Educational Toys?

Your baby learns through her senses—her eyes, nose, mouth, fingers and ears. Try to provide hand-made toys that stimulate all of her senses. The toys below take only a few minutes to make, and they are free! Throw them away when your baby outgrows them or they become ragged. Keep your baby safe.

Noisemakers: Gather a few things that make noise. You might choose a rattle, an unopened box of rice, a large whistle and an alarm clock. As you sit with your baby, shake the rattle. Talk about the sound. Compare it to the sound rice makes when you shake the box. Gently blow the whistle. Then turn the alarm clock on and off. Talk about the different sounds.

Check tiny toys for safe size: Use the cardboard tube from a toilet paper roll to judge the safety of a toy. If the toy passes through the tube, it’s too small for your baby to play with safely.

Smelling fragrances: Gather a variety of objects with interesting smells like soap, mint, candles or creams. Put a small amount in your hand or on your finger. Hold it to your baby’s nose and talk about the smell. “This is soap. We take a bath with it. Do you like it?”

Feeling the outdoors: Take your baby outdoors. Let her sit on a blanket on the grass. Stay close and keep your arms around her. Let her touch the grass. Talk to her about how it feels—wet, dry, smooth, prickly. Move her to a sand pile, sidewalk or park bench. Again, let her touch the surface. Use words like warm, cold, rough, smooth, bumpy and hard.

Looking at animals: Tear out several large pictures of animals from old magazines. Look at the pictures with your baby. Point to the animal. Tell the baby about the animal. Make a noise that sounds like that animal. For example, show a picture of a sheep. Say, “Here’s the sheep’s head. It has soft wool all over its body. A sheep says ‘Baaah.’”

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