Play

I’m watching my 3 year old daughter build a tower out of blocks. She’s totally absorbed in the repetitive process of selecting, stacking and balancing them to make the tallest structure she can. With no interruptions she narrates to herself as she plays within her own little bubble. I often wonder how this scene might […]

How does your child play? If you ever have the chance to sit down and observe, have you noticed the kinds of play they engage in? There are lots of theories about play and, like relativity and quantum mechanics, they make sense on their own but no-one has yet come up with a way to

Does your child like to play alone? Or do they enjoy engaging with others? The answer has as much to do with age as with personality type. One influential idea is that as children mature they progress through stages of play. The theory was originally proposed by Mildred Parten, an American researcher. What are the

Do you ever find yourself scouring the internet, searching for ways to fill an afternoon? Did any of it work? Google ‘activities for toddlers’ and here’s what you’ll get: You spend hours finding the resources, buying just the right-sized tray from IKEA, making it look beautiful and then presenting it to your toddler. Cue squeals

How many toys does your child have? How did they end up in your home? Were they wanted or are they stowaways? However many you have, I’m willing to bet you have too many. And that’s bad. Bad because children don’t need them and because it’s impossible to store them. Fortunately, it’s easier to cut

How much of your child’s playtime do you control? Do you spend lots of time together, making collages or working on interesting projects? Or does your child come and go as she pleases? Free-flow play is something you’ll encounter in many nurseries and is considered good practice. But it’s hard to get right. The idea

“ So all we could do was to sit sit sit sit And we did not like it, not one little bit. ” The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss ‘Only boring people get bored’ – we’ve all said it, or heard other parents saying it to their children, when they complain of having nothing to

As a child, you remember sitting for hours, making your own fun, without the constant supervision or attention of your parents. You recall a sense of deep absorption in your games and how powerful and vivid your imagination had been during these hours spent happily at home or in the garden. But your own children

Here is a toddler and here is a cardboard box. Curious, the little boy crawls inside. He peers out, like a fox from his den, pleased with his work. He tugs at one of the flaps. Now you see me, now you don’t. It’s a discovery that amuses him greatly and he repeats the action

Games with rules are the third of the four types of play outlined by Sara Smilansky, a developmental psychologist who studied how play develops in young children. The rest of the series is here: What are games with rules? When you think of games with rules, what comes to mind? Cricket? Snakes and Ladders? These