I am the first to admit that I do more activities with Poppy, and Calla just usually satellites around us. But I'm making a conscious effort to do more with her, and here's a really simple one that she enjoyed so much.
When Calla was about 9 months old, we made a few treasure bottles for her. One of them was filled with little pompoms and truthfully, after a while, we forgot about them.
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We've got this lovely plate/tray thing (thank you, dollar store!) and I was really excited to finally use it. I knew that at 15 months, it's too early to expect Calla to sort colours, but I tried anyway. First I took the pompoms out and put them into different sections of the plate, observing if she would follow. She didn't.
Instead, she started pulling them out one by one, and putting them slowly on the plate. She didn't need any prompting and soon progressed to shaking the pompoms out from the bottle.
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And then, I decided to experiment. Calla's been helping us with clean-up time and is reasonably good at returning books to the shelves. We sing the "clean up song" and immediately she's in the groove. So I sang it, and guess what! She started putting the pompoms back into the bottle :)
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Poppy joined us and decided to make it more challenging by emptying the bottle each time it was half filled. I think her aim was simply to irritate her sister. I'm very surprised it did not work :)
I'm also very surprised that this activity managed to keep Calla occupied for so long. 15 minutes is a long time in babyland. But she just climbed up on the kiddy chair, and sat there the whole time. Picking, putting, picking, putting, picking, putting....
It didn't turn out the way I envisioned, but hey, it was so nice to watch her so engrossed. And she's a whizz at the pincer grip! That's what the learning experience is all about, I suppose, going where the wind blows and learning along the way :)
Note: Please do not leave your child with small items that they may choke on. Calla still has the habit of putting things in her mouth and I was always with her during the activity.
![Toddly Mummy]()
When Calla was about 9 months old, we made a few treasure bottles for her. One of them was filled with little pompoms and truthfully, after a while, we forgot about them.
.jpeg)
We've got this lovely plate/tray thing (thank you, dollar store!) and I was really excited to finally use it. I knew that at 15 months, it's too early to expect Calla to sort colours, but I tried anyway. First I took the pompoms out and put them into different sections of the plate, observing if she would follow. She didn't.
Instead, she started pulling them out one by one, and putting them slowly on the plate. She didn't need any prompting and soon progressed to shaking the pompoms out from the bottle.
.jpeg)
And then, I decided to experiment. Calla's been helping us with clean-up time and is reasonably good at returning books to the shelves. We sing the "clean up song" and immediately she's in the groove. So I sang it, and guess what! She started putting the pompoms back into the bottle :)
Poppy joined us and decided to make it more challenging by emptying the bottle each time it was half filled. I think her aim was simply to irritate her sister. I'm very surprised it did not work :)
I'm also very surprised that this activity managed to keep Calla occupied for so long. 15 minutes is a long time in babyland. But she just climbed up on the kiddy chair, and sat there the whole time. Picking, putting, picking, putting, picking, putting....
It didn't turn out the way I envisioned, but hey, it was so nice to watch her so engrossed. And she's a whizz at the pincer grip! That's what the learning experience is all about, I suppose, going where the wind blows and learning along the way :)
Note: Please do not leave your child with small items that they may choke on. Calla still has the habit of putting things in her mouth and I was always with her during the activity.
