Dance a Dot or a Dash

The idea for this activity came from my book, How to be your Child's First Teacher. We've gotten so many fun ideas from this book!

We started out by talking about how some sounds are more like dots. They are short, quick, sometimes even jerky. This is called Staccato. Other sounds are more like a line or dash. They are long and smooth. This is called Legato. You can try to make samples of these sounds (with your little one's participation of course) by using your voice (something like saying la la la vs. laaaaaaaa). If your kids are like mine they'll love making silly noises. You could even take turns making noises and having the other person decide if your noise was a dot or a dash. From there, ask them how to make dot-like movements with their bodies (jumping, clapping, etc), and dash-like movements (spinning, moving hands/arms through the air, etc).

Once you've got the idea down, the real fun starts. I found this video on you-tube that has some good, up-beat examples of staccato and legato music, but you could find your own if you'd prefer. Then, you get to have a dance party right there with your cute kiddos. Listen and decide if the music is playing "dots" or "dashes", then try to move your bodies accordingly. 

Erik is attempting to demonstrate a "dot" movement by jumping. 

Sharli wasn't so sure about all this craziness, but Erik had fun. Unfortunately it's hard to take pictures of moving/dancing children while you are also moving/dancing, so you'll just have to try this one out for yourself and see it in action.

Moving around the room in long smooth "dash" movements. 

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Candy Cane Can Stilts

So you remember our candy cane striped tape resist art? 

Remember I said I wanted it for another project? Well, today is the day you get to see my favorite of all our Christmas activities. We made can stilts! I was sitting looking at the growing stack of infant formula cans that was piling up in my kitchen and all the sudden I remembered this activity and knew these would be perfect. I used a nail to poke two holes in each can (one hole on each side of the can) then ran a length of string through the holes. Tie the ends of the strings together to make loops and there you go!

 Now, to be honest, this may have been a bit above Erik's ability level, but he has been determined to figure these things out. I've never seen him work so hard at something before! It's been impressive to watch his tenacity as he figures out how to balance, coordinate hand and foot movements, and just have fun.

I do think I got the strings a bit too short, they probably should come up to about his waist, but they work well enough for us.

Body Stickers

Remember last Monday how I said we were doing a theme that week all about our bodies? Well, here is the next installment in that theme. We chose to go with this activity for Paisley to help her start to become familiar with the names for all the different body parts. I knew there was no way I'd get her to hold still while I traced her (as I did with Erik), so this seemed like a good alternative. Basically you just stick a sticker on to a part of the baby's body, and then show them the sticker and say "look, there's a sticker on your <insert body part here>". You proceed to label other body parts and have a wonderful time. That's the idea anyways. Instead it goes something like this:
Place a sticker on baby's leg. Point to it and say "look there's a flower on your leg!"

 Next you say "ummm, let's not eat the stickers please. Seriously, get that thing out of your mouth. Okay fine, I'll get that thing out of your mouth!"

 You proceed to hold baby firmly and fish around in her mouth looking all over for the sticker (which is hiding on the roof of her mouth, next time look there first instead of the bottomless depths of the chubby adorable little cheeks) while she screams as if you were trying to rip her head off of her body.

Now you give up, put the stickers away, and break out the cheerios. Don't worry, you can always learn body parts tomorrow instead, right?

Learning About Our Bodies

As I was trying to decide which activities to focus on this week, I decided it might be fun to try to stick with a theme. Our theme for this week was Bodies. We sang songs about our bodies (Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, My Hands, etc...) and checked out books about different body parts at the library. Erik's favorite was this one, I think because it has Elmo in it.
Erik got to do an activity I found on Productive Parenting, and I think he had a great time. We took some old wrapping paper left over from Christmas and laid it out on the floor with the colored side facing down. Erik laid down on it and we traced around him with a pencil. This was a bit tricky because he really wanted to see what I was doing, but we managed to get a full body trace.

There really is an outline there, I promise. I let Erik color on it for as long as he wanted, but you can't see that in the picture either. 

When Erik was done coloring the picture of himself, we traced his outline with a marker so we could see it better and taped the paper up on the wall so he could stand next to his life size picture of himself.

We spent a while pointing to different body parts on the drawing and on ourselves and then I had an idea to take it a little bit farther. I broke out a pad of stickers and we started sticking them all over the paper. Erik loved it. I'd guess that from the time we first traced him to the time he finally got tired of the stickers it was at least 45 minutes of solid entertainment. It was awesome!

