What can I put into a treasure basket?

Babies learn through sensory experiences. A treasure basket filled with items to stimulate all senses is easy to do and has many benefits.

Treasure baskets provide many hours of delightful, rich heuristic play for babies and even toddlers. In our earlier posts we have covered heuristic play and some basics on how parents can support heuristic play. Here we have a listed few ideas to help you put together beautiful treasure baskets from objects you have lying around at home. This is just to start you off, the possibilities are endless and as you observe what and how your child engages with, more ideas will flow in.

Natural Items Basket

• Wooden objects found around the house

• Big shells

• Pine cones

• Wine Corks

• Loofah

• Big sized pebbles

• Cardboard tubes

• Coasters

Miscellaneous Items Basket

(A mix of knick-knacks found at home)

• TV remote

• Bowls and spoons

• Wooden rings

• Bottle

• Scrubber

• Sponge

• Clean Brush

• Fabric pieces

• Cardboard tubes

• Strings

• Pipes

Soft Items Basket

• Textiles of different colours and material (Velvet, Felt, Cotton, Net, Silk, Wool, Burlap, Jute)

• Scarves

• Strings made of cloth, lace, twine, raffia, wool

• Soft toys

• Hand or finger puppets

• Ribbons

• Sponge of different shapes and sizes

• Pom-poms (check for choking hazard)*

Wooden Items Basket

• Wooden spoons, ladle, spatula

• Rings, bangles made of wood

• Wooden beads (check for choking hazard)*

• Balls or wooden shakers

• Wooden toys and blocks

• Pinecones

• Wooden knick-knacks

Metal Items Basket

(variety of metal items from around the house)

• Spoons, ladle, whisk, scoop

• Bowls

• Plates

• Pots and pans

• Sieve

• Strainer

• Glasses

Noisy Basket

• Rattles

• Bells

• Tightly sealed clear bottles half filled with beans, beads or stones

• Objects to bang together (metal or plastic plates, bowls, spoons)

• Cardboard boxes and tin boxes

• Clappers

• Castanets

• Ratchets

• Cymbals

• Maracas

• Bubble Wrap (this will need close supervision for safety purposes)

*Safety tip: Anything smaller than a ping pong ball or that could fit through the mouth of an old 35 mm film canister is a choking hazard. If you don't have one of those film canisters, just roll a sheet of card paper into a 35 mm diameter tube, tape it and keep it handy.

Note: Do read our post on how parents can support heuristic play for pointers on safety.

Start with our first post on heuristic play to know more about the benefits of heuristic play.