As your baby begins to pay closer attention to sounds, words and the illustrations in the books you share, these activities can help strengthen his interest in the world of words.
Activities by Age for 6 to 11 Months
ON THIS PAGE
- Beginning Writing
- Letter Knowledge
- Oral Language
- Phonological Awareness
Baby Obstacle Course
This is a fun way to develop motor skills.
Baby Sand
Exposing your baby to new textures helps to develop fine motor skills.
Fill and Dump
Play the fun game Fill and Dump, where babies will begin to practice fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination they’ll need for writing in the future.
Filling and Dumping
The “fill and dump” activities help infants build strength and coordination of small motor muscles.
Finger Plays
Sing songs that include finger and hand movements to encourage your baby’s eye-hand coordination.
Fun With Pop Beads
Play with your child using pop beads and help build their fine motor skills. For extra fun, write letters on the beads and to introduce some pre-reading skills too.
Fun With Sponge Blocks
Sponge blocks are easy to make and can provide your baby with exploration fun, while nurturing coordinated hand movements.
It’s Part of the Routine!
Talk and read to your baby about the routines you do together, like getting dressed, mealtime and bedtime.
Laundry Time
Your baby’s grasping skills are developing at this age.
Nesting Bowls
Pull out some plastic bowls and watch your baby have fun nesting the bowls inside each other.
Sing It, Baby!
Sing a song your baby knows, then help them connect their own sounds to the song.
The Cereal Challenge
This activity will give your baby some fun practice using her thumb and forefinger (pincer grasp) to get the yummy reward!
Yummy Finger Foods
Give your baby practice using the thumb and index finger to pick up small pieces of food and drop them into a bowl.
Babies and Books
Use this simple four-step sequence to build your baby’s language through books.
Baby’s Choice!
This fun game will help support your baby’s development of establishing and maintaining his attention to simple objects.
Books for Baby
Cardboard books are a great choice for this age.
Colors, Letters, Shapes, Oh My!
Read books to your child that focus on colors, shapes, letters and textures.
Flashlight Shapes
With this activity, you can expose your baby to shapes in an interactive, multisensory way.
Hide and Seek
Play simple games, like Hide and Seek, where your baby can discover the “rules” of the game by your positive response.
Move to the Beat
How to help your infant learn to communicate.
Same and Different
Talk with your baby about their toys and describe how they are alike and different.
Tasty Shapes
In this activity you can talk to your baby about shapes, and he'll get to eat them!
Time to Share a Book!
You can have fun introducing your baby to bright illustrations and encouraging her to help turn the pages of books.
Touch This Shape! Feel the Letter!
This do-it-yourself easy touch-and-feel board will quickly become a favorite toy.
"Talk” Shop
Get ideas to help your infant learn to communicate.
Delicious Dish
During mealtime, strike up a conversation with your baby and explore the five senses.
Language in Everyday Life
Help your child develop language by using sentences to describe and talk about things as they happen.
Look Up, Look Down
For this activity, the positional words “up” and “down” are used repeatedly to help your baby begin to understand direction and orientation.
Open and Close
Action words, such as “open” and “close,” are easy to introduce to your baby at this age.
Rub a Dub Dub: Fun in the Tub
This fun activity helps your baby start to understand words and their meanings.
So Big!
This activity allows for great bonding time and exposes your little one to new sounds and vocabulary.
Songs From the Past
Support your baby’s use of language by talking to, reading and singing in your home language.
You Are Too Funny!
Get excited by smiling, laughing and cheering when your baby makes noises trying to speak.
Zoom, Zoom Goes the Car
Joint attention is an infant’s ability to pay attention to another object or event while also attending socially to an adult.
Can You Say What I Say? Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba?
Play this game with your child to help develop the skill of noticing the sounds of language and how language is used.
Gazing and Pointing
You can use this activity to notice the development of gazing and pointing skills in your baby.
Hoo, Hoo — I Found You!
Animal sound games are a good way to expose your baby to new sounds!
Musical Peek-a-Boo
Play this game of musical peek-a-boo, which is both fun and good for your baby’s brain development.
Noisy Socks
Here’s a fun activity to introduce your baby to different sounds.
Silly Sounds
Singing silly or familiar songs to your baby during daily routines will help him develop the foundations of spoken, and later written, language.
This Is the Way We ...
Fun, interactive songs such as "This is the Way We …" will help your baby develop language comprehension.
Who Has a Little Lamb
Try substituting your child’s name in simple nursery rhymes to build pre-reading skills like phonological awareness.
You Say … I Say
To help your baby develop language, encourage them to echo you as you say some of the sounds they make often.