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Play is Critical to Early Development. For babies and toddlers, simple, playful interactions with adults help develop sturdy brain architecture, the foundations of lifelong health, and the building blocks of resilience

Join Center on the Developing Child Director, Dr. Jack Shonkoff, for a “mini masterclass” with UNICEF Canada on the importance of playing with young children.

Every chat you have with your child helps them develop their social skills. Children’s brains are like little sponges, soaking up everything around them. Kids love it when you chat, play and read with them. And it sets them up nicely for school. Find more about chatting withy our baby or toddler here.

Chat rhymes with cat, hat, and splat. That’s so funny, you really make me laugh!

This box is a car. No, a truck. No, a monster truck, yeah!

Remember these skills when chatting with little ones.

• Talk
• Pause
• Listen
• Respond

Did you know?

• when babies babble or toddlers make noises, they are chatting to you and love it when you chat back
• spending 10 minutes focussed time each day chatting, playing or reading with your child can make a huge differ when they start school
• getting down on the floor and playing with what interests your child each day can help their speaking and listening and their behaviour
• chatting, playing and reading sets your child up nicely for school

Try action nursery rhymes like ‘row, row your boat’ or ‘wind the bobbin’. The rhythm and repeating words are loved by babies and help them learn in an easy fun way.

Watch a mum talking to her baby while she’s completing chores and tasks. She takes her baby with her and explains what she’s doing.

The National Literacy Trust have some great activities from chatting about the day ahead to taking photos and talking about them.

Playing isn’t just fun: it’s also the best way for young children to learn. By playing, children can practise all the skills they’ll need as they grow up and parents and carers are a baby’s favourite playmate. You don’t need expensive toys – just a few minutes at a time to have fun together.

Your baby or toddler’s favourite playmate is you – so try to spend time playing with your baby or toddler every day. Did you know that playing actually requires a lot of your baby or toddler’s brain and muscle power? You can find some great ideas and activities for baby moves at Start for Life or activities for toddlers.

It helps develop their social, intellectual, language and problem-solving skills – and is one of the main ways they learn about the world.

Play is so important that it is considered a human right for children.

Remember this when playing with little ones.
Bring the play into everyday.

This short video from Watch Me Play shows how parents and carers can feel more confident and closer to their baby or child through play. Find out more about Why Play Matters here.

Why is play important?

Playing with children throughout their baby days and childhood will build strong and lasting bonds. It helps build their self esteem, confidence and gives better life chances.

Play is good for us. Children learn best through play and this learning happens every day through the experiences and the fun they have.

• Get down at your baby’s level. Talk about what they are looking at.
• Describe what they are doing – use short simple sentences ‘you are holding the red car’ and make the noises ‘car goes brumm, brumm’.
• Respond to the sounds and noises your child makes – even if you are not sure what they are saying take a guess – ‘yes that is your duck’ add some extra detail to what you think they are saying/thinking ‘ducks go quack don’t they?’.
• Try action nursery rhymes like ‘row, row your boat’ or ‘wind the bobbin’. The rhythm and repeating words are loved by babies and help them learn in an easy fun way.

To grow and develop, children need time and attention from someone who’s happy to play with them.

Children learn from everything they do and everything that’s going on around them.

When you’re washing up, let your child join in – for example, by washing the saucepan lids. When you cook, show them what you’re doing and talk to them as you’re working.

Getting them involved in the things you do will teach them about taking turns to help and being independent. They’ll also learn by copying what you do.

Sometimes things have to happen at certain times, and it’s important that your child learns this. But when you’re together, try not to have a strict timetable. Your child is unlikely to fit in with it and you’ll both get frustrated.

There’s no rule that says clearing up has to be done before you go to the playground, especially if the sun’s shining and your child’s bursting with energy.

As far as you can, move things around to suit both your and your child’s mood.

• Every time you give your baby attention, chat and smile, or let them know you are there for them when they are upset, they are learning to trust you.
• Every time you talk, sing and read to your child you are helping them learn the words that they need to communicate their thoughts and feelings.
• Every time you help your child to learn a new skill or understand a new experience, you are helping them feel good about themselves and make sense of their world.

The National Literacy Trust have great activities from playing Peek a boo to having a mini beast exploration.

Leaflets to view or download from your 0 to 19 Torbay and Family Hub teams.

Reading can make us laugh, cry, stir-up emotions to make us think differently or help us to walk in someone else’s shoes. Being able to read can help our children unlock the magic of books and develop a lifelong love of reading. Nurturing reading skills is important to set the foundations for a child’s early language, thinking and writing ability.

Remember to have fun when reading with little ones.

• Share books.
• Share words.
• Share everywhere.

Reading with your child, even for just a few minutes, can make a huge difference to their learning. Children’s brains are like little sponges, soaking up everything around them. Kids love it when you chat, play and read with them. And it sets them up nicely for school.

Did you know?

• sharing books together chatting about the pictures helps learning to read
• spending 10 minutes focussed time each day chatting, playing or reading with your child can make a huge differ when they start school

The National Literacy Trust have great activities from bonding with you bump to sharing stories together.

Sharing a story

Did you know?

