Curriculum &
Programming for
Infants
Setting Up the Physical
Environment
Infant Care
Setting Up the Physical
Environment: Basic Considerations
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Infants sleep much of the day
When awake, infants learn best from
interactions with adults
When awake, infants learn from
playing with a variety of toys
As early as 6 months, infants enjoy
interactions with other infants
Needs and schedules for infants can
change on a daily basis
Infants are vulnerable to contagious
illness and over-stimulation
Equipping the Infant Room
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Sleeping area
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Changing area
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Feeding area
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Bouncy chairs and swings
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Storage areas for infant supplies
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Play areas
Shelf toys
Selecting
Learning
Materials
• 3-6 months: Rattles, soft squeak toys, cradle
gyms, musical toys, washable dolls, animals
• 6-9 months: Toy telephones, roly-poly toys,
pop-up toys, colorful wheel toys, unbreakable
mirrors, washable cuddle toys
• 9-14 months: “busy boards,” fill and dump
toys, rolling toys, push and pull toys, large
balls, soft blocks, cloth or cardboard blocks
Sensory bin
• Splashing water, finger painting with pudding,
rubbing hands in wet cornstarch
• Dishpans
Music area
• CD / MP3 player
Arranging the Infant Room
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Separation between awake and sleeping babies
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Changing and feeding areas should be easily
accessible from both wakeful and sleeping areas
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Easy access to running water, refrigeration,
covered waste disposal cans, and food warmer
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Adult look-out spot with full visibility
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Carpet the floor area
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Enclose play area
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Arrange toys and books on shelves and group
similar items
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Music should be accessible to adults not children
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2-foot wide walkway at all exits
Sample infant room layout
Some Real Infant rooms
Some Real Infant rooms
Physical Development
Infants
Infants’ Physical Development
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Young infants (0-9 months)
 Born
with all basic movements
 Turn toward sounds
 Follow moving objects
 Practice movements such as lifting the
head, supporting oneself with the arms and
then rolling over and sitting
 Increase the ability to explore and discover
through mastery of small-muscle skills, such
as bringing the hand to the mouth,
reaching, swatting, grasping, raking, and
using an immature pincer grasp to pick up
small objects
 three-week old reaching for pacifier
 5 month old baby reaching
Infants’ Physical Development
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Older infants (9-14 months)
 Learn
to use motor skills to achieve
desired goals
 Crawl, creep, pull to standing, cruise,
walk with help, ride scooting toys, and
walk alone in a predictable sequence
 baby walking
 Enjoy mastering motor skills and want to
share accomplishments
 Always on the move
 Use objects to hold, mouth, bang, drop,
pick up, turn, and put together
 baby and laundry
Activities that enhance largemuscle development
0-3 months
3-6 months
• Change baby’s position
• Kicking
• Reaching out
• tummy time
• Reaching and grasping
• Turning from side to side
• Pull-ups
6-9 months
9-14 months
• Come and get it
• Sitting up
• Pulling up
• Ball games
• Walking
• Feeding
• Tunnel crawl
Activities that enhance
small-muscle development
0-3 months
3-6 months
• Provide shake toys with handles
• Provide toys and materials with
different textures for feeling
• Provide toys for handling and
mouthing
• Provide objects for visual tracking,
such as mobiles, fish in a tank,
soap bubbles, wind-up cars and
pendulums
6-9 months
9-14 months
• Develop hand strength with
squeeze toys
• Activity boards require infants to
hold onto, poke at, and pull on
things
• Finger foods
• Stuffed animals and soft dolls
• Simple finger plays, like Where is
Thumbkin?
• Finger foods
• Blocks and objects for filling and
dumping from buckets
• Sensory experiences like painting
and pudding
Cognitive Development
Infants
Infants’ Cognitive
Development
Young infants (0-9 months)
• Each is unique in terms of temperament, coping ability,
and developmental timetable
• Work hard to make sense of the world by listening,
watching and touching
• Programmed from birth to engage in interactions with
adults
• By 4-5 months of age, can make interesting things
happen again
• Put together sensations and information from different
senses
• Show interest in new information
• Get accustomed to familiar sights and sounds
Infants’ Cognitive
Development
Older infants (9-14 months)
• Learn through exploration and discovery
• Anticipate new events based on past experiences
• Recognize that people can affect objects and other
people
• Imitate actions and expressions
• Empty and fill, open and shut, push and pull, poke and
prod
• Look at objects that the caregiver is pointing to
• Use simple tools, such as shovels, spoons and drumsticks
• Show awareness of object permanence
• pop culture object permanence
Activities that promote
problem-solving skills
0-3 months
• Look & stare - can infants focus their eyes on
brightly colored objects?
