Activities for a 12-Month-Old

A 12-month-old is an adventurer, exploring her world with avid interest and rapidly improving mobility. Her brain is growing and new cognitive skills are emerging. Her problem solving skills are beginning to blossom, along with new communication skills. She is curious about everything, so engage that active mind to keep her learning and growing. Choose activities that are intellectually stimulating, promoting language acquisition and social skill development. Encourage activities that improve motor control and develop muscles. Through play, she'll make great strides towards important developmental milestones.

  1. Make Physical Activity Part of Every Day

    • According to Nemours Health and Prevention Services, a 12-month-old needs 30 minutes of parent-led physical activity and at least an hour of child-led active play every day, preferably outside. This is the ideal time for big push toys designed to support learning walkers, such as baby carriages and trucks. Balls are a favorite toy among this age group and are useful for many activities, so get various sizes and colors. Rolling balls back and forth is fun for your 12-month-old. Make bowling pins out of plastic bottles by filling them with enough water or sand to stay in place, but not so much that your 12-month-old can't knock them down with a ball. Take short show-and-tell walks in the neighborhood.

    Let's Pretend

    • The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says imaginative play emerges around the twelfth month. According to Scholastic, imaginative play encourages cognitive, emotional, social and language skills development. Sit down to an afternoon tea party with your 12-month-old and a few of her closest dolls and teddy bears. Use a few big boxes to make a train. Ride the rails together and tell her what you see as the train chugs along the tracks. Take turns pretending to be animals she knows, making their noises. Teach her a few new ones, and be those, too.

    Explore Spatial Relationships

    • Activities that explore spatial relationships help to increase your 12-month-old's knowledge of the material world. Spend some time together playing with sort and stack, shape sorter and nesting toys. Go outside with a plastic pitcher and cups of different sizes. Take turns pouring and filling. Do simple wooden puzzles together. Let her experiment with pots, saucepans, skillets and lids to see how they do and don't fit together. Pack small boxes neatly into a larger box, then take them out and let her try. These types of activities help develop cognitive abilities.

    The Joy of Words

    • According to the ̶0;Harvard Education Letter,̶1; a language-rich home environment is important to becoming a good reader. It also helps develop your 12-month-old 's language skills. Read to her every day. Do character voices to keep her interested and help her understand the story. After a story, go back through the pages, asking her to point to different characters. As she picks up more words, ask her to tell you the story. Sing songs, such as ̶0;The Itsy Bitsy Spider," ̶0;If You're Happy and You Know It,̶1; ̶0;Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star̶1; and ̶0;I'm a Little Teapot,̶1; that have hand and body movements that go with them. Make a game out of teaching her the proper word for each body part. Make it a point to have daily conversations.

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