All of Munchkin and Me’s activities are designed by Rachel a qualified and experienced Lower Primary and Early Years Teacher to support your baby’s early development.

Some useful links can be found near the bottom of this page.

From all the activities you and your Munchkin(s) will enjoy, to the props, toys and setting. You can be assured to know that your baby will be free to move and explore in a safe clean and child-focused environment.

Every one of our activities will stimulate your babies senses and you will get to observe and enjoy the many amazing developments that take place as they learn and grow during our sessions. We also plan our activities, rhymes and songs and use props which make it easy for you to try our fun activities at home.

Every Munchkin and Me session includes time to allow you to meet and chat with other parents/carers (our Grown Ups).

We know just how important interacting with and getting to know other parents and careers. We pride ourselves on making all of our groups warm, friendly and welcoming places to be, with both you and your munchkin at the centre of all we do.

Typically we think of the senses as being sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, but movement, balance and body position are senses too.

Sensory play is designed to encourage babies and children to use these senses and ofen our activities will support development of several senses at the same time.

Sensory play activities are often used to engage and stimulate children with additional needs. However, ALL young and primary aged children can benefit immensely from sensory play activities and have loads of fun in the process!

For example, during the COVID 19 pandemic lockdown, I used lots of sensory play activities which both my 2-year old toddler and 6-year old loved, and this also supported my youngest’s development and eldest’s home learning. This included combining small world characters and messy play, building nests and den habitats.

Giving your munchkins a brilliant head start!

As soon as your baby is born and you feel ready, there are a huge variety of sensory activities that you can do at home which can be super simple and include cuddling, reading stories 📚, listening to music 🎶 , and exploring interesting shapes, colourful objects and toys together. 

What makes sensory play so important is that it plays a crucial role in a young child’s brain development.

Sensory play helps young brains make new connections and new pathways to form and synapses to be pruned back. Put simply babies have new experiences and their brains make new connections and as these experiences increase and develop their brains ‘clean up’ and prioritise this new learning.

Through sensory play, children acquire a huge range of important skills such as cognitive skills (developing knowledge), gross motor skills (e.g walking and jumping), fine motor skills (e.g. holding small items), language skills, problem-solving skills, memory skills as well as social and emotional development (learning how to interact with others and managing and expressing their emotions).

Every story, activity, play-tray, song and rhyme at Munchkin and Me is designed to stimulate your child’s senses and enhance their sensory development.

There is a whole lot of thought behind the fun! 🤩 💡!

When they are born babies can see colours, however, they often seem blurry because the brain and eyes are still developing. This is why strong contrasting bold colours such as red, black and white stand out more for young babies. A few months after birth babies will see colours more clearly. However, even very young babies are able to track the movement of an object with their eyes. You can help your baby develop this skill by slowly moving a colourful object/toy around in front of them close by so they can see.

When you cuddle and look at your newborn baby, she/he will fixate on your eyes and study your facial expressions and mouth movements. Your baby may even stick out their tongue when you stick out yours and they will quickly start to recognise when you are smiling.

Your baby can grasp an object from birth as this is one of their main reflexes, but from about 3 months onwards you may notice them reaching out for objects and toys, which shows the development of their eye-hand coordination.

From about is 9 months-old, they may start to pick up small objects using thumb and forefinger which is when we have to be particularly aware of safety as they will often put things straight to their mouth for further exploration.

Our rainbows are a great example of a prop babies use during sessions, to track, eventually grasp and to mouth.

Babies who have heard familiar voices in the womb, can recognise these voices straight after birth. They will also quickly learn the difference between familiar voices and those of strangers.

Your baby can recognise songs and rhymes heard in the womb and find these comforting, which may help your munchkin to relax into sleep. Hearing the different sound patterns is also great for your babies development.

They may also be comforted by other sounds similar to those heard in the womb such as heartbeat sounds, shushing, and white noise such as the tumble drier, vacuum cleaner etc. other natural sounds e.g,running water, rain, birdsong etc can also be soothing.

Talking to your baby about everything you do and see, as well as singing songs and saying rhymes, will have a dramatic effect on your child’s speech and language development.

In fact many studies show that children who are spoken to and read to daily have a much broader vocabulary and understand many more words than those from families who interact less.

