinner table.

We were eating salad and bread. B held up a half eaten slice of bread.

"Rabbit" he said "Hopping rabbit". And he hopped it around the table, let it eat some lettuce and have a nap. Then he took a big bite from it!

Throughout the meal he made a swimming turtle, slithering snake and little pig. We talked about how they moved and ate. It made dinner very lively.

So although I love finding new activities to try out, it is even more enjoyable to watch B create his own games. We had a long conversation with lots of new words, ate lots and lots of healthy food and gave his imagination a little work out. Never say don't play with your food!