What Is This Unit About?

This unit describes the real value of playing together with babies. As babies grow, their needs change and so do the kinds of games and toys they enjoy. Learn games that babies enjoy and how to make these games into great learning experiences.

How Babies Communicate

Long before they are able to speak, babies have many ways to communicate: crying, babbling, screaming, body movements, and gestures. They even communicate with us by turning red in the face or simply by facing away. In many ways, babies can show feelings such as pleasure, fear, surprise, and discomfort. They can tell us when they want to play and when they are finished playing.

How Can You Play with the Babies in Your Care?

One goal of playing with a baby is to teach that child how to interact with another person. This is a skill that children need for lifelong learning. Children who are better at interacting have better relationships with others. Good play is like a good conversation. Each person takes a turn and the other listens and responds. That is why the best players take time to let the baby respond with smiles and sounds or in whatever way she can. When you respond to a child as if she were talking, that child will learn how to interact and communicate.

All babies are different. Some love intense stimulation while others prefer more calm play. When you are playing with a baby in your care, listen to him and tune into his language. What does it mean when he kicks his feet and flails his hands? Is he content, happy, and ready to play, or is he overwhelmed and needing for you to stop? What does it mean when he chews on his finger? Learning the signs and signals from each child will allow you to respond to each baby in a sensitive way. Babies can tell you when they want more and when they feel finished. Sometimes they become over-stimulated by the play and need for you to tone it down. Let the child guide the play.

Talking during play is a great way for babies to learn language. You can teach language by naming things, singing, and turning communication attempts into words. Here are some things you can do to help the babies in your care learn language:

• Watch to see how the baby responds. Talk and listen, talk and listen, as you would with an adult.
• Use short sentences such as "Let’s go out" and "All gone" when you talk with a baby.
• Use picture books that have large, simple, colorful pictures and few words. Talk about what you see.
• Give the baby a chance to copy what you do.
• Copy the actions and sounds the baby uses.
• Use the same words over and over again so it is easier for the babies to learn them.
• Use different facial expressions, voices, and playful sounds when you are playing and talking with a baby.
• Talk to the baby about what you are doing. "I'm going to pick you up." "I'll change your diaper." "I'm going to wipe your face." This shows a special kind of respect for babies.
• Talk to and sing to babies while doing activities such as feeding, diapering, and bathing.

Playing with Babies: Birth to Three Months

Games Babies Love:

Sing, sing, sing
Babies enjoy music and, even if you can't carry a tune, the best music is sung in your own voice. Try a lullaby. Sing softly and slowly. Anything faster than your heartbeat is too fast. Choose songs that you like. Sing them often throughout the day.

Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are.

 

Baby's Favorite Pictures
Babies enjoy looking at pictures, especially pictures with a lot of contrast. Babies are very interested in faces. Draw some simple faces with black markers on white paper. Hang them up on the wall near the baby’s crib.

 

Eye Talk

Hold the baby so you can look into her eyes. Smile at her, and she will soon learn to smile back. Say the baby’s name. Copy her and then make funny faces. Just enjoy being together.

Read to Me

It's never too early to start reading to a baby. Show babies the pictures in very simple books with one picture on the page. Don't worry if the baby loses interest after only a moment. Read only as long as he is interested. The goal is to make reading fun.

Finding Other Games
Games with gentle touches and soft music are great ones for children birth to three months. Around three months they become able to grasp toys and enjoy rattles, teethers, squeeze toys, and light, graspable cloth toys. Games that give children toys to hold are good for this age.

Good Toys for This Age

• soft stuffed animals
• mobiles and pictures
• grasping toys, as babies move to three months

Playing with Babies: Three to Six Months

Games Babies Love:

Lap Rhymes

This is the age for lap rhymes. Hold the baby on your lap facing you, then play the games below. When you repeat these games, baby starts to learn what to expect and enjoys the game even more.

Ask older family members if they know any more of these games. These old-fashioned rhymes have been loved by babies for generations and are in danger of being forgotten! You can help carry them on from one generation to the next if you take the time to learn them and play them with the babies in your care. Teach them to the parents so they can start a new tradition.

