Making a treasure basket

These activities are suitable for children aged 15-24 months and align with stage 3 of the Developmental Journal Babies Visual Impairment (DJVI). 

Safety first

What you'll need

• A tray or basket, everyday objects such as a hairbrush, cutlery, sponges, cups, wooden spoons, soft toys, musical toys, bells

• Clean outdoor items such as acorns, leaves, pebbles

Tips

• Treasure baskets can be filled with everyday objects which your child will become familiar with. It’s a fun simple way to allow your child to explore textures, experiment and make choices at their own pace. Playing these types of games with your child may encourage your child to scan the basket, or to use their hands when searching for items.

• Providing your child with opportunities to touch and explore items can aid their understanding of concepts (for example, colours and size) within their environment.

• In your treasure basket, you can add items that make a noise (such as a ball with a bell in it), something that has a nice smell or items of different textures, so that your child uses all their senses. 

Activity

• Encourage your child to use all of their senses to find items in the treasure basket. Provide verbal clues and prompts to promote your child’s exploration. For example, ‘Find something that makes a noise.’, ‘Find something that smells nice.’, ‘Find something that is rough.’, ‘Find something you can eat.’,  ‘Find something you can smell.’ 
• Name each object as your child plays with it. Talk about how it feels and explore it together. If it’s a soft object, like a sponge, let your child feel the texture with their hands or use soft strokes along their arms and cheeks. 
• If your child has limited mobility, ensure they’re seated in the best position to be able to focus and engage. 
• Find matching textures: you could include two sets of matching materials. Place one set into a bag, encourage your child to reach into the bag to select an object and then match it to one in the basket. Or take photos of your objects and ask your child to find the object in the photo. 
• Remember to give your child increased time to process the information.