Activities for children from 21 to 30 months

These activities are designed to help the development of your child aged 21-30 months, and align with stage 4 of the Developmental Journal Babies Visual Impairment (DJVI).

Safety first

Starting to match

What you'll need

• Items around the home that can be paired or grouped either by type, colour or texture.

• A shape-sorter toy.

Tips

Encouraging your child to match objects can be fun and is a simple activity to do around the home. As well as learning to match, you can also use these activities to encourage your child to explore and learn about texture, colour, shape and size. 

Activity

Keep the game simple to start with, matching like for like:

• Pairing basket - put a few paired household items in a basket and encourage your child to pull the pairs out (spoons, toothbrushes, shoes, gloves).
• Fruit in a bowl - mixing fruit up on the table and then ask your child to place in pairs. This activity is great for talking about colour, texture and smell.

As your child starts to develop their skills, you can add more pairs of the same object type:

• Matching pairs of shoes. This is a good way to talk about size, colour, left and right.
• Matching socks. This can be done by size, colour, or texture.
• Pairing shapes cut out of card.
• Sorting different coloured counters into tins.

Using a shape sorter is a good way to introduce different shapes and colour, as well as matching shapes to a hole. At first, your child may need some help to match the shape with the hole and to correctly align the objects for them to fall through.

My early pouring skills

What you'll need

• A range of containers and pouring equipment; cups, beakers, jugs, bowls, bottles.

• An organised pouring space preferably with a non-slip surface, such as a large tray or washing up bowl.

• Cloth or towel to clean up any spillages.

• Items to pour, such as water, sand or large building blocks.

Tips

Pouring with your child is a good play activity. Try pouring water from one container to another in a suitable place, for example in the bath or an outdoor water and sand station. This helps develop the sense of space, flow and sounds between the item being poured and the containers.

Practise pouring solids first to learn the action and develop an awareness of the space. Begin by using sand or objects such as large building blocks. 

Activity

• Working over a large tray or bowl, encourage your child to pour different solids and liquids into a range of containers.
• You can guide your child by completing the activity yourself as they place their hands over yours to feel the different actions and movements.
• Throughout these activities, try to describe each action and encourage your child to engage with learning through the full range of senses. For example, listening to the sounds when pouring and feeling the weight of containers as they empty and fill.

My first treasure hunt

What you'll need

• A tray or basket and everyday household items such as a hairbrush, cutlery, sponges, cups, wooden spoons, soft toys, musical toys, bells.
• Clean outdoor items such as leaves.
• Pictures of larger outside objects could also be used for an outdoor treasure hunt. For examples, images of a post box, yellow flowers, fence, street signs, bus stops, lamp post, or garden toys.

Tips

• Your child may love to have a treasure hunt with you. These can be done within the home, outdoors in your garden, or when on a walk. It’s a great way for your child to be active within their environments and provides further opportunities for you to explore together.
• Playing these types of games with your child may encourage them to use any of their available vision to actively scan their environment, as well as encourage them 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).
• You can also include prepositions such as ‘in/on/under/in front/behind’ in the clues to support the development of these concepts. 
• If your child has limited mobility, ensure they’re seated in the best position to be able to focus and engage.
• Give your child increased time to process the information. 

Activity

• Find matching textures. You could get two sets of matching materials and either hide one of the sets within the room or place them on the tray. Place the other set into a bag, encourage your child to reach into the bag to select a material and then match it to one on the lap tray or find it hidden in the room.
• In your treasure hunt, you can add items that make a noise (for example, 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.
• Use your senses treasure hunt: encourage your child to use all of their senses within the clues. 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.
• Begin the game within a defined space such as the living room or a lap tray so that your child has a small area to scan and search.
• Your child can also be encouraged to find items with their hands when searching.
• Instead of writing the clues you could take a photo of the hidden item in the environment and help your child find it, or you can give your child the object and ask them to find another the same, or similar.
• You can also provide the clues to a treasure hunt in a format such as, “what am I..?”, "You find me in the garden, I can be found under your feet, I am green, I am soft…What am I?" Answer “I am grass”.