Five Days of Play 2
We have loved welcoming you along to five days of play and hope that you have had fun!
Our mission over this past week is to give you some practical ideas that you can do at home that are fun, will help your baby’s development and give you some structure in your day. We really want to give you the reason behind our activities too so you learn a little bit about baby brains and sensory development on the way.
Thank you, thank you! To everyone who has participated you have been truly amazing and we have loved seeing your photos and feedback. Our group is definitely the kindest place on the internet
We’ve posted below a little summary of our activities
Day one - single colour play space
Single colour play is amazing for our babies, great for helping their visual development as they see the whole toy in the same focus rather than parts of it pin sharp. It is amazing for hand to eye co-ordination, their sense of touch if we include different textures, motor planning, their posture and working two sides of their body together.
Each area of their brain is used too as they use their frontal lobe for their motor functions, their parietal lobe for their touch and sensory input, occipital lobe for their vision, cerebellum for their co-ordination and temporal for their memory & auditory processing.
So much benefit from one little activity, repeat it often!
You will need –
two texture fabrics for lying out on your playspace, give them lots of opportunities to feel and touch a few different textures at the same time
four or five toys of similar colours
Lie your toys out in your playspace in an arc and let your little ones engage with them. For our tiny babies take the opportunity to show them the toy, let them feel and touch and do some toy rotation, for our tummy timers, pop the toys around them and totally distract them to give them lots of opportunities to feel and touch and build up their tummy time. For our sitters pop the toys around them in an arc and encourage them to reach and grab for them helping their balance, co-ordination and motor control, please keep them safe while they are stretching forward and doing lots of work on their dynamic balance. For our little ones who are on the move, encourage rolling, stretching and crawling to the toys by moving them further away.
Please keep your little one in eye sight and arms reach at all times and never leave them unsupervised with a toy at any time.
Day two - books and toys
Today our play suggestion is focused on books and toys. Books are an amazing way to have a conversation with our babies that feels authentic and spending some one on one time with them. Lots of research indicates that babies who are exposed to books from a younger age have better communication skills, vocabularies and better listening skills so it is amazing for baby brains!
Today we are making reading a story an event! We are adding toys alongside the story to increase the sensory input that our baby’s have exposure to. Choose a book that you are able to compliment some toys alongside, even if it is just a toy that matches the colour of the cover! Think about the textures you are adding and try to increase the textures that they have exposure to during your session, bonus points if your book includes textures! Talk your little one through what they are looking at, try and add in a song or some music that matches the theme so you can shake a toy during your play session too. A simple 8 – 10 minute play session done in this way has so many benefits for baby brains and sensory development
Your baby is developing so many skills including –
- their sense of touch and their brains ability to process textures
- they are working on their visual development and controlling those tiny muscles in the back of their eyes,
- they are working on their co-ordination,
- their balance,
- using both sides of their body,
- their motor planning skills,
- their ability to screen input as they listen to your voice,
- increasing their attention span
- their perception and spatial skills,
- adjusting their body
- and they are listening to your voice so using lots of their auditory processing skills too.
Do it at a time that your little one is calm and alert and please don’t be concerned if they only manage a page or two the first time you to it, try again the next day, repetition is amazing for baby brain development!
Have lots of fun reading to your little one, we’d love to see your photos!
Day three - shake, rattle & roll
Today’s play suggestion is to choose 3 toys that we can rotate to help our little ones with their engagement and their concentration. Choose a toy that shakes, one that rattles and one that rolls. Today is not about all of the toys, it is choosing a couple to listen to, to engage with and concentrate on.
Shaking toy – smaller toy, softer noise, links, small maracas, little music toys
Rattle – maybe a larger louder toy, a rainmaker, bottle with beads, peas or coins in or maybe a bell toy
Roll – ball or round object that we can practice our fine finger control with holding
For our youngest babies we are lying our little one’s down, playing noises to the side so we can track and work out where the noise is coming from, our hearing is most developed at birth so this is a great opportunity to track a noise. We are letting them hold and touch and for our larger toys we can pop them onto their side and support them so their hands come together for two handed play
For our sitting babies pop the toys in front so your baby reaches for the toys working on their hand-eye co-ordination and their balance skills. Be on hand to support the if needed. Practice toy rotation so if your little one shows a particular toy lots of attention give them the opportunity to swap
and for our moving babies, encourage lots of moving, rolling, cruising and crawling towards the toys, spacing the out really helps.
