Clapping Games and Finger Plays

Now, when your baby is 12 months old, he/she understands many things and can do simple actions like clap hands and playing finder games.

To play this kind of games, you should use easy memorized rhymes and perform simple actions like finger counting, clapping hands, sit-stand, jump up and down.

As a starter, you can use such favorite nursery and counting-out rhymes as :

* Five little ducks
* Heads, shoulders knees and toes
* The wheels on the bus
* I'm a little teapot
* Incy wincy spider
* Jelly on a plate
* Old MacDonald
* Two little dicky birds

and many others gathered on the Nursery Rhymes, Tongue Twisters and Conting-out Rhymes site

Hello - Goodbye

To learn the meanings of the words Hello and Goodbye, you can play this game with your baby.

Each time you enter a room and see your baby, say "Hello" with a big smile on your face. Now leave the room and say "Goodbye" and wave your hand. In a moment, come back and say "Hello". Repeat it as many times as you like, till the baby understands the meaning of these two words. Then he can do the same with you and his toys.

Rag-Doll or Free Toy In Minute

Needle mothers can create great masterpieces by not just making a doll, but also sewing dress for it. But when you’ve no time, a simpler variant will do. Babies always want something new. A simple doll can be done in a minute.

The “Mama” doll.

Fill a light one-colored sock with wadding or dry hygienic wipes. Tie up the sock tightly thus dividing the head from the body, and also tie the doll’s bottom (the end of the sock will be the dress’ fringe).

Draw the face and hands with a soft-tip pen. You can also paint the doll’s dress (e.g. draw flowers or simple spots)

What Makes The Noise?

The core of the game is to find a toy by the sound. First, you can hide the toy under a handkerchief. Each time the game should become more complicated. The toy must make the sound as long as possible, so that the baby can find it.
There’re so many musical toys with different songs, sounds, etc in baby stores. Choose the one that sounds longer.

In and Out

In this game babies lean about objects’ size and volume. Do you remember how the donkey Eeyore put the remainder of his balloon in the pot and told “It goes in and out”.

Select boxes, cans and toys of different size. Not all toys must have the size that is proper for each of the boxes.

Now let’s set a play task to the baby – find a home for each toy. Of course, the child will have to test each toy and see if it fits the box or not. While playing tell something like this: “The toy doesn’t fit this home because it’s big and the box is small, let’s find a bigger home for it.”

It often turns out that the kid doesn’t know how to play with toys. Show him/her different actions that can be done with these toys. The games like these develop fine motor skills and diligence.

Open - Shut

Let’s learn shapes and forms. Small children like all possible cans, bottles, boxes that can be opened and shut. Use this with an educational view. Put several boxes of different shape and form in front of the baby. Now ask him/her to open these boxes, and shut them correctly selecting the covers. If a cover turns, let the kid turn it and but not pull it.

Colored Heaps

In this game children learn to distinguish colors and systematize objects.

Let’s make heaps of different one-colored objects. For instance, “read heap” consists of ringlets, bricks, red pencils, etc. In the same way, we make a “blue heap” and several other heaps. Now give the baby an object (e.g. a blue ringlet) and ask him/her to drop it to the appropriate heap.

At first, it’s better to start with two heaps, e.g. a read and a blue one. You can also use some pots or truck. Presume we have a red heap in a box, and a blue heap in a big car. When you “create” heaps, comment on every your movement: “This ringlet is red and I put it to a red box, and this brick is blue and I put it to the truck, …” When the kid understands the principle of the game, give him/her a blue ringlet and tell: “This is a blue ringlet and we put it to …” and the blue ringlet will be put in the truck.

When the baby masters the game, you can go on without comments and just lend him/her a red brick and ask: “What heap do we put the red brick?”

If the kid knows many colors, you can make as many heaps and you like. If you know limited colors, you’d better make all the heaps from the known colors and one heap with the objects of unknown color.