Eggs Eggs Eggs

For some reason, A is fascinated by eggs. When she hadn't started crawling, I got boiled/unpeeled egss in a bowl and she actually dragged herself from one side of the bed to other to touch them and play with them. After seeing this, I started giving her eggs for playing a lot more. With her age and based on what I am going to make out of eggs, the activities keep changing a little bit. Few ideas are documented here:

1. Initially I used to give her boiled, unpeeled eggs for playing

2. Later if I had to make omellete etc, I would break the egg and used to ask her to put the shell in the dustbin. She learnt that shells go to dustbin and on the way she was very happy crushing the shell. Note that all this was always nuder adult supervision

3. With time that this sticky liquid comes out of the eggs if you break them. So now, I started giving her spoon to break them for omellete and she gently taps the eggs with the spoons to break them.  I help in taking  the liquid out in a bowl.

4. The bowl goes to her for mixing/beating with the spoon

5. If I boil egg, I give her for breaking the shell and peeling.

It is a great sensory activity starting from like 8 months till.. Well I don't know. My little one is 16 month old and she still enjoys it.

How to learn shape recognition?

Rather than how to learn or teach shape recognition, this post is more about how A learnt shapes. A learnt basic shapes at 15 months. and now at 16 months she knows many more shapes. We were initially using this shape board from little genius (at around 14.5 month)

Little Genius Inset Shape Board (Small) with Knob

She learnt these in a day or two but later I realized that its not shapes that she identifies but either color or position.
For eg: If I would say circle, she will pick circle. But if I drew circle and square on a notebook, she couldn't figure out which was circle. 

So here we were. I had no clue what association she had formed in her developing mind because of which she would identify shapes correctly on the shape board but not else where. I just left doing it for some days and was thinking how do I get her to have the correct association between shape and shape name. What was troubling me more is that she has made some wrong association in my mind. I feel unlearning stuff is tougher than learning it. That is why I didn't want her to learn it wrong.

Long back I had bought

Fisher-Price Tappy The Turtle Rattle  (amazon link)

Fisher-Price Toddlerz Tappy the Turtle  (flipkart link)

for her. But she wasn't interested as  the shapes were to hard for her to press and she somehow never found it interesting earlier. Now when I gave this to her, every time she would pres all the shapes, turtles neck would come out and it would make a funny sound. She used to burst into laughter. Now when she was pressing the shapes, I started telling her the shape names and slowly she correlated it with the shapes learnt from
Little Genius Inset Shape Board (Small) with Knob  .

Now when I drew the shapes on the notebook... Voila! she could tell them correctly.

I also kept them side by side and asked to press circle on turtle and pick circle from shape board. Just in a few days she learnt shapes and this time shapes are actually shapes and not some position or color :-D . Please do share how did your kids learn shapes.
 

Lets cut some shapes

Activity for learning shapes:

Good for age: 15 months +, We did it at 16 months.

Skills developed: hand and eye coordination, motor skills, One can learn shapes

What you'll need:
1. Shape cutters or you can use different shape utensils from kitchen
2. playdough or you can make a dough at home

Detail:
Roll the dough. Use the shape cutters to cut. I ask A to pick shapes. For eg: Lets cut a circle and she picks the circle from the shapes. And then she puts the circle on the playdough and presses to cut it. Ofcourse I showed her once. This way, she revised her shapes and it was a fun learning exercise. Very good for hand eye coordination.

Note:
Be careful that the kid doesn't eat the dough.

Here I have attached the pic of what A had cut. Ofcourse its not perfect, but who cares :)

The shape cutters we used were from something like the one mentioned in the link below:

Basic shape sorter

We got them for a very good price.

Aim the bucket

Good for age: 14 months +

Skills developed: hand and eye coordination, motor skills,

What you'll need: Bucket and balls

Detail:
Keep the bucket at some distance from you. Sit with your kid. Take one ball at a time and aim the bucket. When the ball enters the bucket, show that you are happy.. Clap.. Then give the next ball to the kid. She may just throw it.  Don't lose patience it will take some time for her to get the idea that ball has to be put in the bucket. Take few more balls one at a time and aim the bucket. If the kid is not able to put the ball in the bucket, reduce the distance to the bucket and try. She will eventually get the idea and will learn.

