This home-made game will support you and your baby to chat together while you play.
Babies and young children enjoy posting things. As they manoeuvre items to fit in the posting slot they will be developing their hand-eye coordination. As you chat with them about what they are doing, and talk about and count the things they are posting, you will be supporting their language development.
You will need:
- A small box (an empty tissue box works well with it's ready-made slot)
- Wrapping paper, paint or pens
- Scissors
- Sellotape or glue
- Jar lids (or alternative posting objects)
- Photos or magazine cut outs
Make and play:
- The first step is to make the post box. Cut a hole in your cardboard box. You can decorate the box by covering it with wrapping paper or let your child help to decorate it with paint or pens.
- Next, cut out photos of important people, pets, or pictures from magazines. Stick these to the clean, dry jar lids using tape or glue. Or, gather alternative objects for posting.
- Now sit with your baby and the post box. Look at the photos together. Talk about what you can see on the pictures, or count the objects as you post them into the box.
- Encourage your baby to respond to clues and questions like Where's the dog? and Which one shall we post next?
Top tips:
Praise your child when they post something, and repeat some of the words you use, to encourage them to copy you, for example, another one, again, all gone, 1, 2, 3, go.
You could invite them to draw a picture and visit a real post box.
Good to know
This activity helps your child with fine motor skill development and problem solving, and they will be learning new words too.