Aim to do this for 5 – 10 minutes
Aim to do this for 5 – 10 minutes
This little activity helps
- our little ones discover textures
- listen to different noises and helps with directional noise
- working the big muscles in our body
- amazing for our fine motor skills
- opportunities to work on moving
- great for helping with balance
- hand-eye co-ordination
- concentration
- visual skills and controlling the very small muscles in their eyes
- body scheme
- working two sides of our body
- our motor planning skills
- awareness of where our body is in space
- their ability to screen information
- it is great for stretching our their bodies and distracting them during tummy time too!
A little activity with so many benefits!
Would love to see how you get on and as usual please keep your little one safe and in eye sight and arms reach at all times.
Have fun x
Day four - high contrast (black, white & red)
Contrast play is amazing for your baby, great for helping their visual development. When our baby is born they originally see in light and shade so things that are high contrast are really visually interesting for them. It is amazing for hand to eye-co-ordination, their sense of touch if we can include different textures, motor planning, their posture and working two sides of their body together. Black, white and red is an amazing combination as it involves contrast and one of the first colours that our little ones can see in focus.
Each area of their brain is used too as they use their frontal lobe for their motor functions, their parietal lobe for their touch and sensory input, occipital lobe for their vision, cerebellum for their co-ordination and temporal for their memory & auditory processing.
So much benefit from one little activity, repeat it often!
You will need –
Red or contrast fabric
contrast toys, puppets or books
red toys
Lie your toys out in your playspace in an arc and let your little ones engage with them. For our tiny babies take the opportunity to show them the toy, let them feel and touch and do some toy rotation, for our tummy timers, pop the toys around them and totally distract them to give them lots of opportunities to feel and touch and build up their tummy time. For our sitters pop the toys around them in an arc and encourage them to reach and grab for them helping their balance, co-ordination and motor control, please keep them safe while they are stretching forward and doing lots of work on their dynamic balance. For our little ones who are on the move, encourage rolling, stretching and crawling to the toys by moving them further away.
Please keep your little one in eye sight and arms reach at all times and never leave them unsupervised with a toy at any time.
Have fun and please share your photos of your playspaces to inspire others!
Day five - texture tub
Thank you so much for participating in 5 days of play!
Have absolutely loved seeing all your photos and engagement over the past week.
On day five we are all about textures! Our sense of touch is one of our foundation senses, at the very bottom of that pyramid of learning so it is really important that we introduce lots of textures into our baby’s play.
Today we are putting together a texture basket, box, bag and popping in 5 toys that feel and touch different. Bonus points if your little one would need to hold them differently. Our photos are of texture tubs that we’ve created for many babies to use at once, please pop your five items in a much smaller area!
For our youngest babies in lying or tummy time we are letting them touch each toy. Popping them in side lying naturally brings their hands together enabling both hands to engage with the toy.
For our sitters we are looking to put the toys in front of them and encouraging them to engage with the toys using both hands to bring them out of the box and do lots of holding and touching.
For our movers it is all about getting them moving alongside engaging with the textures.
Each area of their brain is used too as they use their frontal lobe for their motor functions, their parietal lobe for their touch and sensory input, occipital lobe for their vision, cerebellum for their co-ordination and temporal for their memory & auditory processing.
So much benefit from one little activity, repeat it often!
we’d love to connect with you….
we have a free baby development group that we’d love you to join us in
The Members Club
If you’ve enjoyed our play suggestions this week, you’ll love our Members Club!
Each month we deliver
– weekly sensory development classes delivered live and access to our library of recorded sessions
– weekly live play along sessions
– weekly live sessions tailored to your baby’s developmental stage
– monthly trainings on topics like baby brain development, motor skills & play – we have an activities printable library
– and an amazing community!
We’d love to welcome you along to play!
We offer a 7 day complimentary trial and if you register before the 11th of May you’ll be included in our amazing ‘Play in May‘ activities where we are offering daily play ideas that you can use during lockdown!