Baby Play: Introducing Sound Concepts

Guest Post Leah of Simple. Home. Blessings.

 

Our youngest is finally getting to the exploration stage. For the first number of months, she seemed to be taking it all in without a real interest in getting involved in the action. But after she started sitting up on her own, exploration began in earnest.

Since she is constantly processing the myriad bits of information floating through this house, I want to be intentional with her and take the opportunity to help her explore and make early connections. During nap time for our older girl, I started creating activities for our littlest one to explore in a one-on-one setting.

First up: Sound

I collected a bunch of noise-making toys and put them in a bright red bin for W to explore as she saw fit. I placed them in front of her and started to talk and play with her, helping her to discover each item and make connections to vocabulary words.

 

We had some red and blue maracas, a yellow tambourine, and some pink and green castanets. Though I did not focus on the colors in talking with W, I know she is learning color awareness, just by virtue of their variety.

 

 

We introduced vocabulary like, “hear,” “shake,” “sound,” “music,” and “listen.”

We also sang songs while shaking the various instruments. We sang songs like, “Baa, Baa Black Sheep,” “If Your Happy and You Know It (with “shake your hand” as one of the indicators of happiness), and “Shake, Shake, Shake.”

 

 

W explored the bin and the instruments for quite some time each day and discovered an instrument of her own. She turned over the bin and discovered she could make sound by striking the bottom of it like a drum! What a wonderful sound!

 

 

Of course one of the easiest ways for us to explore sound is through clapping. We demonstrate clapping to W by clapping three times whilst saying, “Clap. Clap. Clap.” It delights and amuses her and I can just see her wanting so badly to clap. She is currently clapping by slapping her hands on her legs, so she is getting there! For the time being though, she is perfectly content to taste test all the items we place in front of her and report back her findings!

 

 

Leah is a homemaker, wife, and mother of 2 sweet girls (2 years and 9 months). She loves to watch the eyes of her little ones light up as they experience and discover new things. She writes about the simple projects she does with them at Simple.Home.Blessings.