- Old CDs
stuck to the side of a cupboard or box next to where baby spends time will
reflect light and be endlessly entertaining. In fact, anything shiny is
sure to be a winner. Just make sure it’s safe.
- If you are
able to sit and supervise baby, they seem to be quite enthralled with the
noise made by the plastic windows in envelopes. This one kept S
entertained for over an hour.
- I read about
treasure boxes on The
Imagination Tree and made one for S; she loves to rummage through
it and pick out random items to explore. The idea is that you use them for
heuristic play, so fill them with household items made from materials
other than plastic - stuff that reflects or bangs or rattles or feels
different in their hands. At the moment it contains:
- a paper plate
- a CD
- a loo roll holder
- a tin lid
- some brightly coloured material
- some metal spoons
- a wooden spoon
- a scrunched up piece of silver foil
- some random rock samples I was sent as part of an OU course
- Music! I used
to think S loved to watch the children’s TV station, until I realised she
just liked the music. Now she listens to Radio 3 (more melodious music,
usually less talking) and loves it. Sometimes we will put local radio on
instead and dance around the living room to some cheesy tunes.
- Go on a tour
of the house. This is a good one to do if you’ve been sitting in the
living room for a while and baby is getting a bit grumpy. I take S into
the kitchen and we say hello, then to the front door, the stairs, the bedroom,
take a look out the window and say hello to the people out there, stop and
say hi to her cot mobile, maybe play with a toy on the bed for a little
while, say hello to the baby in the mirror, and then head back to the
living room, saying hi or bye to the rooms and objects again as we pass.
- When S was
very small, she used to cry whenever I changed her nappy. I read somewhere
that babies like high-contrast images, especially simple pictures of
faces, and so one evening I got out my pens and some postcards and made up
some pictures to stick on the wall next to her changing mat. To be honest,
I didn't expect it to work, but until she was about 5 months old, she
would happily stare at the pictures on the wall whenever her nappy was
changed - though I did change them every month or so to avoid her getting
bored.
- Explore
different textures. I went through my old scraps of material, and bought
some remnants from a fabric shop, to find different styles and textures of
material. I’m sure you’ve already noticed babies love the feel of label
tags on everything they touch, but as they get older they will be
interested in other textures too, especially if they have different
colours or patterns as well.
- Plastic
bottles! I got this idea from my 2-year-old nephew, who's always had a
thing for plastic drinks bottles. I finished a drink the other day and
handed S the empty bottle, to see what happened... turns out she's just as
enthralled as her cousin. I'd seen a few different variations of things to
put into plastic bottles, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Seriously, this
one is so easy: you fill the bottle with liquid, and then you put some
stuff in it.
§
I used water in mine, but you could
pop to Poundland and get some bubble bath instead. If you use water, you can
put some glycerine in it - this makes the water more gloopy, so that whatever stuff you
put in it moves around more slowly.
§
I put red food colouring into one of
my bottles. I used gel colouring, because it was all I had, and it left a few
lumps in there so I guess if you didn't want lumps you could use liquid colour.
§
The other day whilst rummaging through
a cupboard I found some of those little silver balls you use to decorate
cakes... They were a good six months out of date, so I couldn't really put them
on a cake so I used them in this project instead, and put half into each
bottle. The silver colour came off of them and floated in the water, and the
sugar balls dissolved into the water.
§
I also had some out of date glitter
writing icing tubes, so I squeezed them into the bottles too, which made them
all glittery and pretty.
§
In an act of selflessness rarely seen
before or since, I ate a bunch of chocolate coins, and put the scrunched up
wrappers into the red bottle.
§
In the white bottle, I put the beads
from two old bracelets.
§
With this sort of project, the world
is your oyster. You can use whatever you have lying around - pieces of foam,
plastic, glitter, pasta shapes... And it's dirt cheap, so you can make as many
different ones as you want and change them over as often as you like. Winner!
- Peep-o. The
old ones really are the best. You can play this game with a baby for as
long as you have the patience, either hiding behind something or draping a
light cloth or blanket over baby and exclaiming "Where's baby
gone?!"
- One of S's
favourite things at the moment is to watch me wave my arms around and pull
a face, or simply shaking my head. I get a good workout every afternoon
jumping up and down and waving my arms whilst pulling faces at her whilst
she giggles away at what an idiot she has for a mother.
I'm sure there are a million
other things you can do with a baby that don't involve TV or expensive toys;
please feel free to add yours in the comments.
I may well collect up some more
as I go along to make another post on the subject some time in the future.
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