Colours are first introduced through verbal conversations, eg. Talking about a yellow ball or the green plant, and so on. We do not directly focus on the colour but just keep it as a part of our regular conversation with our Munchkins.

Once our Munchkin is able to match different things and understands how one things differs from the other and begins to show more interest in colours, you can introduce a simple activity such as this to him/her.

The focus of this activity is to just match and put the correct colour in it’s place. We are not trying to teach the names of the colour (it is still too early for that).

Things needs to make this DIY are:

1)1 cardboard box cover;

2)Some extra cardboard strips for the partition;

3)Coloured paper for the base (I used the primary colours Red, Blue and Yellow);

4)Pom Pom big size balls or similar in the same colours (Red, Blue and Yellow);

5)A small box / container to keep all the pom pom balls in.

What do we do? We make three equal partitions in the cardboard box cover with the strips we have. Then paste the coloured paper in each section. The pom pom balls are to be kept in the container and both go on your activity shelf.

Present the activity to your Munchkin showing them how to take one ball at a time and match it to its respective colour. After they have a hang of it, leave them to do the activity by themselves.

Age: 21-22 months (or depending on the interest shown by your Munchkin)

Purpose: Visual discrimination and introduction to colours

More colours can be added later on or even done in a different way. As mentioned, the idea is not to teach names of colours, it is to just be able to match the right colours together.

Does your Munchkin already show interest in colours?

Entering into Month 7, my munchkin is still developing her back muscles and spine and still isn’t sitting completely unaided yet. We do make her sit with the support of something till she is comfortable. 

She continues to enjoy tummy time and tries to move forward as well. We give her some toy she likes, encouraging her to reach for it. I sometimes wonder if she will crawl first or sit first – only time will tell!!

While she follows her natural growth chart, we continue to give her things/toys to explore and develop her senses and movements.

Cylinder with Bell

This should ideally be wooden but a little difficult to find in India. There are many commercial rattles with a similar concept that you can use for your baby. The Cylinder with Bell is placed near the baby to encourage movement. It is an activity for gross motor movement and also permits auditory stimulation.

"Movement is one of the most important aspects of development in the first years of life. [It] is an essential characteristic of life and serves all living beings as an indispensable tool." Silvana Quattrochcchi Montanaro

Big Soft Ball

A big ball made of fabric and cotton is used to encourage play with the child. They enjoy throwing the ball, holding it up and trying various things to discover their own potentialities. I often give my munchkin the ball to play and let her play by herself (of course supervising from far). She would try to throw it up, and really enjoy the hand and wrist movement.   She had a firm grip on the ball as well.

Talking to your Baby

You must wonder why I am rewriting this topic but I cannot stress how important this is. Conversations we have with our babies play a vital role in their conversational skills later.

“Everything you say to your child is absorbed, catalogued and remembered.” – Maria Montessori

This is exactly why it is important for us to use correct language at all times when speaking to a child. We should always look at them when we speak to them – after all, there is more than words that they are taking in from us.

DIY Colour Sensory Bottles

This month I decided to introduce her to different colour sensory bottles. I came across this simple DIY on another blog and loved the idea. So I used empty bottles (same kind) and took off the labels, filled them with water and added food colouring to it. I chose to do only five colours – red, blue, yellow, green and orange. The result as you can see became another workbasket she will be using for many months.

I simply prop her up or when she is on her tummy and give her the basket to explore. For now, I am not giving her any colour names and trying to teach her that. All I want is for her to explore each colour and take in as much as she can from these bottles.

She enjoyed them a lot and would spend a lot of time looking at them, removing them from the basket, trying to put them back in.

I saw another variation in this on some site where instead of water, you could add in objects of the same colour in each bottle, for e.g, in the red bottle you put all sorts of objects red in colour, add in some red confetti, pom poms, ribbon, paper, etc too. Then a basket of these coloured bottles can be offered to the child to explore. There would definitely be a lot more for the baby to look at in these as compared to the ones I made her.

Would you try the Colour Sensory Bottles for your munchkin?  Share your experience, would love to hear if you munchkin responded to it !!