Did you know that babies can see colour as well as adults from around the age of 6 months? They can see it, but don’t understand that colour is a quality of an item (ie something that describes that item). So sometimes we will give the child a lid and tell her that it is a lid, another time we tell her it is plastic, another time we tell her it is round, another time we tell her it is small, another time we tell her it is red, another time we tell her it is hard…and so when we say, “What colour is this?” the child often just says the first colour name that pops into her head! To help children understand this, try to always say the quality and the name of the item eg. “This is a red lid” or “This is a round lid”. The ability to match colours comes before the ability to name colours, so matching activities are important from around the age of 2.
As always, the last picture gives you a description of one of the skills that you are helping your child to develop through this play, so that you can see how you are helping with your child’s development as well as bonding with your child.
Many young children are able to sing the number song, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5….” but they don’t understand how many items the number 5 represents. These activities help the child to actually count out items for each numeral, so that they realise that “3” represents l l l.
As always, the last picture gives you a description of one of the skills that you are helping your child to develop through this play, so that you can see how you are helping with your child’s development as well as bonding with your child.
Children need to have a mixture of quiet activities and movement activities throughout the day. This threading activity is suitable for children from the age of 3, and can be adapted in a number of ways.
At first children will find just getting the “needle” through the hole challenging enough, whereas once they have had some practice, they will be able to “sew” quite efficiently. This is definitely an activity where practice makes perfect, so if you find your child is getting frustrated, then put your hands over their hands and help guide those little fingers so that they achieve a sense of success.
As always, the last picture gives you a description of one of the skills that you are helping your child to develop through this play, so that you can see how you are helping with your child’s development as well as bonding with your child.
A ball should be part of every child’s toybox, from 2 months and older. Make you own balls of different sizes, using different numbers of bags. We have made tiny balls to roll down tin foil inners to soccer balls, and if they get lost or broken, are easy to remake!
Balls don’t always have to be thrown, so get creative if you are stuck inside. Roll the ball, push the ball with different parts of your body, balance the ball, make your own snooker game, etc.
As always, the last picture gives you a description of one of the skills that you are helping your child to develop through this play, so that you can see how you are helping with your child’s development as well as bonding with your child.
This game introduces children to one of the vital foundations of numeracy – one-to-one correspondence (see last photo for a description). This skill is so easy to incorporate into every day life and it is through repetition that children become familiar with numbers and counting. That familiarity builds confidence, and can help your child to do well in maths.
Make this into a fun game, where you can your child race each other to catch and count the spiders as quickly as you can before they “escape”. What other things does your child want to “catch”? This can become a discussion about things your child is scared of. Draw simple pictures of these things and let your child trap them under the “catcher”.
As always, the last picture gives you a description of one of the skills that you are helping your child to develop through this play, so that you can see how you are helping with your child’s development as well as bonding with your child.
DId you know that playing with and learning about shapes helps your child with reading, writing and maths? Remember to make sure your child is having fun and that these activities are not seen as a chore. The more the child enjoys the activities, the better the chance of learning taking place.
For your interest, the last picture gives you a description of one of the skills that you are helping your child to develop through this play, so that you can see how you are helping with your child’s development as well as bonding with your child.