As you talk to your baby he/she may react by making sounds e.g. gurgling which helps you to know that they are listening!

Babies are never too young to hear a story and reading together or telling stories exposes them to a huge range of new sounds and words and is also a perfect time to snuggle up together.

If you notice that your baby is not responding to everyday sounds then we would always suggest that you contact your GP or health visitor to carry out a hearing check. It may be as simple as an ear infection.

Babies will use their sense of touch from the moment they are born. Through touch and close physical contact (especially skin-to-skin), your baby will feel content, safe and warm. This is because touch stimulates the production of oxytocin which is also known as the ‘love’ hormone.

Before they were even born your baby will have felt movement from inside the womb. This is why, after birth, babies often calm when you hold them in your arms whilst rocking, swaying or walking. A wrap or carrier can be very helpful to maintain close body contact with your baby whilst enabling you to do other tasks. There may also be a sling library in some local areas, please check our useful links section for more information.

Give your baby toys to look at, shake, mouth and touch to boost their development. When your baby is about 3 months-old, they’ll bring everything to their mouth and learn about texture, shape, taste, smell, temperature, size and weight. Be on the lookout for small, hazardous objects that could end up in baby’s mouth.

Within an hour of the birth, babies can use their highly developed sense of smell and taste to find the breast. They recognise the familiar smell and taste the breast milk has to amniotic fluid, from the womb. Feeding, triggers the release of opiates in the brain, which helps to relax and calm your baby.

When held close, either when feeding or during skin-to-skin contact, your baby will get to know your taste and smell, which will give them reassurance and comfort. Sometimes the smell of milk or your familiar scent can offer your baby comfort when you’re not close-by. Other family smells can also comfort your baby and give them a sense of being at home, such as familiar cooking smells, perfume and baking cakes.

When you start to wean your baby by giving them solids for the first time, they will start to explore the smell and taste of different foods. Your munchkin will quickly let you know which foods they like and which foods they would rather spit out. We have had some wonderful reactions from babies during our edible messy play activities at Munchkin and me. Also you may notice that the more varied your diet during pregnancy, the more likely your baby will be willing to try different foods.

Sensory toys provide a huge range of learning and activities for your babies that will encourage their development. Always check the age recommendation and safety stamp on any toys you buy.

There are many suppliers of sensory toys online. In our Useful Services section you will find some of the retailers we have purchased props and equipment from which we have been impressed with, often from family run companies such as tink ‘n’ stink.

There are a huge range of sensory toys and some household objects such as bowls and spoons etc can be great for sensory play too. You will notice that, at Munchkin and Me, we use props that you are likely to have around the home to bring stories to life. A simple object such as a mixing bowl for example might be for ‘baking a cake’ one week, a space helmet the next, a drum, a window, a steering wheel or a duck pond. The possibilities are endless just like our munchkin’s imaginations. They will often use the object to lead the play in a way they choose - it is joyous to observe their wonderful imaginations at work.

Black & White pictures are brilliant for young babies to look at as well as shakers similar to the ones we use in sessions that can be easily grasped. Textured, touch and feel and hide-and-seek books are also favourites for babies of all ages.

Sensory toys for babies aged three to six months include objects that are safe to chew on and those that encourage motor development like our rainbows. 🌈

From six to nine months - Toys which have buttons for them to press and pull, plastic bricks they can stack or bang, shape sorters, and moving toys which can be pushed or rolled like ball are great fun and educational

For babies aged nine to twelve months - think about safe everyday objects you might have around the house which will help develop their fine-motor skills as well as their understanding of shape and texture.

Books, books, books 📚📚📚 - at munchkin an we highly recommend reading with your baby from birth. There are a variety of sensory books available such as the textured “That’s not my…” series and books with flaps/buttons etc. However you can use props to bring any story to life such as reading reading a book about ducks at bathtime and splashing in the water.

Finally, you will make it more interesting for your baby by keeping the number of toys limited and rotating them round regularly.

There is also the library service which may well provide “story sacks” which include toys and games with the story to help bring it to life.

There are a number of toy rental subscription services available that can provide an affordable way to rotate toys and keep the play interesting for your munchkins and I make reference to these in the useful links section of this website.