Your Wonder Child: High Chair Games and Projects
Summary: Can't get over what a little genius you have in your home?  To stimulate that wonder child, high chair games, art projects, and activities will be fun for you both.


Early childhood is a time of wonder, discovery, and learning.  It's also a lot of fun to tag along with that baby for all the adventures!  As soon as baby is big enough to sit in a high chair, you can start stimulating that sense of wonder with games and activities in the high chair.  With a reclining chair, you can start even sooner!  Here are some ideas for things you can do in the high chair.

By the way, a portable high chair that attaches to the table gives the baby an even wider surface to learn on.  What's more, you will be right there playing on the same tabletop!  What better way to share wonder and discovery with your child?  But even if you are using a standard high chair, the results will be great just the same.

1.  Picture Pat:  Pictures, whether drawings or photographs, are an important source of information for us all.  It's never too early to engage your baby's interest in printed pictures.  In fact, it signifies a big step in cognitive development when your baby can relate to a picture in the same way she responds to the actual object.  The first pictures babies respond to are smiling faces and bold patterns like stripes and checks.

Collect bright, interesting pictures from old magazines and books.  Draw some of your own if you're artsy.  There are picture card sets on the market, too, just for the purpose of developing language skills in infants and toddlers.  While your child is in the high chair, show several pictures and say, "Pat the kitty."  (Or whatever is in one of the pictures.)  Show him how to pat the right picture.

Simple high chair games like Picture Pat are a great way to teach new vocabulary.  Some babies like to try to say the names of things in the pictures, while others would rather just pat or point.  By all means, encourage the baby to experiment with spoken language, but don't get discouraged or make her feel discouraged if she'd rather just look and point.  Speech will come soon enough.

2. Pudding Painting:  Babies and toddlers like to finger paint just as much as their preschool brothers and sisters.  Since they are more likely to put their fingers in their mouths, use something edible for finger paint.  Chocolate pudding is a classic for edible fingerpainting.  You can create designs right on the surface of the tray or the table, or you can put down a plastic sheet like the ones designed for rolling pie crust.  Show baby how to make letters, smileys, stick figures, and whatever.  When finished, table, high chair, and baby all get a good rinse.

3.  Look At It, Up Close and Personal:  The high chair provides a perfect place to look at interesting things up close.  For instance, your little wonder child can look at an insect up close in an insect house or plastic jar.  Get a plastic magnifier and see if you can see the eyes and ears (?) of a grasshopper, for instance.  There are other things that are not safe to let the baby play with that work well for this sort of an "observation deck."

You can also look at the family photo album or scrapbook from the high chair as well.  This is one time you don't want the baby's fingers to be sticky!  Be sure to wipe hands, face, and tray with a wet cloth  before opening the treasured heirloom.  The tray makes a nice surface to lay the book while you do your own version of Picture Pat.  Look!  There's Grandpa!  And there's Fluffy!  Learning to enjoy books of any type is a very important part of acquiring a taste for learning.

4.  Texture Tin:  Here's an activity for toddlers who are old enough to keep their fingers out of their mouths.  This activity is kind of like an indoor sand box.  Fill a shallow tin or plastic tub with sand, lentils, corn meal, or even flour if you don't mind the mess.  Now dig together.  Bury small toys and then dig them up.  Feel the texture of the digging medium.  Squeeze it in your fingers.  Use your index finger to draw letters in the "sand" and encourage little Einstein Junior to do the same.

5.  Mama-made Modeling Clay:  Every mom needs to learn how to make homemade modeling dough.  It is not difficult to do, although homespun recipes often  turn out too soft.  For little babies that might eat the dough, try a mixture of peanut butter and instant non-fat dry milk.  Remember not to use honey in anything that might be eaten by babies younger than one year old.

There are many other things you and your little wonder child can do together from the kitchen table and the high chair.  Use your own judgment about what is appropriate and what stage your baby is at.  You may have mixed feelings about things like fingerpainting with yogurt since it could blur the distinction between food and fun.  You might feel concerned that such activities will lead to a child who plays with his food.  If that bothers you, adjust the ideas.

Just remember that time spent now in the high chair doing "school" type activities is a good foundation for more formal learning later on.