WE MADE CHEESE SCONES! I'm really not very domestic and I certainly never baked pre-baby so this kind of activity is totally out of my comfort zone. Scones seem super easy and you're going to cover them in butter anyway so it's ok if they turn out a bit odd.

Baking ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to sensory play. There's lots of smells, unfamiliar items to see, new noises as we stir and cut, funny textures like flour and dough, bits to taste along the way.

It also ticks a lot of boxes for motor skills - stirring, patting, grabbing, squeezing, cutting and pouring to name a few. It takes a lot of coordination to do those things.

BE PATIENT! Everything takes ages. Yes there'll be flour on the floor and milk spilled and dough lost and cheese everywhere but whilst the scones are delicious, they're not actually the most important bit. It's the learning along the way! And all those ingredients are easy to clean up.

LANGUAGE OPPORTUNITIES:
Make sure you're talking through all the steps and narrating what you're doing. "First we need to get a big bowl", "I need to look in the cupboards for the cutters", "you're squishing it! It's very soft", "stir stir stir!", "time to put them in the oven!". There'll be lots of unfamiliar vocabulary here so make sure to use lots of repetition and hold up new items to show your child.