Feely Bag Mystery

What you need

• a cloth bag or a pillowcase
• six or seven things from round the house that feel different: a spoon, a sock, a sponge, a ball, an apple

How to do it

1. Gather the things without your child seeing, and put them in the bag.
2. Let them put one hand in, feel one thing without looking, and tell you about it: soft or hard, round or pointy, heavy or light.
3. Ask them to guess what it is before they pull it out to check.
4. Swap: they fill the bag from round the room, and you feel and guess while they answer your questions.

Why it matters

Without their eyes to help, they need words for what their fingers find, and a guess they can check straight away.

What they're learning

Describing words

Soft, bumpy, cold, heavy: words chosen to fit what they feel.

Using touch

Turning a thing over in the hand to work out its shape.

Giving clues

When they set the bag, they answer your questions about what's inside.

What to look for

Notice them describing something before naming it, like "it's long and cold... a spoon!"

A tip

Use things too big to fit through a toilet roll tube, and nothing sharp or breakable in the bag.

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