By six-and-a-half months old, your baby is probably a sitter – which means it’s time for some ball games together! Veronika can hold a ball easily, but today we got more sophisticated with her ball play; consider this her first little sports lesson!

First, we played a basic rolling game. I rolled an easy-to-hold baby ball to Veronika.

Her natural inclination was to pick it up and keep it to herself for play, of course.

But I encouraged her to roll it back, using the word and gesturing. When she dropped it, it rolled toward me accidentally, but I praised this like she’d done it on purpose.

In this way, we kept up a little back and forth that she soon loved.

The next goal was to teach her to pass a ball between her hands. For this game, I used large fluffy pom-poms; these have the benefit of feeling yucky if your baby puts them up to the mouth, and I wanted Veronika to focus on her hands.

I handed her the ball first. She loved the novel texture!

Next I showed her how to pass it from hand to hand, then gave it back to her and encouraged her to do the same. As with the rolling, this really happened by accident, but each time, I praised her success! From right…

…to left!

Next, I held out my hand and asked her to hand me the ball. I had to sort of take it, but then could “pass” it back to her, talking to her about what it meant to “pass”, too.

These games are both great ways to build up linguistic concepts and motor skills all in one!

How do you and your baby play with balls? Please share in the comments!