• You can use a paint brush and water to make marks outside.
• You can use a stick to create marks in the sand at the beach.
• You can press objects into playdough to make marks too.

Mark making is the beginning of a child’s journey to writing and is an important step in a child’s development. It also helps with fine and gross motor skills.

Babies and toddlers have a natural curiosity to discover using all of their senses and messy play provides an opportunity for them to enjoy exploring objects and materials such as sand, water, paint, playdough and gloop.

Messy play helps to develop imagination and experimentation, allowing your child to develop their curiosity as well as their concentration. Gloop is an interesting messy play activity as it can be both a solid and a liquid, allowing it to be manipulated and run through fingers.

Ideas for managing mess

• Let them experiment with messy play in the bath so it stays in one space that is easy to rinse clean.
• Use outdoor space and/or a play trough or paddling pool to contain materials.
• Have a large table cloth that is a wipe clean material that can be put on the floor to protect the space.
• Use natural products that are easy to clean up such as water, sand or homemade gloop or playdough.
• Use aprons or old clothes when embracing messy play.

Making gloop

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of cornflour
• 1 cup of water
• Slowly add the water to the cornflour, stirring as you go.
• You can add food colouring or scents to add a different sensory experience.

Singing a nursery rhyme is a great way to bond with your little one, at the same time as teaching them new words.

Singing songs and rhymes are a fun way to introduce your child to new words and sounds and to get them active too! Watch a mum and her child sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

Watch the videos below to help you learn the words to this rhyme.

• Sit opposite your child and hold their hands, or put your baby on your lap facing you.
• “Row” back and forwards in time with the music
• Don’t forget to scream when you see the crocodile!
• Watch the video to learn more verses, or make up your own.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat lyrics

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is but a dream.

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream.

If you see a crocodile

Don’t forget to scream!

Aaaah!

Encourage your child to look for letters and numbers in your house and out and about. You’ll be surprised how many there are. Clocks, TV remotes, phones, kitchen scales, on buses and so many more places.

Download or view these tips from our family hub team.

Blowing bubbles can help to develop motor skills, visual skills and oral language.
Blowing long streams of bubbles strengthen a child’s core muscles and promote eye
contact.

If you’ve run out of store-bought bubble mixture or need a quick entertainment idea for the kids, it’s easy to make your own bubbles from washing-up liquid and water.

But what’s the perfect ratio, and what can you use if you don’t have a bubble wand?

To make the bubble mixture

• 1 Dessertspoon of caster sugar
• 2 Dessertspoons of washing up liquid.
• 1 Cup of warm water

Mix it all together until dissolved and have fun.

Homemade bubble wands

If you don’t have a wand from a store-bought pot of bubbles, don’t despair! You can have fun by looking for different items around the house that can be used to make bubbles. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Paperclips – bend them into wands or use as they are
• Straws
• Biscuit cutters
• Pipe cleaners
• Fly swatters

View or download our bubble recipe here.

One of the best thing about activities with ice, is that they address all 5 senses. If a child has a sensory processing need or not, sensory play is a vital part of a child’s development. Ice makes an amazing sensory play material and it is practically free.  

Benefits: Toddlers and children process information through their senses. Sensory play is unstructured and is the purest sense of exploratory learning.

Adult supervision required at all times.

What you need:

• Ziplock bag
• Ice Food colour {optional)
• Lemon juice (optional)
• Towels

Fill the ziplock bag with ice and secure it. Encourage the child to explore.  

Tips: When the child is ready to explore more, you can start introducing the ice in a tray with plastic toys. You can also use lemon flavour to explore taste. Enjoy exploring with your baby!

This super-easy playdough recipe is the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon inside. It’s quick enough to hold a young child’s attention and you only need a few store cupboard ingredients.

Little hands can play with the results straightaway, so there’s immediate fun for all involved!

Did you know that playdough

• Helps to develop fine motor skills.
• Encourages creativity.
• Develops vocabulary, literacy and numeracy.
• Provide a satisfying sensory experience.

All you need is

• 2 Cups of flour
• 1 Cup of salt
• 2 Cups of warm water
• 2 Dessertspoons of oil
• Few drops of food colouring

Mix it all together and have fun.

Download the recipe or view it here.

Babies and toddlers are constantly developing and a big part of how they learn is through their senses. It
is great to give them opportunities to explore through stimulating, sensory play.

Before children use and understand language, they make sense of the world around them using their senses. First they want to find out what objects are like. To do this, babies use their senses to mouth objects to help them discover more.

As a baby becomes more mobile, they become keen to explore how they can make an object interact with the environment and so explore what they can do with it to an ever greater extent. Then they want to find out what the object can become. As their language develops, they use their imaginations to find a functional use for the object.

Brain development
Sensory experiences build nerve connections within the developing brain’s neural pathways.

The five senses we commonly think about are known as the external senses and involve our eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin:

• Visual – sight
• Auditory – sound
• Olfactory – smell
• Gustatory – taste
• Tactile – touch

We also have internal senses or sense receptors:

• Kinaesthetic – movement
• Proprireceptive – position in space
• Vestibular – balance
• Baric – weight
• Thermic – temperature

Stimulating the senses

Lets experience senses togetherDownload