Exploring using hands and eyes together

Pēpi will now be very busy refining skills involving their hands, fingers, eyes and brain. By repeating activities, their brain connections will be getting stronger.

Pēpi will be getting particularly interested in what they can do to objects. They’ll try things out and repeat actions that have interesting results – this is called ‘cause-and-effect testing’. They are like a little scientist – they keep testing to see if the same action has the same effect. Ask whānau if they're seen pēpi repeating any activity over and over. Affirm what parents have been noticing and make any links to the development listed below.

During this period, several parts of development come together:

• Curiosity – if a baby lives in a loving environment where they trust the people around them, they’ll be interested in exploring things.
• Vision – baby can see colours, can see further and can see in 3 dimensions.
• Large (big muscle) motor skills – baby may be moving around and finding and exploring things that look interesting.
• Fine (small muscle) motor skills – baby can grasp, manipulate using one or both hands, pass things from one hand to the other, shake, bang, drop and throw.

They’ll be developing their ‘pincer’ grasp – using their thumb and forefinger to pick up smaller objects.

In the Whakatipu whakatipu Growing, growth Maori | Noun booklet Te Pihinga 2 (pages 8 and 9), whānau say, ‘We notice the types of taonga tākaro taonga tākaro Toy Maori | Noun that pēpi is interested in. Lids that open and shut, and things to bang, shake and make noises with are lots of fun. Their little fingers love to explore, poking and pulling, and that waha waha Mouth, entrance, gate, opening, inlet, outlet – anything that is like a mouth Maori | Noun still loves to taste test everything.'