Hot & Cold

Look, what a Snowman we’ve built together this weekend! Maria had the role of the main observer/supervisor, taster and destroyer!

This year winter is indeed brilliant! Despite it is March, we have a wonderful snowy winter outside. So, I decided to seize the opportunity to introduce notions of Hot and Cold to our baby. We went outside for a while to watch the snow and feel how cold it is; took some along and later built a snowman out of it. It was a good opportunity for the small one to touch it as her movements were not restricted by the large warm overalls. We continued the COLD topic with the opening deep-freezer and touching the ice there.

Hot notion was taught with the help of radiator. The learning was very fast as the radiator was hot, indeed. Hot is also the air near the oven, when mum is cooking actively. This was definitely useful experience for Maria – she understands both of these notions very well, and won’t touch the thing if mum says it is Hot.

Touch-me-not

I have combined in one post three ways of spending time togetherr as they are very similar: it is mainly for observation (one cannot touch, feel it etc.), i.e. for attention training but also for fun as it does not require any great effort.

1) Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles…
This one is the most exciting and it is equally interesting for child as well as for an adult. Soap bubbles is our favourite time spending when we are in the bathroom: it is thrilling to observe colourful and multiple bubbles flying around =)). When Maria saw it for the first time, she was astonished. Now she tries to catch them but, to her disappointment, unsuccessfully.

2) Torch
This is realizable only in the dark time, which is good to do in winter period when the day time is short. We turn off the light and lie down on the sofa. I turn on a small torch and start to play with it.

Frankly, I hoped Maria would follow the light. He-he! Nothing like that… =) She needs a torch, she does everything to get it in her hands and mouth. We tried to play with it several times, but in the end seized doing that. However, maybe for some children it can become another entertainment just for a change.

3) Sun
Pity, we did not try it, as we do not get a lot of Sun in our place. The logics here is the same as with the torch: playing with the light with the help of watches or mirror. It should be interesting for small curious babies! =)

Falling Down

There is a period in almost every baby’s life, when it gets interesting for them to throw all the things down again and again until their mommies are fed up with taking things up.

Maria started to do it, too. Oooops… Of course, it is not fun for me to give toys again to Maria, but when I see how curious she is and how much she likes it, it becomes fun for me, too. =)


Perhaps, one would think that I'm spoiling the child. Intuitively I believe, it is not like that. At this age the child is actively exploring the world and throwing away various things, which are falling down with different sounds, -it is part of this unavoidable process, it is crucial for personality development.

Another similar game (which is not that tiring, by the way) was shown to me by Maria recently. I’ve noticed she is very fond of throwing down every piece of cloths she sees. Now we spend much more time in the bathroom: I’m catching the towel thrown down by Maria, when she is sitting on my hands.

Probably, it is not a win-win situation for parent and a child, but it is definitely necessary for child’s development.

Hide-and-Seek 2

The first one (Hide-and-Seek) was described in my post titled “Cuckoo”. As it was stated earlier this game develops attention of the child; teaches him/her to concentrate. The condition necessary for playing it is child’s ability to move (creep, crawl, walk) freely.

We started playing it, probably, a bit too early, when Maria was 6 months old. Now after some training, of course, she became a professional, but in the beginning she was not very much interested in the process.

After installing some new items (soap plate holder, tissue holder, towel ring etc.) in our bathroom, we’ve got some spare boxes, which I decided to use in our games with Maria. I also took her favourite toy Minnie to encourage her to participate actively in the process. I hided Minnie in one of the boxes in front of her eyes and asked her to find it. Upon successful task fulfilment, I changed the places of boxes (again in front of her eyes). As she did well, I was gradually increasing the number of boxes. The successful result of searching Minnie is always praised by me and I can notice that Maria is also enjoying her success!

I'm sure there are many ways how to play this game. One just needs to be creative!