Hide and Seek

Perfect for up to 2 years old: 

  • Cover your face or Baby’s eyes with your hands. After giving Baby enough time to notice they can’t see you, pull your hands away and cheer. This will increase their object permanence, or ability to recognize that objects exist even when they cannot see them. 
  • When your baby starts to pull your hands away, indicating that they know you’re still there, you can start using different objects. Hide under a blanket, or behind a nearby chair.

Perfect for up to 2-3 year olds:

  • Begin to explore! Set boundaries of how far you can go to hide, or how long either of you will count. Practice your counting together. 
  • This is a great age to work on spatial awareness and egocentrism, or the idea that while your young one recognizes you are still present, they might not realize that you can see what they can’t. For example, if they were to hide behind a curtain, they might not realize that you can still see their feet, or hear their giggles. Play along to improve their confidence, but when you “find” them, help them improve their spatial awareness by pointing out what you can see and hear.

Perfect for 4-5 year olds:

  • They’re getting so advanced! Distances and times will increase. Boost your little one’s leadership skills by letting them set the boundaries. How long will they count? How far can you go? Where are you allowed to hide?
  • Increase the challenge by adding a home base to sneak back to. Then they will have to find multiple ways to hide under a time crunch!

https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-activities/why-playing-hide-and-seek-is-good-for-your-child/#gs.7nco3h

https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/te6277 

Make Your Own Butterfly!

You will need:

  • 2 round coffee filters
  • Washable markers
  • A pipe cleaner of your favorite color
  • Water in an eye dropper, small measuring spoon, or spray bottle
  • We recommend doing the craft on a cookie sheet to keep the spread contained.

 

  1. Stack the coffee filters on top of each other and press flat onto the cookie sheet. 
  2. Color your creative design onto the top filter. The marker should bleed through to the bottom filter. 
  3. Once finished, wet the coffee filters with the eye dropper or measuring spoon just until the coffee filter is completely wet. Don’t oversaturate!
  4. Leave the coffee filters to dry. You could place them out in the sun if it’s a nice day!
  5. Pull apart the dried coffee filters. Improve dexterity by helping your little one fold each filter back and forth, accordion style. 
  6. Place the two folded strips on top of each other and twist a pipe cleaner around them with the ends pointing upwards in a V to make the antennae. Curl the ends of the pipe cleaner.
  7. Spread out the folds of the coffee filter to make your butterfly!

https://onelittleproject.com/coffee-filter-butterflies/

Mirror, Mirror

Perfect for up to 2 years old:

  • Practice facial expressions in the mirror. Looking into the mirror, comment on what your little one is doing to help them recognize the baby in the mirror is them!
  • Imitate your little one’s expressions and give words to them. “I see you look sad. I see you look happy!” 
  • You can advance the previous step by pointing out which parts of their face or their body show emotional language. “Your fist is balled; your nose is scrunched.”

Perfect for 3 and above:

  • Face your little one and ask them to be the mirror by copying what you do. If you raise your right hand, they raise their left. Feel free to use all of your levels – stretch up high, get down low! Make your body big, make your body small! Try to match the pace so that an outsider can’t tell who is the “human” and who is the “mirror.”
  • Once your little one gets the hang of it, let them lead!

Tea Party Etiquette

  • Sitting up: Find a place on the floor or in a chair to help your little one practice sitting on their own. How still can they sit? Can they stay in their bubble? Can they sit up straight with good manners?
  • Holding objects: Different tea party objects require different fine motor skills. Hand big objects, like a (play) tea pot, or small objects, like a spoon, to your little one and talk them through how best to support the object. Hold the object a bit out of reach and see if they reach for it to improve their hand-eye coordination.
  • Manual dexterity: Practice folding napkins, setting the “table,” pouring the tea, and eating and drinking!
  • Manners: Model “please” and “thank you” while asking for and passing items.

Picnic Basket Play

For up to 18 months:

  • Gather a basket full of items (ideally, toy food!). With your little one, reach in to pull out the items one by one. Pronounce the name of each item. 
  • Once all items are out, it’s time to pack up the basket again! Leaving the basket within reach of your baby, have them put the items back inside, naming the items and counting together how many are already placed into the basket.

For up to 36 months: 

  • Place the basket out of your little one’s reach. Now, to place items inside, they need to stand and walk to place the items inside. Practice increasing your distance, and try different ways of walking to the basket!

3 years old and above:

  • Place the basket a small distance away from your little one for them to toss items into. Help them increase their depth awareness by encouraging different ways to throw items if they don’t make them in the basket. As they succeed, pull the basket farther and farther away!

Forest Friend Pantomime

  • Show your little one pictures of different creatures that were named in Teddy Bear’s Picnic, such as ants, bluebirds,  squirrels, bears, bees, frogs, owls, and cows.
  • Practice pronouncing the names of the animal.
  • Practice making the sound that animal makes.
  • Now put it all into you body – how would this animal move? Does it have arms, wings, four legs? Does it crawl or hop? Model the actions for your little one, and invite them to imitate you.

The Ants Go Marching

Lyrics:

The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah.

The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah.

The ants go marching one by one,

The little one stops to suck his thumb.

And they all go marching down,

To the ground, to get out of the rain.

 

As you go up number by number, replace lines with lyrics that rhyme

…two…tie her shoe…

…three….climb a tree…

…four…shut the door…

…five…take a dive…

…six…pick up sticks…

…seven…pray to heaven…

…eight…check the gate…

…nine…check the time…

…ten…say “The End!”

Verse by verse, practice patting your knees, clapping hands, marching, jumping, and sliding on beat. For the unique line in every verse, pantomime the new action! Suck your thumb, tie your shoe, etc.