Four Educational Activities to Teach Your Baby About the World

Four Educational Activities to Teach Your Baby About the World
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Try some of these fun activities with your baby and enjoy seeing her learn about her world!

Mommy’s Little Helper

What’s the most important thing you’d like to teach your baby about the world? The importance of helping others is a good idea! You can start teaching your baby this lesson when he’s young. When you take out a basket of laundry to fold, let him “help” by folding some of the clothes too. (This will also teach him the concepts of “in” and “out.”) When you’re washing down his high chair tray, give him a small rag and let him copy you. On your way out the door, let him flick the light switch off. Before each of these activities, say “Can you help Mommy?” and reward him afterwards with a smile and a “thank you.”

Water Play

To an infant, water is one of the most fascinating things she’s ever seen. You can’t hold it, but you can splash it around! A great lesson plan for infants involves placing a large basin of water on a porch (or another area that won’t be harmed by a flood of water) along with several containers – spoons, measuring cups, hard plastic cups, etc. Model playing with the water yourself, and then let your child loose! You can even bring these containers into the bathtub to give her more space to experiment.

Put a Lid on It

This lesson plan will help your child experiment in a trial-and-error fashion. First, model screwing a lid onto the top of a jar. Make sure that your infant has the dexterity to get the lid on. Then present him with several containers and several lids, and see if he can figure out which lid goes on each container.

Balloon Fun

After a neighbor’s birthday party, ask for some of the leftover helium balloons. (Note: Latex balloons can be choking hazards after they pop, and all balloon strings can be strangling hazards.) Let your baby play with the balloon at first. Then, show her how the balloon goes up and down by pulling on the string. Older babies will be able to do this for themselves, but younger babies will love to see the balloon going up and down. Label these actions by using the words “up” and “down,” and watch your baby’s eyes grow wide with excitement.

These activities exploring baby’s world can be done at any time of the day. They’re educational, so they’re great ways to help your infant learn and play at the same time!

For some fun summertime activities, click here.