Montessori Activity Ideas for Babies 9 to 12 months

Your Child at this age is very mobile. Whether She is walking independently, or still prefers crawling and only occasionally pulls Herself up to stand, you have probably noticed quite a few things around the house that are not safe for your crawling/toddling baby. You should now look at baby proofing your home and creating 'yes spaces' - places that are safe for your Child to be explored freely. You may notice that your Child likes to throw things and watch them falling, She might enjoy putting different objects in and out of the box. To support your Child's current interests, these are some Montessori aligned activity ideas that you can offer Her at the age 9 to 12 months:

• Object Permanence Boxes teach your Child that even if an object cannot be seen it doesn't mean it's gone. There is a variety of object permanence boxes to choose from, here are a few examples:
• Object Permanence Box with Tray
• Imbucare Box with Flip Lid and Knit Ball
• Object Permanence Box with Drawer

    

• Coin Box presents a new challenge to your Child, coins are harder to "post" than a ball as your Child will need to rotate them in Her hand in order to insert them into a narrow hole on top of the box.

• Ball Tracker helps your Child to work on hand-and-eye coordination as well as visual tracking. She will need to place the ball on top of the tracker and then watch it slowly rolling down level by level

• Cylinder Blocks is a classic Montessori activity that is primarily used to teach your Child to differentiate between different dimensions while She tries to put the cylinders of various height and diameter into the correct holes. When introducing this activity to your Child, you can start with the block with only one cylinder and then once your Child masters it, move onto the next challenges.

• Multi-shape Knobbed Puzzles (3 Circles and Circle, Square, Triangle) will help your Child to work on hand and eye coordination and introduce Her to the basics of geometry at the same time.

  

We hope that these ideas will inspire you and your Child, though She might still be engaged in activities for babies 6 to 9 months and that is totally fine, keep offering them as long as She is interested - In Montessori, we try to always Follow the Child!