6 Fun activities for babies - Blooming Early Years

Fun activities for babies;

6 month – 12 month

Wondering the best way to encourage your child growth as they may be half way through their first stage of life, you could enhance their physical, social, ,mental, and emotional development through the following developmental activities

1. PEEKABOO

place a toy or a book under a blanket leaving part of the object showing. Then ask your baby, “Where is it?” and encourage him to look for it. “Babies will usually grab it and dig under the blanket,” says Robert Myers, “If yours doesn’t, you could remove and then replace the blanket.” After your baby has mastered finding a partly hidden object, you could move on to hiding it completely under the blanket. you might also like this lyrics

‘Peekaboo’ lyrics

Peekaboo! Peekaboo! Peekaboo!
Peekaboo! Peekaboo! Peekaboo!
I see you!
Where is Daddy? Where is Daddy?
Where is Daddy?
Peekaboo!
Where is Daddy? Where is Daddy?
I see you!

Where is mummy? Where is mummy?
Where is Brother?
Peekaboo!
Where is mummy? Where is mummy?
I see you!

Where is baby ? Where is baby?
Where is baby?
Peekaboo!
Where is baby? Where is baby
I see you!

Materials needed

- small toys or books
- blanket

Benefits

- Stimulates baby’s senses,
- Improve their fine motor skills,
- strengthens her visual tracking,
- Encourages her social development
- tickles her sense of humor.
- peekaboo teaches object permanence: the idea that even though she can’t see something (like your smiling face), it still exists.

2. Stacking

Children love to test textures with their mouths, especially teething babies,they differentiate between sizes and shapes.. while gripping and chewing. You can roll the cups and watch what happens when you roll the cups to or away from your child.They are learning hand and eye coordination as they reach for the moving cup. Hide small items under the stacked cup as babies love the surprise of finding more cups under the big one, or even a smaller toy. Take turns stacking the cups and knocking them down. You can also have a “race,” where you both stack cups at the same time.

Materials needed

plastic measuring cups

Benefit

- Improve children fine and gross motor skills
- Improve eye-hand coordination.
- Improves creativity
- Fun way to learn shapes ,sizes, and colors
- Aids social development
- Enhances logical thinking

3. PUZZLES

Children in age 6 month to 1 year are in their pincer grasp stage where they grasps objects with their thumb and index finger this is the right time to let them start puzzling as this allows them to start removing puzzle pieces more easily and even fitting one inside its resting place thus developing their fine motor skill and also letting them have fun as they will probably also love taking completed puzzles and dumping them on the floor.

Materials needed

Age appropriate wooden puzzles

Benefit of puzzling

- Picking up, moving and twisting the pieces of a puzzle helps babies develop finger strength
- Builds Perseverance
- Improve problem solving skills
- Improve hand-eye coordination

4. READING

Regularly read books to your baby, pointing to the pictures as you read and engaging him/her by changing your voice to different characters. Invite your little one to participate by encouraging her to laugh or act surprised by the story, touch the pictures, and turn the pages.

Materials needed

Board or cloth picture books

Benefit

- Stimulate children imagination
- Teaches children about communication and language
- Introduces concepts such as numbers, letters, colors, and shapes in a fun way.
- Improve children memory
- Builds children listening skills
- Builds and improves children’s vocabulary skills.
- Gives children information about the world around them.

5. CLAP WITH ME

Clapping is so much of a fun activity to do with children especially with babies , if you clap your hands together they will gradually start to copy and bring their own hands together as well . Also try holding your baby’s hands together and saying “clap, clap, clap your hands ”. Lots of smiles and positive praise will help this along,also encourage them with this rhyme

‘Clap with me’ lyrics

Clap, clap, clap your hands,

Clap along with me,

Clap, clap, clap your hands,

Clap along with me.

Clap a little faster now,

Clap along with me,

Clap a little faster now,

Clap along with me.

Clap, clap, clap your hands,

Clap along with me,

Clap, clap, clap your hands,

Clap along with me.

Clap a little slowly now,

Clap along with me,

Clap a little slowly now,

Clap along with me.

Clap, clap, clap your hands,

Clap along with me,

Clap, clap, clap your hands,

Clap along with me. let’s do it again!!

Benefit of clapping

- Improve children exploratory skill
- Develop motor skills
- Improve their vision
- Hand eye coordination

6. RHYME TIME

Sing songs with real or made-up words that rhyme, like “sea sea sea, see see see ” You might like this rhyme ‘ a sailor went to sea sea sea….’ singing rhymes to children is more like food to their bodies and mind and it’s a great way to boost your baby language development. you can as well make this practical as its so much fun for babies to be able to splash water and torch the sea creatures,beware it’s gonna be messy so get prepared and don’t forget to sing the below rhymes along.