Five Days of Play – November 2022
Welcome along to Five Days of Play!
Thank you so much for registering for five days of play and for sticking with us with our false starts. We are so excited to get going!
This month we are going to be running 5 days of activities, classes and trainings that you can access all about play and development! Some of our content is recorded, some of it live and some on printables that we’ll add to this page too over the course of the week!
We’ll be updating our timetable and kit lists below and you are very welcome to join us at any of our live sessions.
Please do join our dedicated Facebook group for the event too!
Our timetable
Full information coming soon
Week Beginning 14th November – Visual development Week
Monday 14th November
10.00am – play along – Https://Us02web.zoom.us/J/82171882157
You will need
– two chiffons or scarves
– music toy or shaker
– single colour toy for tracking
Wednesday 16th November
10.30am – sensory class – Https://Us02web.zoom.us/J/86958255511
You will need
– black and white toy, book, contrast card or image
– single colour red, yellow or orange toy
– white fabric, blanket or towel
– 4 single colour toys
To Join a call
Please make sure that your zoom name is your name, not the device name, a nickname or a business name, this is for security and we are unable to welcome you along if you are not named as yourself.
Kit lists are just suggestions, please come with what you have available
Day one - visual development
Single colour play is amazing for our babies, great for helping their visual development as they see the whole toy in the same focus rather than parts of it pin sharp. It is amazing for hand to eye co-ordination, their sense of touch if we include different textures, motor planning, their posture and working two sides of their body together.
Each area of their brain is used too as they use their frontal lobe for their motor functions, their parietal lobe for their touch and sensory input, occipital lobe for their vision, cerebellum for their co-ordination and temporal for their memory & auditory processing.
So much benefit from one little activity, repeat it often!
You will need
– two texture fabrics for lying out on your playspace, give them lots of opportunities to feel and touch a few different textures at the same time
– four or five toys of similar colours
Lie your toys out in your playspace in an arc and let your little ones engage with them. For our tiny babies take the opportunity to show them the toy, let them feel and touch and do some toy rotation. For our tummy timers, pop the toys around them and totally distract them to give them lots of opportunities to feel and touch and build up their tummy time. For our sitters pop the toys around them in an arc and encourage them to reach and grab for them helping their balance, co-ordination and motor control, please keep them safe while they are stretching forward and doing lots of work on their dynamic balance. For our little ones who are on the move, encourage rolling, stretching and crawling to the toys by moving them further away.
Day two - reading to your baby
Books are an amazing way to have a conversation with our babies that feels authentic and spending some one on one time with them. Lots of research indicates that babies who are exposed to books from a younger age have better communication skills, vocabularies and better listening skills so it is amazing for baby brains!
Today we are making reading a story an event! We are adding toys alongside the story to increase the sensory input that our baby’s have exposure to.
Choose a book that you are able to compliment some toys alongside, even if it is just a toy that matches the colour of the cover! Choose 4-5 toys, we are aiming to increase our little one’s concentration span so you don’t need to include all of the toys, just a few would be amazing. Think about the textures you are adding and try to increase the textures that they have exposure to during your session, bonus points if your book includes textures!
Talk your little one through what they are looking at, try and add in a song or some music that matches the theme so you can shake a toy during your play session too. A simple 8 – 10 minute play session done in this way has so many benefits for baby brains and sensory development.
Your baby is developing so many skills including –their sense of touch and their brains ability to process textures, they are working on their visual development and controlling those tiny muscles in the back of their eyes, they are working on their co-ordination, their balance, using both sides of their body, their motor planning skills, their ability to screen input as they listen to your voice, increasing their attention span, their perception and spatial skills, adjusting their body and they are listening to your voice so using lots of their auditory processing skills too.
Do it at a time that your little one is calm and alert and please don’t be concerned if they only manage a page or two the first time you to it, try again the next day, repetition is amazing for baby brain development! Have lots of fun reading to your little one.
We’ve got a little play pack for you on reading to your baby and suggestions on how to extend your play sessions which you are welcome to download from our website too. Click the image below to open the play pack
Day three - shake, rattle and roll!
Today’s play suggestion is to choose 3 toys that we can rotate to help our little ones with their engagement and their concentration.
Choose a toy that shakes, one that rattles and one that rolls. Today is not about all of the toys, it is choosing a couple to listen to, to engage with and concentrate on.
