This month included some traveling as we were in Bombay for a couple of days. We travel by road and she has a car seat, which we use at all times when she is in the car. She caught up on her sleep on the way as we started early morning.

In the post for Month 11, I mentioned about how my munchkin has started to enjoy playing Peekaboo. Peekaboo is a simple game that all babies love to play. Till about 6 to 8 months, when something is not in the babies’ sight, it does not exist to them – Out of sight, out of mind. But from 6 to 8 months, they begin to realize that things continue to exist even though they are out of sight.

Object Permanence Box

If you try hiding something under a blanket, they will try to lift it up to find the object. Similar is Peekaboo, when you hide your face; they look for it and get excited and happy on seeing it again. This is called Object Permanence – understanding that something exists even when it cannot be seen.

Accordingly to psychologist Jean Piaget, one of an infant’s primary development milestones is the understanding of the concept of object permanence.

This is a classic Montessori activity for infants/toddlers and my munchkin loved working with it too. You get this beautiful material online however I did an easy DIY for the activity (will post it soon).

My munchkin picked up the activity quite fast and it kept her occupied for long periods as well. I noticed some good amount of concentration when she worked with this.

Colour Sensory Bottles

She continues to enjoy exploring these colourful bottles and spends time looking at them and trying to eat them too!

Colouring

We started her with colouring this month. Gave her an art sheet and 1 colour crayon – we do not want to confuse them with choices yet and so 1 colour is enough. Try choosing one of the primary colours – red, blue or yellow. She did have fun doing this as she sees us writing things down a lot so she got her chance at it as well. After a point, she did try putting the crayon into her mouth so we stopped. I plan on buying her non-toxic edible crayons which will be safer for her to use.

Sound Sensory Bottles

Watching my munchkin enjoy the colour sensory bottles; I decided to make her some for sound. I used five bottles with grains that would produce different sounds. These actually replaced a lot of her rattles and she enjoyed playing with these more and listening to the different sounds. I will post the DIY for this soon.

Floor Bed

This was long due – a floor bed is highly recommended for children in Montessori. We used a crib for a year and she almost ended up breaking it, which is when we decided to transition her to the floor bed. I moved her crib into the next room, as I was a bit worried that she may not enjoy her new floor bed. She proved me wrong! She took an instant liking to it and was so happy that she could move in and out of her bed when she wanted (rather than waiting for one of us to pick her from the crib).

We simply have used a child-size mattress on the floor. I have put a wooden sheet (from the crib) under the mattress for better support. No pillows yet as she doesn’t need them nor use them.

What does your munchkin sleep on? Have you tried the Floor Bed yet?