Note:
Ensure the balls are soft and easy to handle.

If you already have the balls, use them. Else you can consider buying thses:

Intex Fun Balls, Multi Color
12 Pcs SET OF SMILEY FACE SQUEEZE BALL

Hand actions

Good for age: 14 months (but older and younger kids might enjoy it, too!)

Skills developed: hand and eye coordination,  imagination, vocabulary increases

What you'll need: just yourselves.

Detail: Make your kid sit facing you. Show her your tongue and say "aaa" . See is she copies. If she does, cheer her up.

Then try clapping and say clap. If she also does the same, give her a kiss.

Then try more complex actions like
"flap your wings like pigeon"
"turn your head"
"bend your neck"
"Raise your shoulder"
"Wave your arms like a monkey"
 "Clap like a seal"
"thump your chest like gorilla"
"wiggle your toes"
"Feeling shy? Cover your face"

If she is not copying you, don't get disappointed. Try it some other time. She may just laugh. That is actually a good sign as this shows she is interested. Keep repeating. Eventually she will copy. By this activity you can teach action, birds name, animals names, body parts and most importantly relation between each of those.

After sometime you copy her.

We used this book too while doing this activity.

From Head to Toe Board Book - Eric Carle

It has picture of animals doing various actions. You can do it with or without the book. 
The book does add extra fun to the activity. We have the paperback version of the book.
Adding few pics for your reference:

Coin bank

I came across this product while browsing.

Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Learning Piggy Bank

I liked the product. This product offers multiple benefits. A child can learn counting, putting the coin in the bank improves the hand eye coordination drastically. A lot of other things can be taught using it. If your budget permits, you can consider buying it, mine didn't. I had already exhausted by monthly quota for A's books and toys.

I know lot of ways to teach A counting etc and she has other toys to learn animals, colours etc. I realise may be I want this toy just so that she can put the coins in the piggy bank. Every time she will put the coin, the toy will make some sounds.

So, I decided to give her my piggy bank for playing(Yes, I still have one!). After practising putting the coins inside the coin bank for sometime, A could do it all alone. Then I turned it upside down, so that the hole for putting the coin is not visible and gave her a coin. She adjusted the bank herself and then inserted the coin. Then I kept fiddling with the bank. She still sometimes find it difficult to put the coin if I put the bank in certain positions.

Overall, it was a very engaging and fun activity. And I didn't have to shell a single penny to buy anything.

What you need:
A coin bank and lot of large size coins

Method:
Show your baby how to insert the coin in the bank and shake it to make some noise to keep the baby interested. Then give a coin to the baby to insert. If the baby is struggling too much to insert it, help him/her. If he/she inserts it correctly, encourage them by praising them or by clapping for them. If the baby is still not able to do it even after you helping, leave it for a weeks and try later.

Advantage:
Improves hand eye coordination

Entertainment and learning for free(you might get all these materials at home) :)

Beaware:
Pick only large size coins which the baby can't swallow. Small coins can be a choking hazard.

If you don't have a piggy bank/coin bank you can consider getting one. It can be useful later to encourage saving habits in your kid.

Some links:
Superman Tin Coin Bank
Ollington Street Coin Box - Ice Cream Van

Note that I already had a bank. So the products in the above links have not been tried by me. You can check the reviews on amazon. I have just given the links as examples.

Brush It Up

A loves it when she sees her momma or dadda brushing their teeth. At time, she takes the brush from them and tries brushing their teeth herself. A still has no teeth but loves taking the brush to her mouth. So, from a long time i have been thinking of coming up with an activity which involves a brush and is safe for my 1 year old. A's caretaker was cleaning her sipper with a bottle cleaning brush and A was liking that. That's when i came up with this:

What you need:
A brush (tooth brush, paint brush, anything would do)
a stained bowl (you can dirty a bowl with paint or anything you want to)
a bowl of water

Method:
Show your baby how to dip the brush in the bowl of water and then clean the stains.  Next pass the brush to your baby to clean the stained bowl.

Advantage:
Improves hand eye coordination

Your baby will love exploring these objects
Entertainment and learning for free(you can get all these materials at home) :)

Beaware:
Stay next to your baby. Don't let him/her lick the stained bowl
They can spill the bowl of water, so be ready to cleanup the mess