Shaking toy – smaller toy, softer noise, links, small maracas, little music toys
Rattle – maybe a larger louder toy, a rainmaker, bottle with beads, peas or coins in or maybe a bell toy
Roll – ball or round object that we can practice our fine finger control with holding
For our youngest babies we are lying our little one’s down, playing noises to the side so we can track and work out where the noise is coming from, our hearing is most developed at birth so this is a great opportunity to track a noise. We are letting them hold and touch and for our larger toys we can pop them onto their side and support them so their hands come together for two handed play.
For our sitting babies pop the toys in front so your baby reaches for the toys working on their hand-eye co-ordination and their balance skills. Be on hand to support the if needed. Practice toy rotation so if your little one shows a particular toy lots of attention give them the opportunity to swap so we are experiencing lots of textures. Support them to shake the toys.
For our moving babies encourage lots of moving, rolling, cruising and crawling towards the toys, spacing the out really helps. Lots of shaking the toys to work on our motor skills too.
This activity helps us –
– discover textures
– working on our gross motor skills – the big muscles in our body
– their fine motor skills
– gives opportunities to work on moving and motor planning
– great for helping with balance in our sitters and movers
– increase their concentration skills
– visual skills and controlling the very small muscles in their eyes
– their discrimination skills working out what is in the foreground and background
– tracking skills both visual tracking and tracking noises
– helping their body scheme, working two sides of to our body
– awareness of where our body is in space
– their ability to screen information
– it is great for stretching out their bodies and distracting them during tummy time too!
– you can even do the activities with some music in the background to help with auditory screening, rhythm and tracking skills. This playlist is the one we use – click for playlist on amazon music
A little activity with so many benefits for your little one!
Day four - contrast
Contrast play is amazing for your baby, great for helping their visual development. When your baby is born they initially see in light and shade so things that are contrast are really visually interesting for them.
It is amazing for helping the tiny muscles in the back of their eyes strengthen, for their hand to eye co-ordinaiton, their sense of touch if we can include different textures, motor planning, their posture and working two sides of their body together.
Black, white and red is an amazing combination as it involves contrast and one of the first colours that our little ones can see in focus. We repeat contrast play often with our babies, toddlers and our preschoolers, as repetition makes the connections in our brain stronger.
Each area of their brain is used too as they use the frontal lobe for their motor functions, parietal lobe for their touch and sensory input, occipital lobe for their vision, their cerebellum for their co-ordination and temporal for their memory and auditory processing. There is so many benefits to contrast play with our little ones, do repeat it often!
You will need –
red or contrast fabric, contrast toys, puppets or books.
Lie your toys out in your play space in an arc shape and let your little ones engage with them.
For our tiny babies take the opportunity to show them the toy, let them feel and touch and do some toy rotation, for our tummy timers pop the toys around them giving them the opportunity to engage with them while on their tummy. Contrast can be a great way to encourage our more reluctant tummy timers to spend a little more time on their front. For our sitters pop the toys around them in an arc and encourage them to reach and grab for the toys helping them with their balance, co-ordination, proprioception and motor control. Please keep them safe while they are stretching forward as our little ones can topple while working on their dynamic balance skills. For our little ones who are on the move encourage rolling, stretching and crawling to the toys by moving them further away.
We’ve got some contrast card printables on our dashboard below that your re welcome to print and use with your little one.
Day five - texture tub
Our sense of touch is one of our foundation senses, at the very bottom of they pyramid of learning, so it is really important that we introduce lots of textures into our baby’s play (we talk a lot about the pyramid of learning in our how to play with your baby talk)
Today we are putting together a texture basket, box or bag and popping in 5 toys that feel and touch different. Bonus points if your little one needs to hold them differently!
Our photos are of texture tubs that we’ve created for lots of babies to use at once, please pop your 5 items in a smaller area! Try not to be tempted to add in lots of toys, we really want our little ones to focus on a small selection of toys helping them practice skills, extend their play and build up their concentration skills.
For our youngest babies in lying or tummy time, we are going to let them touch each toy and explain them what they are holding. Popping them in side lying naturally brings their hands together enabling both hands to engage with the toy.
For our sitters we are looking to put the toys in front of them and encouraging them to engage with the toys using both hands to bring them out of the box and doing lots of holding and touching.
For our movers it is all about getting them moving alongside engaging with the textures.
Each area of their brain is used too as they use their frontal lobe for their motor functions, their parietal lobe for their touch and sensory input, occipital lobe for their vision, cerebellum for their co-ordination and temporal for their memory and auditory processing.
Spend time talking your little one through the toys, explain colour and texture. Pop them back in their container and pull them out again in a couple of days time. Repetition really is key for baby brain development!
resources
animal contrast cards
click the image above to download