You can foster your baby’s development of more precise hand movements by encouraging her to feed herself with her fingers and play with objects that require her to use her thumb and forefinger grasp. Sponge blocks are easy to make and can provide your baby with exploration fun, while nurturing coordinated hand movements.

During this phase of development, your baby will begin to show interest in sharing a picture book with you. You can foster her awareness of objects on a page by choosing books that have pictures of objects, animals or people that interest her.

During this phase of oral language development, infants begin to understand that they can share a mental focus for an object with another person. You can foster this important skill by playing with your baby as you are bathing her in the tub!

Gazing and pointing develop naturally for infants and you may not have paid attention to them. You can use this activity to notice the development of gazing and pointing skills in your baby.

Babies enjoy container play, especially the dumping part! The “fill and dump” activities help infants build strength and coordination of small motor muscles.

Between 6 and 11 months, babies are able to use both hands when manipulating an object. This allows them to begin to manipulate a book to look at its pages.

Infants enjoy listening to the sounds and rhythm of language and focus more on the sounds and words of their home language. Support your baby’s use of language by talking to, reading and singing in your home language.

Infants typically begin to vocalize syllables at around 6 to 11 months of age. You can be your baby’s “sound play partner” by singing or reciting familiar Mother Goose rhymes.

Fine motor skills are developed when your infant practices coordinated muscle movements using her hands. This activity will give your baby some fun practice using her pincer grasp to get the yummy reward!

Infants live in the “here and now” and they learn language and new words by hearing them used in context in their everyday lives. Help your child develop language by using sentences to describe and talk about things as they happen.
