Shape sorter
We bought a shape sorter for Bridget a month or so ago. Her first reaction was 'Bit of a boring wooden thing, but I like picking up the blocks that go inside it.' A couple of weeks later she moved on to being fascinated by the rod that moves up and down to release the blocks. In the last few days we've been encouraging her to put the cylindrical block into its hole. At first she simply batted it around the top platform until it fell off the edge. The next development was to rest it partway into the hole and leave Bridget it to right it, so that it dropped through. Now she's getting quite adept at pushing it around into the hole if the block is set on the top of the sorter with the circular hole nearest her. When it goes in, we clap and tell her 'Well done', which makes her squeal with laughter.
At the moment Bridget seems quite content to use just her index finger for pushing the blocks around, which makes it quite a tricky process manoeuvring the cylinder into its hole. She seems to have forgotten that she can pick things up with her whole hand, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes her to work out that she now has both options available to her, and how much more she can accomplish when combining techniques.