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.

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.

Pour This, Pour That!

You’ll need several shatterproof cups, bowls, kettles or watering-pots for this game. First of all, put an oilcloth apron on the baby. Now, fill a cup with water from a bowl, then pour water into a kettle (or a watering-pot), and then pour it out to the cups. You can also pour water from a basin into small bowls with a spoon.

There’s another variant of the gameplay. Put two bowls in front of the kid; fill with water one of the bowls. Show the baby how you can pour water from one bowl to another with the help of an ordinary medical clyster or a sponge. Pay attention to the gurgling and sucking sound, and to dripping water and drops. The child’s delight is guaranteed!!!

If you do not grudge wasting some foodstuffs, you can pour different bulk material from one plate to another with a spoon or a small cup. You can pour semolina, rice, buckwheat, pea, etc.
Show the baby how he/she can pour peas from one plate to another with a spoon. Pay attention to the sound that makes the dropping pea or rice: “rattles”, “rustles”, “quiet”, “loud”.
Note: you must keep an eye on the young explorer so that he doesn’t put a pea into his nose or ear.

For children of about 1,5 – 2 years old you can play such a variant of the play:
Cut small pieces out of foam-rubber and give tweezers to the kid. It’s not an easy task to grasp rubber pieces with tweezers, but it’s very absorbing!
You can use other small objects for the game: corks, meccano details, etc.
This exercise develops movement coordination, special imagination and tactile sensations.

Magic Sack (for one or more players)

Take a non-transparent sack and several big objects that are well-known to the baby. The objects should be of a clearly defined shape and texture (e.g. clew of wool, keys). When the baby dives his/her hand in the sack, he/she defines by touch what object has he touched (at the first stage you can help by prompting). If several kids are playing, they puts their hands in the sack by turn – and pulls a “prize”. Babies like this game, where magic element is so strong. The only difficulty here is to select really different objects and not to forget about safety – the things mustn’t be sharp or prickly.

In the course of time the game is made more complicated. You can add smaller objects or toys that have slightly different texture. Or you can follow an easier variant and offer the baby to find definite objects in the sack (e.g. find a button or a key).

The game trains memory, imagination, develops tactile sensation.

Mini-Puzzle

Cut one or two big pictures from a magazine. When the baby remembered a picture, cut it by two pieces. The task for your baby is to gather the picture together. As time goes by the game becomes more complicated: there are two or more pictures that are cut by two and are mixed. Thanks to this puzzle-game the baby trains memory, attention and diligence.

The Ring

You’ll need teeth rings for this game. These rings can be bought in the chemistry store.

Pull several rings on a stick. Turn them round, thus attracting the baby’s attention. Pull one ring off and hand it to the kid above breast, so that the baby stretches one or two hands to take the ring.

When the baby takes the ring, let him/her play with it, touch it, taste it. And again twirl the rest of the rings around the stick.

Play this game time and again, changing items and toys. This will help the baby to build up his/her visual coordination.

Games with Paper and Sand

Put a paper sheet in front of the baby, it will hide all the room from it, and if you take the sheet off, the kid will see your face again.

And some more useful exercises:

Let the child touch different by touch things: cloth, carpet, grass, wood, etc. Name these things.

Put the kid in a sand-box, let him/her touch everything, cover feet with sand and find them together.

Day After Day

Accompany games with different regime moments. The best games for washing and clothing are based on imitation: “hands up like a soldier, leg up like a stork, stay still like a stone…”

In the mornings play wolf and hare: the kid, imitating a hare, is hiding under the blanket, and you are imitating a wolf that wants to eat the hare J. This game trains memory.