You will need objects or items you use while eating.  As your child picks up an item, say the word or the name of the item. Encourage older children to say the word too. Praise them for their efforts.

When we talk with babies, we grow and ‘spark’ their brain.Babies learn language by hearing it being used around them. Saying the name of an object while your baby is focused on the object helps them to learn that talking has a meaning and it helps them start to learn the meaning of the words they hear. The more babies hear words from different people, the more quickly they will learn.

For this activity you will need an egg box, 6 different coloured bottle tops and  kokie pens or crayons to match the bottle tops. 

Colour the bottom of each section of the egg box  with a different colour so that you have 6 different coloured sections. Your child can put the bottle tops into the section that matches its colour. 

Look at how many things can your child find in your home to match each bottle top colour?

Can they find and name colours that have not been used in the egg box?

Babies love to listen to and join in the fun of singing and saying action rhymes. They learn to predict what is coming next in the song or rhyme, and at the same time they learn new words and the rhythm of their language.

Think of some easy action rhymes you would like to say or sing with your baby. Say one or two of these rhymes during the week and watch how your baby responds. Say them slowly with lots of expression, notice how your baby responds. Say them slowly with lots of expression, notice how your baby starts to anticipate what is coming next. Enjoy this time together.

In this picture the mother has hidden the ball for her baby and started a game. When they first played the game, the baby didn’t know where the ball had gone – then his mother showed him where to look. She encouraged her baby to keep trying and praised his efforts. It often takes lots of ‘tries’ to work something out!

You can also play this game by hiding your face with your hands and letting the baby pull your hands away and find you! Hide something in your hand and let the baby open your hand to find it. Babies love to play this over and over again.

Learning to crawl involves not only your baby’s body but their brain as well. They develop coordination and strength and their body and brain grows stronger and more alert. Your baby learns by trying, making a mistake and then trying again and again. This skill will help your baby as it grows and continues to learn many new things.

Give your baby many opportunities to practice crawling and then walking. Enjoy watching your baby explore the world around them and encourage them with kindness and patience. Learning something new is often difficult no matter what your age. Keep in mind that all babies develop at their own pace. 

Your encouragement and praise will give them the motivation to keep moving along.   

Keep on Trying!

To make a posting box you will need: a koki or pen, ice cream containers or yoghurt tubs with lids for the posting box, a hard board to cut on, sharp knife, plastic bottle caps in many colours and sizes. 

To begin,  group the plastic bottle caps into different sizes. Next, on the lid of the posting box, draw around three or more of the different sized bottle caps. Then, use a sharp knife to cut out the circular shapes you have drawn. Make sure all the caps fit through the holes you have made and that there are no sharp edges.

As your toddler finds the posting game easier and easier, make more holes of different sizes in the lid and give

them objects of different sizes. Remember to talk as your baby plays and use words such as big, small, bigger than, smaller than, fits into or doesn’t fit into.

Remember that it takes time to learn new things.

• You nearly got it……
• A good try……..
• I like your idea……
• You are on the right track…..
• Keep thinking, keep thinking…..
• I like the way you are thinking…..
• I like to see that you are trying…..

Talk to your child and encourage them to think about which things go together and why. You could say things like, “Let’s put all the socks together. Now let’s find matching pairs of socks and I will fold them. Do these socks still fit you? Do you want to keep them or are they too small? Now let’s put all your socks together. Now let’s look for daddy’s or mommy’s or sister’s socks. Whose socks are the longest? shortest? thickest / thinnest?

 Ask your child what else you can sort. Help them if they get stuck.

They could put all the t-shirts or socks or towels together, or they could put  clothes belonging to different family members together. They could sort clothes into same colours or separate warm weather clothes from cool weather clothes or underwear from outerwear.

Being able to name an object and know what group or category it belongs to helps your child understand more about that word. Knowing more about a word helps a child remember and use that word when they talk, read and write. 

While your child is playing you could say:

How did you…?

How does that work?

Why does it…?

How did you do that?

Listen attentively to their answers and encourage them to give more detail and description. 

Use questions like ‘where, when, why, how, who’ to talk about the event. If you do not have a photo start the conversation with, “Do you remember the time when…”

You could extend the activity by folding a blank piece of paper into a little book and writing the story. Children draw a picture to match the sentences on each page. Older children can write the story themselves. How wonderful to be able to build a little library of family stories.

There are lovely measurements words like cup, tablespoon and dessert spoon and words like mix, add, stir, store, dry, and sticky  can be added to your child’s vocabulary.

Older children can predict what colours they can make if they mix certain colours together. You could also get them to solve problems like “What ingredient can we add if the mixture is too dry or too sticky?” Squashing and shaping playdough strengthens little hand and finger muscles. This helps their hands feel less tired when they draw or write. 

