During this period of life your Child is focusing on becoming mobile. She can probably put Herself into a sitting position, starts crawling and closer to 9 months may be pulling Herself to stand. She also works on Her fine motor skills: hand-to-hand transfer and pincer grasping. She is waving hello and goodbye, enjoys playing peekaboo, becomes familiar with the concept of object permanence.
To support Her development during this exciting and full of new discoveries time, try offering Her these Montessori aligned activities:
- Interlocking Discs is a classic Montessori activity that helps your Child to work on hand-to-hand transfer skills.
- Ring Stacker helps your Child to work on hand and eye coordination. When first introduced, your Child may practice taking the rings off the dowel, eventually, She will progress to placing them back onto the dowel. The rings have very wide holes making it easy for the small hands to grasp.
- Rattle (Cylinder with Bell). A little earlier your Child loved repeatedly shaking this rattle, and now as She becomes mobile, She will love crawling after this cylinder rolling across the floor.
- Single Shape Knobbed Puzzle is one of the first puzzles that you can introduce to your Child. Start with the large circle puzzle and then move on to other shapes.
- Ball in Cup and Egg in Cup are 3D puzzles that help your Child to work on hand-and-eye coordination as She needs to use both hands in a meaningful way: the cup is just the right size to fit the ball/egg, She can practice putting the ball/egg in and out of the cup over and over again. Introduce Ball in Cup first as it's a little easier and then progress to Egg in Cup.
- Spinning Drum. If you haven't yet introduced a Spinning Drum to your Child, be sure it will be a great addition to your Child's shelf at this age. It allows to strengthen Her hand muscles, the mirror pane and the jingling bell inside provide an endless source of entertainment.
- Object Permanence Box with Tray. We have a variety of object permanence boxes. This particular one is great to be introduced at the age of around 8 months when your Child becomes familiar with object permanence concept.
These materials on your Child's shelf can be complemented by other Montessori inspired activities such as:
- Treasure baskets. Grab 5-6 items that belong to the same category and place them in the basket for your Child to explore. These can be household items like kitchen utensils, or something from around the house of the same colour, or a collection of different balls of various sizes, textures and colours.
- Touch and Feel Books are great for babies at this age.
- Peekaboo Games. Keep playing peekaboo with your Child, you can also try hiding objects around the room and ask your Child to find them.
We hope that our list of activities can give you ideas on how keep your Child busy at the age of 6 to 9 months though She might not be interested in some of these just yet. Your role as a parent is to observe your Child, take note of the skills She is working on, so that you can prepare Her environment accordingly. Remember that one of the most important principles in Montessori is Following the Child!