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 !!