Provide toys that teach your baby about shapes, sizes and colours. Let your baby touch and explore things he/she sees around the home, and talk about these items. For example, "These are oranges for Chinese New Year. Look at the orange-coloured murukku, triangle dumplings and square ketupat."
Studies have shown that mothers can scaffold or support their young children’s development through explicit verbal direction, and verbal and nonverbal behaviours that sustain children’s focus on things of interest. Dunham, P. J., & Dunham, F. (1995). Optimal social structures and adaptive infant development. In Moore, C. & Dunham, P. J. (Eds.), Joint attention: Its origins and role in development (pp. 159–188). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Landry, S. H., Garner, P. W., Swank, P. R., & Baldwin, C. D. (1996). Effects of maternal scaffolding during joint toy play with preterm and full-term infants. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 42(2), 177–199.
Toys of contrasting colours fascinate babies and stimulate their developing vision. As they grow, babies use toys to explore object permanence and cause-and effect-relationships.