Teddy Bear
Round and round the garden goes the teddy bear,
(Circle your finger around in the air, above the child's tummy)
One step, two steps, tickle you under there!
(Tickle the child under the arm)


This Little Piggy
This little piggy when to market;
This little piggy stayed home;
This little piggy had roast beef;
This little piggy had none;
This little piggy said, "Wee, wee, wee!"
All the way home!
(Touch each toe in order from largest to smallest and then tickle the child
up the leg while you say "Wee wee wee.”)

Talk About It

Talk to the baby. Tell her what you are going to do before you do it. “I'm going to change your diaper.” “I'm going to pick you up.” This teaches children language while they are doing things, the way that they learn best.

There is so much to talk about when you carry a baby with you. Talk about turning the lights on and off. Older babies like to try the switch themselves. Talk about what you see outside: cars, trees, people.

Watch the baby while you are playing. When she is finished she will give you her own special signals. Some babies cry, turn away, or even yawn. Remember when you are talking to a baby, you are having a conversation and you need to be a good listener.

Good Toys for This Age

• rattles (clear ones are best so the child can see what makes the noise)
• stuffed animals and soft dolls

Playing with Babies: Six to Nine Months

Games Babies Love:

Peek-a-boo

Sit on the floor with the baby, and partially cover your face with a baby blanket. Take off the blanket and say, "Peek-a-boo." Do this a few times before trying it on the baby. Then partially cover the baby's head with the blanket. Stop immediately if the baby shows any sign of disliking this. Pull the blanket off and say "Peek-a-boo." Babies usually love this game.

Mirrors

Look into a mirror together. Talk about the baby’s face, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Talk about your face. Make silly faces. Stick out your tongue.

Bye-bye Toys

Use short strings (no more than six inches) to tie toys to the highchair and let the baby throw the toys off the high chair and pull them back up again. Say, "Bye, bye, toy,” and "Hello, toy.”

Peek-a-toy

Sit on the floor with the baby. Cover a toy with a blanket and say, "Where's the toy?" Let the baby find the toy by pulling off the cover.

Finding Other Games

Great games for this age explore how things can disappear and reappear. This is why peek-a-boo is a favorite game for this age. Six- to nine-month-old babies enjoy making something happen themselves, like making loud noises, or causing a jack-in-the-box to pop up. Banging spoons on pots is a simple game that babies of this age enjoy.

Good Toys for This Age

pop-up toys balls stuffed animals and dolls with soft bodies squeeze toys

Playing with Babies: Nine to Twelve Months

Games Babies Love:

Hats, Hats, Hats

Try on different hats in front of a mirror with the baby. “Do you want to try this one?” “Do you want to try this one?” Let the baby put hats on you and listen carefully to what the baby is telling you about what he or she wants to do. Use different voices to match the hats. For a fancy hat you could say, "La de da." For a baseball hat you could say, "Play ball!"

Tunnel

Take an empty cardboard box and cut off the two opposite sides. Turn the box upside down and encourage the baby to crawl through the tunnel. Put a toy at one end of the tunnel and encourage the baby to go get the toy.

Finding Other Games

Babies of this age continue to love games that let them make noises or make something interesting happen. They enjoy using their motor skills, crawling, and pulling themselves up. They also love games about body parts.

Good Toys for This Age

transportation toys with six- to eight-inch large round wheels soft rubber or vinyl animals stacking nesting cups

Summary

Baby play teaches children how to interact and communicate. Babies learn to talk and listen when you take the time to make play into a conversation. You can use playtime to teach language by using simple words and sentences. Copy the child's sounds and expressions and let the child copy yours throughout the daily routines of feeding, diapering, and cleaning. Baby play is more than just fun--it's a way for you to help the babies in your care develop in a healthy and happy way.

Assignments

1. Why is it important to play with babies?

2. Babies have a unique way of telling us what they want and how they are feeling. It's important that we listen. Think of a baby in your care or a baby you know and answer the following questions.

• How does the baby tell you she wants to play?
• How does the baby tell you she is enjoying the play?
• How does the baby tell you she is finished with the play?

3. Play is a great way for babies to learn language. List three ways you can help the babies in your care learn language.

4. How you play with babies changes as each baby grows. Chose at least two of the babies listed below. Describe a game you could play with the baby and explain why it is a good game to play with a baby of this age.

• Kayla, 2 months
• Monty, 5 months
• Sasha, 8 months
• Brian, 11 months