Playdough recipe
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
2 cups water
2 dessert spoons oil
4 tablespoons cream of tartar
food colouring 

This activity is a fun way for your child to practice listening to and following instructions, to learn movement and position words and of course to move and exercise their bodies. It will provide endless hours of fun and challenge them.  

If you have space outside in a garden use any existing trees, furniture, sandpit or play equipment that you may have. You can also add objects such as chairs, a table, a ladder, a mat, skipping rope, a ball and so on. If you are making an obstacle course inside you’ll be able to make use of inside furniture. Keep in mind that your child’s safety while moving around is important and make sure that the course you make is safe for your child.

Once you and your child have set up a course give them instructions to follow to move around the course. Use as many different movement words as you can. For example you could say, Slide under the mat, jump off the chair, crawl under the table and then hop to touch the door. Give your child a chance to give you instructions and then follow them. If your child is happy to be timed, you could offer to time how long it takes them to do the simple course. The course can be done as many times as you like by changing the instructions each time. 

Do they try to sound like or behave like someone you recognise? Wait to see what happens next and how they come up with solutions. After a while ask if you can join the game. Follow their lead. They may give you a role to play. They may say “You be me and I will be the mommy.” 

Or you can tell them what you have noticed. For example you may say ‘I see you have put the baby on the chair just like I do and you are feeding him something. What is it?’

Children learn best when they are interested in something, so let them take the lead during play. Show interest in what interests them! 

Activity: When children are playing and building take a few minutes to encourage then and introduce new words such as: balance, round, square, smaller than, taller than, the same, over, under, at the top or at the bottom. These words are important words for school maths! 

 Use one picture card at a time. Together with your child talk about the picture and give the words for the objects you are looking at. Ask your child to point to something in the picture or act out what they see in the picture. Maybe it’s a picture of someone running or skipping or dancing. You can say things like, “A mug looks like this and has a handle for holding. There is a bottom that is closed and a top that is open so you can drink.” 

For children who are learning their letter sounds, all the objects could all contain the same beginning or focus sound.

 Put the objects on a table or tray. Name the objects with your child. Now cover the objects with a cloth. Ask your child to name and draw each of the objects that they remember seeing under the cloth. Take the cloth off and see if your child has remembered all the objects.

Now ask your child to look away or cover their eyes while you remove one of the objects. Ask your child to look again and say which object you have removed. You can do this again with the other objects, for as long as your child is enjoying the game.

 Take turns because your child will love to be the one that tries to ‘catch you out’ by removing something that they hope you won’t remember. The game should be fun and your child should feel confident and successful. Always praise their efforts! 

Before you begin the game, talk together about each animal in the pictures. Talk about what the animal looks like, what it would eat, where it would live. Is it a wild or a tame animal? If you could touch it, what would it feel like? Does the animal swim, walk or fly?

Now play the game. Put the animal pictures into a pile on the side. Take turns to choose a picture without letting the other person see it. The person without the picture asks a few questions to guess what the animal is. Your child might want to just call out animal names until they are right but encourage them to think about what they want to ask. If they guess correctly, give them the picture. Don’t let them struggle without your help. 

They could be drawing more details in their picture now than before. Maybe they listen to longer stories now or ask questions that show that they are thinking about the story. When you notice something that they have learned tell them that you have noticed. Be specific. Say, “I love that you are using so many colours!” or  ‘You ask such good questions”. To celebrate your success and your child’s progress feel free to send us a picture of your child doing their favourite educational activity. Tell us what they can do now that they couldn’t do before! 

These can be  making a shop, playing ‘school-school’ or pretending to do jobs that family members do in the home or at work. Think of some pretend-play games that your child would enjoy or ask them for ideas. Some ideas could be working in a restaurant and serving food, being a taxi or bus driver, buying and selling clothes or playing ‘teacher-teacher’. You and your child might decide that you’d rather act out a story. 

Talk about the story and then collect things they can use to help them act out the story. Your child might want to use old clothes they can dress up in and things from around the house, such as blankets to make a house, a brush for a telephone or old boxes for a stove. To add to the fun you could ask other family members to join in and play along. 

Ask your child to talk about people, animals or imaginary creatures from any story they’ve heard or read about. Which character was their favourite? What did it look like? Give your child time to make their favourite character out of playdough. They can use some of the objects you collected to add to their character.

When they have finished, talk about their character – Does it have a name? Where does it live? What is its favourite thing to do? Does it have friends? What funny or interesting thing happened to it one day? If it could talk, what would it say?

Then let your child draw a picture of their character and write a sentence about it. You could write the sentence for them or you could help them by writing some words or parts of words. Afterwards or on another day you could make another playdough character with your child. And together you can create a new story with the two characters!