Body Parts Song

I discovered this little song to help learn body parts, and we love it! We even did it over Skype with Wyler and he loved it too.
Erik is pretty good at identifying his facial features, even the less mentioned ones like his cheeks and chin, but it doesn't hurt to review. The great thing about this song is you can add in any body part you want. So we can sing about legs, arms, elbow, hair, or whatever else we want. The main point behind this is to build Erik's vocabulary, but it's also a fun way to get music into our day.
We also have another song that we like to use for learning body parts, although this one isn't quite as adaptable. Erik's pretty good at doing it (although in the video he gets too distracted to finish off the last little bit, but that's okay), which is fun since he didn't know where his shoulders or knees were until we learned this song.
Remember music AND movement combined can do amazing things for your child, so take a minute and sing a song or dance and know that you've changed your child's life for the better.

"Part of One Fine Face"

Okay, if you can tell me where that title comes from *without* using a search engine, than you win the prize. Don't know what the prize is, but you would win it for sure!

Paisley is getting into a stage where she's realizing the power of her fingertips. No, that's not a typo, I did mean of. She has discovered the hand-eye connection; that she can reach for and explore the things she sees with her fingers. This means that she wants to be able to explore all the things she's been looking at for months now and get to know them better. Things like, for example, the faces of those she knows. Whenever you sit down and cuddle her while she drinks her bottle, those little hands of hers start wandering all over your face.

Today's activity is something we did with Erik when he started showing interest in what his hands could do, and now Paisley can get in on the fun. Whenever she reaches out and grabs your nose mouth ear or whatever else she may grab, make sure you tell her what she's got. She seems to have a different favorite facial feature each day, and today's favorite is my nose, so we've be talking a lot about noses all day. Whenever Erik's handy I'll point out his nose to Paisley, and let him point to hers. We make sure we verbally label whose nose we're talking about. "There's Erik's nose" or "Here's Paisley's nose". Before too long Paisley will have all the parts of the face down well enough to start pointing to things when you ask her where they are. It's so much fun to watch these little guys learn and grow!

This seems like such a simple thing, but just making sure you talk about everyday things will help baby's vocabulary explode. It builds their confidence and the bond between the two of you.

Sit-Ups

Erik was sick last week, so Paisley had to stay home on Friday in an attempt to not catch our germs. Thus, you're not getting this post until today.

Paisley has been working SO hard at crawling and sitting up. She wants to do these things so very badly! We try to spend a few minutes here and there throughout the day helping her build the muscles she'll need to do these skills.
Sitting up is hard work! Paisley is making great progress, but she just needs a little more time and practice before she'll have the strength to do it alone. For now, this is what we've been doing.

Whenever she seems up for a bit of a work out, I surround Paisley with pillows to cushion falls that I know are coming, and help her to sit up. She tends to arch her back, so at first I have to help push her forward until she gets the hang of how hard to tense those little muscles. Once you help her get her feet arranged and her back straight, she can actually support herself for a few seconds in a completely upright position.

  After a short period of time sitting up, Paisley typically goes into what is called the tripod position.

This way she is supporting herself with one or both arms. Being leaned forward like this is NOT a failure. This is actually a skill she will need to develop as she's learning how to reach for and manipulate objects without falling down. It also gives her a break to rest those muscles. Come on, even big strong grown-ups need a break sometimes! Being able to feel that you're falling and process that information quickly enough to catch yourself is actually a critical life skill, and it's awesome that Paisley's got such a good handle on it.
A few things to remember: Keep it fun. Make sure there are interesting toys handy for baby to look at and reach for (reaching is another big milestone a baby should be grasping at this age, why not kill two birds with one stone?) Keep it short. This is a pretty high-intensity work out (for a baby), so don't over do it. If she's tired, stop! The more tired she gets the more she's going to fall down and get frustrated. So don't push it.

If you're interested in learning more about sitting up or other movement milestones baby should be working on at this age, check out this article and this one.

Imitation, revisited...

I was playing with Paisley yesterday, trying to do an activity for a blog post (which you now have to wait until next week to see) and she was a little distracted. So I started clicking my tongue on the roof of my mouth to get her attention. Next thing I know, she's clicking away too. Needless to say, all other play stopped, and we just sat and copied each other for several minutes.

Babies come pre-programmed to want to do everything that other humans are doing. They have a special instinct to seek human faces to look at and prefer a human face over everything else (at least while they're little, I'm pretty sure Erik's outgrown this phase!) Imitation is a great way for a baby to learn new skills and to feel like she's part of the group. This particular skill (tongue clicking) will help to strengthen the muscles that she will need to talk someday. And more than anything else, it's just super cute!

Roller Coaster

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The idea for this activity came from a couple of different places. This is something I did as part of our daily occupational therapy routine for one of the special needs students I used to work with, and I also saw the idea HERE as I was looking around for ideas. The link I posted has great details about how and why to do this activity if you're interested.