• Tracking - first side to side, then vertically, then
in circles
• Grasping - place objects in infants’ hands
• Sound search
3-6 months
• Rattle shake - give infants the rattle
• Banging toys
• Reaching activities
• Kicking activities
• Peek-a-boo
• Squeaky toy manipulation
Activities that promote
problem-solving skills
6-9 months
• Squeak toy play
• Cause-and-effect activities (pop up or musical toys)
• Hidden objects
• Block towers for the infant to knock down
• Rianne playing with blocks
9-14 months
• Rolling balls with play-by-play narration
• Hidden object games
• Reaching challenges
• Emptying treasures from a bin game
• infant problem solving rings
Infants’ Creative Development
Creativity
• a trait that enables children to find new ways to arrange materials,
ask questions or solve problems
Young infants (0-9 months)
• Sensitive to sensory information from birth
• Use new information to learn about the world
• Distinguish between new and familiar information, and can tune out
information that is overwhelming
• Enjoy listening to different kinds of music, experiencing rhythmic
movement, and looking at colorful displays and designs
Older infants (9-14 months)
• Active experimenter, trying out new ways of playing and interacting
• Try a variety of actions on the same object, such as hitting,
banging, shaking, tasting and dropping
• Try the same actions on a variety of new objects, noticing the ways
in which different objects react
Activities that Encourage
Sensory Exploration
Bubbles
Texture rubs
•1 c. dishwasher
detergent to 1 c.
water and 1 tbsp of
glycerin
Cornmeal play
Spaghetti pull
Finger painting
(older infants)
Sand play
Different textured
paper play
Sound exploration
baby sensory
activities
Activities for Exploring Music
Play soothing music for feeding and sleep,
upbeat when awake
 Encourage moving to music
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Instrument play
Action songs
Some artists….
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Raffi
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Sharon, Lois & Bram
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The Wiggles
Language and
Communication
Infants
Infants’ Communicative
Development
Young infants (0-9 months)
• From birth, seek and respond to human contact
• Capable of communicating feelings, wants and needs
through smiles, cries and gestures
• Initiate “conversations” with others in a back and
forth manner, using looks and babbling sounds
• Signal the need for a break from the conversation by
looking or turning away
• Enjoy cooing, babbling and changing pitch and
volume
• Recognize familiar voices by looking toward the
speaker or quieting and seeking eye contact
• Different sounding cries indicate hunger, distress,
and other needs or wants
Infants’ Communicative
Development
Older infants (9-14 months)
• Tune into words and phrases like bye-bye, up, and
more
• By 12-13 months, begin to use recognizable words,
such as wawa, Mama
• Use recognizable words and strings of sounds that
sound like talking
• Recognize the difference between playful and
soothing words and words that signal disapproval
and may stop what they are doing when they hear
No or Hot
• Use language to initiate and maintain contact with
parents and caregivers
Activities that promote
communication skills
0-3 months
3-6 months
• Talk with wakeful baby
• Sing lullabies and songs
• Turn-taking
• Face-to-face interaction,
following pattern of talk-pausetalk-pause
• Picture shows
6-9 months
9-14 months
• Babble some of the sounds you
know the baby can make
• Clapping and waving
• Smelling flowers
• Body parts
• “Show me the…” game
• “Point to the X” in the picture
book
• Songs, chants and nursery
rhymes
• Family albums or collages
Emotional Development
Infants
Infants’ Emotional Development
Young infants (0-9 months)
• Developing a sense of trust and learning to make
predictions
• Learn ways of self-comforting
• Demonstrate a variety of emotions, including sadness,
anger, surprise and happiness
• Learn to respond to a smile with a smile
• Show emerging awareness of self by playing with own
hands or by touching caregiver’s mouth than her own
• Develop preferences for certain sights, sounds, ways
of being held, objects and activities
• Enjoy active play but can get overstimulated
Infants’ Emotional Development
Older infants (9-14 months)
• Discover that they are agents who can make
things happen
• Take the lead in initiating interactions
• Respond to mirror image by smiling and
playing with mirror
• Form special attachments with familiar
people
• Show self-awareness by putting hat on head
• Demonstrate shyness by hiding behind the
caregiver
Activities that promote
emotional development
Encourage the infant
to bond to primary
caregiver
Be responsive to
infant
Collaborate with
parents to promote
consistency at home
and at child care
Talk about emotions
with infants
Promote a homelike
atmosphere in baby
room
Social Development
Infants
Infants’ Social Development
Young infants (0-9 months)
• Maintain eye contact from the moment of birth
• Cry contagiously when another infant cries
• Enjoy watching another baby
• Engage in back and forth conversations with parents and other
caregivers
• At 6 or 7 months, may show anxiety when approached by a stranger
Older infants (9-14 months)
• Recognize several different relatives and caregivers and react to
them in different ways
• Can play alone for very brief periods
• May still show anxiety when approached by a stranger
• Enjoy being with other children and imitating what they are doing
• Form attachments to transitional objects like blankets or stuffed
animals
• Is distressed when a special person, like a parent, leaves the room
and gives her a special welcome upon her return
Activities that Promote
Social Development
Young infants (0-9 months)
• Use a low voice to quiet and comfort the baby and a higher
voice to engage the baby in playful interactions
• Sing and play interactive games with infants, like peek-a-boo
• Provide infants with opportunities to look at and babble with
each other
Older infants (9-14 months)
• Provide many opportunities for social interaction with
children as well as adults
• Play back and forth games that include opportunities for the
infant to imitate actions and enjoy interactions
• Engage babies in two-person and group games that involve
music and movement