Learning with paper plates (Activities for babies 3 months – 3 years)

by | Apr 6, 2020 | Blog

In our latest video we feature some ideas to do at home using paper plates.  Here’s a few more, age appropriate activities.

3-6 Months

  • Your baby can lie on his back or on his tummy.  Hold a colourful paper plate (if you don’t have one, decorate a plain paper plate) 30cm away from you baby’s eyes and let him follow the object with his eyes. Move it slowly from left to right, right to left, up and down (not too far up though) and also move it in the shape of a lazy 8

    

  • Put the paper plate in front of your face.  Play the “where’s Mommy, there’s Mommy” game. 
  • You can make a mobile using different paper plates. (decorate, cut into different shapes etc).  Hang it from a tree and let your baby lie underneath it on a blanket. 

7-12 Months

  • Put clothing pegs onto the paper plate.  Let your baby try to take the clothing pegs off of the plate one by one

            

  • Put the paper plate in front of your face.  Play the “where’s Mommy, there’s Mommy” game.

  • Cut out a big circle in the middle of the plate (the plate should look like a doughnut).  Make a few of these “doughnuts”.  Put the “doughnuts” around a paper towel roll (or anything similar).  Sit in front of your baby and point the paper towel roll towards her, let her try to remove the doughnuts from the roll.  Once she is able to do this, put the roll upright and ask her to remove the doughnuts again.

               

13-21 Months

  • Put clothing pegs onto the paper plate.  Let your baby try to take the clothing pegs off of the plate one by one.  Give him a container to throw the clothing pegs into.  Your baby can try to put the clothing pegs back onto the plate.

           

  • Cut out a big circle in the middle of the plate (the plate should look like a doughnut).  Make a few of these “doughnuts”.  Put the “doughnuts” around a paper towel roll (or anything similar).  Put the roll upright and ask her to remove the doughnuts and put them back again.
            
  • Make a few holes in a paper plate.  Thread different lengths of ribbon, wool, pieces of rope or any other strings through the holes securing it with a knot or a bead on both sides.  Let your baby pull on the different textured “strings” – talk about the textures and also use words like “longest/shortest”, “thick/thin”, “smooth/rough” etc.  Hold the plate at different angles (in front of your baby whilst sitting, above your baby’s head while he’s lying on his back or stomach etc).  If you have shoe laces, your baby can try and lace the shoe laces through holes in the plate by themselves.
                        
  • Give your baby some stickers to paste onto the paper plate.  Let him try to remove the stickers from the sleeve by himself.

       

22-36 Months

  • Put hair pins onto the paper plate.  Let your toddler take the hair pins off of the plate one by one.  Give him a container with a small hole at the top (like a shampoo bottle) to throw the hair pins into.  Your toddler can try to put the ha back onto the plate.

            

  • Cut out a big circle in the middle of the plate (the plate should look like a doughnut).  Make a few of these “doughnuts”.  Use a paper towel roll (or anything similar).  Put the roll upright on the floor.  Let your toddler stand a few feet away and try to throw the dougnuts onto the paper towel roll

                    

  • Make a few holes in a paper plate.  Let your toddler thread different lengths of ribbon, wool, pieces of rope or any other strings through the holes (paste some selotape at the tip of the string to make it easier for your toddler to thread with) .  Talk about the textures and also use words like “longest/shortest”, “thick/thin”, “smooth/rough” etc.

                        

  • Use a permanent marker and make some dots on a paper plate.  Give your toddler some stickers to paste onto these dots.