What is the practice?

Lap games provide infants opportunities to have adults repeat or start a game a child particularly likes or enjoys. These simple but very important learning opportunities help infants learn the your-turn/my-turn nature of adult-and-child communication.

What does the practice look like?

Infants around 2 to 3 months of age become especially good at reaching for things—toys, food, and people. Infants are fascinated with what happens when they touch or swipe at something. The way in which one teacher took advantage of a baby’s interest in reaching, and how he turned this into a game that increased the child’s reaching even more, shows the importance of made-up lap games. This game shows how encouraging a child to do something she enjoys can be turned into a fun activity by rewarding the child by doing something else that is enjoyable.

How do you do the practice?

This is what the teacher did to make a reaching game fun and enjoyable, and shows some simple things anyone can do to play made-up games!

• The teacher observed that the baby was especially interested in reaching for and touching his mouth.
• The first thing the teacher did was kiss her hands whenever she touched her mouth.
• The teacher then changed the game by pretending to “nibble” on the baby’s fingers. This made the little girl squeal with delight. The teacher would say “munch, munch, munch” every time the baby reached toward her mouth.
• Finally, the teacher “made up” a rhyme to make the game even more fun. He would say, “Teacher’s getting hungry, he better eat some lunch. Can he eat [baby’s name]’s fingers? Munch, munch, munch” while making believe that he was eating her fingers. The little girl never got tired of playing this game!