Each week i've been sending play ideas to help support you and your babies with play ideas at home.
This week is one of my favourites - Umbrella play!
Let me know if you try it, i'd love to see your pictures too!
Love Elisa x
Sensory umbrellas !
Sensory umbrellas are a wonderful , immersive sensory play idea and super easy to do.
You will need :
A large umbrella
Ribbons or pieces of paper, scarves that can hang down
Anything shiny or reflective to tie on
Battery fairy lights
Whenever I bring out my Sensory umbrella at class, the babies absolutely love it! Mine is themed for underwater play , but your umbrella could have any theme you want. Simply peg or tie your objects to the spokes of the umbrella and let your imagination run wild! I also found having the disco light project in to it was really engaging too!
I've found a few images online of other umbrellas for inspiration too.
I'd recommend starting with 8-10 minutes of this play with you talking to baby, describing the objects , helping them reach and touch for the hanging objects too. Maybe even telling them a story or singing a song under the umbrella together too!
Benefits of a sensory umbrella
Sensory umbrella play is great for helping babies visual development It is amazing for hand to eye co-ordination, their sense of touch if we include different textures.
It can be a great tummy time activity too and can help their posture and working two sides of their body together.
Each area of their brain is used as they use their frontal lobe for their motor functions, their parietal lobe for their touch and sensory input, occipital lobe for their vision, cerebellum for their co-ordination and temporal for their memory & auditory processing..
Your baby is developing so many skills including –their sense of touch and their brains ability to process different textures.
The umbrella gives them an opportunity to work on their visual development and controlling those tiny muscles in the back of their eyes.
Babies can work on their co-ordination,their balance,using both sides of their body as they try to reach for the hanging items.
These activities are suggestions of how to engage your baby in play. They need to be carried out with adult supervision and you taking full responsibility for your baby during play. Please ensure that your little one is supervised with the toy at all times. Keep your little one in arms reach and eye sight when they are playing.