Baby Play: Taped Toys

After each of my baby storytimes, I include a Discovery Time free-play session that encourages parents to talk to one another and to interact with their children. I include a variety of fine motor, gross motor, and sensory activities that appeal to 0-2-year-olds.

Babies love a challenge. Making their regular favorite items just the smallest amount harder to access can be just enough to serve as an interesting distraction and build strong finger muscles needed for writing when they are older.

Taped toys are a very simple (and very cheap) project that just requires a little time ahead of a storytime to prepare. Use masking tape to tape baby-safe toys or household items to a hard surface. Favorite toys, instruments used in storytime, or bright, colorful items help make this a more appealing activity.

How to Make Taped Toys

Materials: hard surface (preferably not going to peel when tape is pulled off), masking tape, baby-safe toys or household objects

Steps:

• Tape toys to hard surface. Use one long strip of tape per toy (more if working with older kids).

Cost: $0-5

• Masking Tape
• Hard Surface (Cardboard, Tri-Fold Board, Magnet Board, etc.)

Time to Make: 10 minutes

Pro-Tip: While cardboard is normally much easier to access, our department magnet/dry erase board, that we use for outreach, doesn’t show the damage of having masking tape peeled off repeatedly.

Conversation Starters

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Start conversations as babies play with this tool by asking questions like:

• What toys do you see?
• What color is that toy?
• How can you get the toy off the board?
• What does the tape feel like?
• Does the toy make a sound?
• What does the toy fee like?

Stretch Vocabulary

When talking with little ones, use big words and small words. The more new words a child hears, the larger their vocabulary will be when they start to learn to read.

Consider using some of the following vocabulary words when using this activity: