Simple Activities for your Baby Using Household Items

By Anisha Nair - Updated: December 13, 2018

During those early years of raising your baby, there are multiple things that you are juggling. Providing correct nourishment to your baby, focusing on her intellectual development, and managing household chores and office work – all this leaves you struggling for work-life balance. In the midst of all these things, it is also important that you keep your baby engaged.

Here are some simple, cost-effective measures through which you can use household items to plan activities for your baby:

1. Shopping Game

Take your baby’s stroller and cover it with a napkin so that it becomes your baby’s shopping cart. Now, you can teach your baby how to buy stuff from a supermarket by displaying various fruits, vegetables, cereal boxes, etc. on a table and asking your baby to choose her favourite item to add to the cart.

2. Piggy Bank Game

Take any empty box and make a hole in the lid in such a way that coins can be dropped in through the lid. Give your baby a few coins and ask her to put the coins in the box through the hole made in the lid. While doing this fun activity, your baby will learn eye-hand co-ordination. When your baby sees through her eyes, signals are passed on to the brain. The brain then signals the hand to lift a coin and put it in the box. On the surface this looks very simple, however, this is an effective way of building eye hand co-ordination and also a thinking activity for your baby’s brain.

3. Shake the Box

The same box which is now filled with coins can be used to strengthen your baby’s arm muscles. Teach your baby to move the box up and down and from side to side. By doing this the box will make some noise which will entertain her. At the same time, the movement of the baby’s hand will strengthen her hand muscles.

4. Play with Flour

When you knead dough for making chapatis, keep a small portion aside. Use this dough to teach your baby to make different objects like a ball, bat, dog, cat and many more things depending on your baby’s age. The more creative you get, the better and faster your baby will learn. This game will not only stimulate your darling’s thought process, it will also build finger muscles and palm muscles.

5. Push it Through

Use the same dough that you have prepared for the above exercise to create a slate. Keep three different coloured pulses in three separate plates. Then, teach your baby colours and ask her to place the pulses as per their colour in a different line. This activity will help your baby differentiate between different colours, shapes and sizes – at the same time.

Well, we have listed only a few activities here; the sky is the limit! Get more creative and you can teach your baby a number of different things using the simplest household items.

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