Activities for Babies: 6 to 12 Months

Activities provided by Productive Parenting. To receive additional daily activities based on your child's age, visit ProductiveParenting.com.

FEEL THE BALL

Materials You Will Need: Zip-top bag, soft ball

What to Do: Children learn using the sense of touch. Give your child a soft ball to feel. After a while, place the ball inside the zip-top bag and fasten the bag securely. Let you child feel the ball, pushing it around the bag. Show your child how to stop the ball, then move it around the bag.

Variations: Put another toy in the bag and repeat the activity.

Skills Learned: Tactile stimulation

SHARING EVENTS

What to Do: Preparing your child for an event in life is important. You may think your child will not understand what you're saying, but it's still important. Maybe your in-laws are coming for a few days or a babysitter is coming for the evening. Take time to explain what is happening. This is a good habit to begin while your child is young. Your child builds trust during transition times because of these explanations.

Skills Learned: Trust, language development

BARELY CRAWLING

Materials You Will Need: Bolster pillow

What to Do: Infants love to move and stretch. Place your infant on her tummy on a pillow. See if she tries to push forward or rock back and forth. Try to hold her feet up to see if this encourages any forward movement. Use caution in order to avoid falls. She'll move when she's ready.

Skills Learned: Coordination, social development, trust

GIFT SURPRISES

Materials You Will Need: Wrapping paper

What to Do: Children love to unwrap gifts. Try wrapping your child's favorite toys in brightly colored wrapping paper and put them in a shopping bag. Let him dig through, unwrap, and rediscover!

Skills Learned: Creative expression, tactile stimulation, upper body strength

PAPER SOUNDS

Materials You Will Need: Wrapping paper

What to Do: Wait until you see what children can do with paper! Save used wrapping and tissue paper from gifts. Let your child play with the paper. Wad it up. Enjoy watching your child crawl on it and rip it. She'll delight in the sounds that are created when you play together with paper.

Skills Learned: Tactile stimulation, sound discrimination, creative expression

SWITCHING IT

Materials You Will Need: Toy

What to Do: Infants love to grasp and squeeze almost anything. Place your infant on your lap and hold a toy out in front. Once he has grasped the toy with one hand, hold another toy out and offer it to him. Sometimes infants will drop the toy, but eventually they learn to switch the toy to the other hand to hold both toys at the same time.

Skills Learned: Grasp and release, tactile stimulation

TOWER CONSTRUCTION

Materials You Will Need: Set of blocks

What to Do: Building towers with blocks develops your child's motor skills and problem solving abilities. Sit your baby on the floor with all the blocks. Show her how you stack them, one by one, counting as you build. Once the tower is three blocks or higher, let her knock it over and say, "The tower fell down."

Continue to build, using more blocks.

Variations: As your child becomes more adept, begin to use smaller blocks to help develop dexterity.

Skills Learned: Eye-hand coordination, visual development, visual tracking