One great concept to work on with babies around age one is give and take. For this simple game, I just wanted to see if Veronika could mirror my action of handing over a toy when asked.

I thought it might be easiest to use toys all of one type, so picked a set of nesting boxes to start. Working with 1 box, I sat facing Veronika and said, “Mommy is giving you box.”

Well, she was happy to take it! But these days she’s very proud of her nesting and stacking skills, so when I asked, “Can you give the box back to mama?” she was busily nesting it into another box instead.

I tried several variations, first clearing the other boxes from the space. But then she only wanted to nest other toys inside a box. Next I tried a grocery food set. Again, she was happy to take a toy…

…but now she wanted to helpfully put the fruits into their grocery basket. Can’t argue with teaching her to clean up!

So this was a great reminder that Veronika isn’t yet understanding the directive to “please give me X”.  It’s one we’ll keep working on!