Let’s get messy! At Free Rangers we often feed the babies using one spoon while the children experiment with another one. Building on this, in the Nest we have been working on the skills of feeding ourselves; being independent and experimenting in different ways to eat our food.

Babies explore and engage with the environment around them through their senses, one of these being through their mouths, in particular during meal times when we have been getting extra messy. Mess-making is all part of their first attempts to learn to eat independently and build the fine motor skills required to manipulate the cutlery.

Many of the babies are already confident in eating finger food during snack and lunch time, using palm grasps and pincer movements to bring the food to their mouth. They have enjoyed exploring different textures and have come across a variety of flavours and smells in these new finger foods.

Although most babies are fairly uncoordinated with a spoon they don’t mind, because they have had great fun getting it all across their face, in their hair and flinging it across the room onto any unsuspecting victim. (Often Madi and Jade!!)

Hope you also enjoy practising at home and don’t get too messy.

Madi