Let's gather our supplies:
-As you can see, I used a large exercise ball for this little game, and it works really well. It's a comfortable height for me to sit in a chair and have the ball positioned between my knees.

If you've never done this before, make sure you are holding the ball firmly between your knees as you place the baby on it. Make sure you always have a firm hold on the baby, both so they are safe and so they feel secure and comfortable enough to have fun. You can either place the baby laying down on the ball with your hands holding firmly on either side of the baby's chest, or (this can be a little trickier, so maybe work up to this one) hold the baby in an upright sitting position, with your hands placed on either side of the baby's waist or hips (how high up the baby's torso you hold them will depend on how well they sit up alone. The lower your hold the more work baby has to do) Let baby just sit and get used to feeling the ball under her for a minute before you start moving it slowly around. Rock it back and forth or side to side, or even bounce the baby gently up and down. Remember to always watch your baby, and when she is done don't push it, just let her be done!

The benefits of this activity are amazing. Having to balance on the ball helps to strengthen baby's neck and back, making sitting up and rolling over easier in the future. When you are holding your baby in a sitting position and rocking the ball, you are helping them to learn to lean to one side or the other to help keep their body balanced and avoid falling over (a handy thing to know how to do as baby is sitting, crawling, and walking). Babies crave rhythm, so using a gentle bouncing motion can help soothe a cranky or upset baby. You are also helping your child learn about their surroundings in a new way as they get a new point of view from the different angles presented by the moving ball.

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. 

"With...bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes"

I got the idea for this activity from Productive Parenting (which is a totally awesome site, I highly recommend it!), and I've been meaning to give it a try for a while. Well, today I finally pulled out some of Erik's old socks and a few jingle bells from my crafting supplies and we were ready to go in just a few minutes. 

I was really curious to see how Paisley would react. When Erik was her age he HATED jingle bells, so I was pretty cautious with Paisley. Luckily, she loved it!

 After a few minutes of just listening to the bells jingle when she kicked, she discovered that she could reach down and grab the bells, and that is what she really loved. She sat and played with the bells for a long time, and enjoyed every minute of it!

A word of Warning: Due the to metal edges on the bells, I don't think the string will stand up to much pulling and tugging, which means the bells may come off sooner than you might expect. They are small enough to pose a choking hazard, so make sure this activity is supervised and remove any bells that baby manages to pull off. If you notice the string wearing or fraying, replace ASAP.
That being said, despite a (slight) potential choking risk, this little game has some good benefits. It encourages baby to kick and move her legs which builds her large muscles in her legs. It helps her be aware of her body and its location in space. It also teaches her that her actions can have consequences, however small, and that she has some control over her environment.

Imitation

Today Paisley and I had enjoyed a few minutes of just sitting and hanging out while Erik was eating his  lunch. I was making faces trying to get her to smile at me, and noticed that when I stuck my tongue out, Paisley would start wiggling her tongue around. I kept making faces, and pretty soon she was sticking her tongue WAY out of her mouth every time I stuck mine out at her. 

As soon as I pulled out the camera, she got distracted and wouldn't stick her tongue out as far, but it was still pretty cute!

The human brain is hard-wired to imitate and conform with those around us. Ethan and I just watched a whole program on PBS about this a few weeks ago and it was really interesting. The instinct to imitate those around us is one of self-preservation and learning. By watching and imitating me, Paisley was becoming more aware of what her body can do, and fine tuning her muscle control. As she gets older, imitation should continue to be something she really enjoys and she should be able to mimic more and more complicated tasks. Things like clapping, waving, etc are just a few more steps down the road from sticking out her tongue.

Puppets and Paisley

As a nod to all the "soft" things we've been playing with lately, I pulled out Erik's little puppet and decided to see what Paisley thought of it. As long as it was just sitting still where she could look at it and touch it, she thought it was great.  

 Then, I made the mistake of putting it on my hand and making it "talk" to her. I touched her toes with the puppet and talked to her about her toes. I had planned on moving on to her fingers and maybe her tummy, but she was not real thrilled with this new game. In fact, I think the puppet had her feeling a little creeped out.

Apparently, Paisley is not a huge fan of talking and moving teddy bears. Now, I'm not giving up on her yet, we may still convert her to the idea of playing with puppets, but we'll have to take it a little slower. 

Playing with puppets, even at this young age, can have some benefits for a child. It encourages Paisley to practice tracking a moving object with her eyes, and even turning her head to follow it when it moves far enough to one side or the other. It gives her a "new" individual to interact with so she gets more social practice. It is sensory stimulation as she feels the puppet touch her hands or feet or face.

So, this won't be the last time we play with puppets, but we may have to wait a little while until she's over her fear of it.