Kitchen fun with Squish

There is not much that captures the attention of a thirteen month old for any length of time, but this very simple activity is one of my favourites with Squish.

 

Colourful plates, cups and bowls provide hours of stimulation for a toddler

I guess one could call it a simplistic Montessori type practical life exercise. I throw an assortment of plastic tupperwares, plates, bowls, spatulas, measuring cups etc. onto a large blanket and let him go wild. You will see that the food cups from our friends at Nuk made their way into the picture as well.

Most of the time, this activity is reserved for when I want Squish to entertain himself while I get some work done. In fact, he is playing with his plates and bowls as I type this (today, some different coloured golf balls were tossed into different coloured bowls, but sometimes a few large lego blocks or silicone muffin cups are added to the mix). I stick to large items with no possibility of being swallowed.

While he enjoys just jumbling them up or banging them together on his own, we also use them for more structured activities:

Colours

I help him to group items that are the same colour together and attempt to get him to repeat the colour names. So far we just have ehhhd (red) and boooo (blue).

Sorting

I get him to stack like objects together, eg. all the bowls or all the plates.

Counting

We count the objects as we go along. For now, his version goes "toooooo, teeeee, ten".

Language

As we go along, I name the objects, eg. plate or cup and ask him to pass me specific items.

Imagination

A thirteen month old does not engage in too much imaginative play yet, but Squish pretends to eat from the dishes or feed me and moves imaginary food from one container to the next.