Let's Play! Climb Every Cushion & "Beach" Baby

1.Climb Every Cushion

Even as your baby learns to walk, she'll set her sights on climbing. You'll spend lots of extra minutes getting up your front steps and into the house because she'll want to scale the stairs all by herself — not once, not twice, but until you call off the ascent.

Skills developed: gross motor
What you'll need: lots of pillows from the bed, sofa, and elsewhere

Pile up a high stack of pillows for a safe, fun climbing activity. Use the largest, most stable pillows, such as couch cushions and bed pillows, on the bottom, then add chair pillows, throw pillows, and so on. Holding your baby steady, help her climb up the mountain of pillows and stand triumphant on top. If you have a lot of rectangular pillows, you can use them to create more of a stair-step structure, but you'll need to hold your baby's hand to make sure she doesn't step off the top tier into thin air.

Safety note: Never leave a baby alone with her pillow mountain; this activity should be supervised constantly. And move any furniture with sharp corners, so there's nothing for her to bang against if she falls.

2."Beach" Baby

No time to get to the park? Not to worry: Here's a way your baby can do all the sifting, measuring, pouring, and fantasizing that comes with sandbox play.

Skills developed: fine motor, imagination
What you'll need: a dishpan or other large, relatively shallow container; cornmeal or sand; newspaper; and some sand toys or cooking utensils

Spread newspaper on the kitchen floor, then fill a dishpan or other shallow container with corn meal (or sand from an actual sandbox, if you have one) and place it on top. Offer some small sand toys or kitchen utensils to play with. Mini strainers, sifters, and flour scoops are great fun, as are measuring cups and spoons and, of course, good old buckets and shovels.

Remember: Each baby develops at a different pace, so if yours isn't quite ready for this week's activities, don't worry — just try them again in a few weeks.

source from http://www.babycenter.com