Heuristic is just a fancy word for discovering through play. It's similar to sensory play - allowing your baby to find out about textures, colour, patterns, weight and other properties or normal, every day items. That makes it easy to put together a heuristic treasure box for your baby: a quick scout around the house and the pound shop and you'll have enough to keep them busy for hours.
There are no rules for what can go in (apart from keeping it non-toxic and non-swallowable obviously) but this is what I found to go in mine.
Textures and Colours Box
Just look for things that feel interesting or are brightly coloured. Some stuff was lying around the house.
Toilet roll; ribbon reel; jar lid; jewellery box; bangle; travel toothbrush.
Some things I found in Baby B's room.
The rest was from the pound shop.
A stamp block with raised shapes; a soft penguin toy; a colourful hair-bun shaper; a practice golf ball.
B really enjoys taking everything out the box and inspecting the different things. They usually end up in his mouth but mouthing things is hugely important at 6 months. At this age babies have more nerve endings in their mouths than anywhere else so mouthing an object tells them the most about it. As they get older they will be able to manipulate objects and find out more about what they do. The treasure box will be played with for a couple of years and can evolve as your baby grows. You just let your baby explore, as long as it's safe, but can help language development by naming objects and using words to describe colours and textures.
Natural Objects
This box needs a bit more supervision and I don't let him mouth most of this, but I think it's important to feel things that aren't plastic!
Chamois leather; pine cone; pebbles; lime; sea urchin; shells; wooden bangle.
I hope this has inspired you to make your own treasure boxes :)
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