This week we are taking some time out of our usual schedule to concentrate on play at home and exploratory play!
Wednesday 4th of August is Play Day and to celebrate we have our play challenge week where we are giving you five different play ideas to do with your little one at home. You can do the activities in any order, take some photos and share them with us.
Everyone who completes their five days over the course of the next week and sends us photos will be sent a toy from our toy basket – we have puppets, music instruments, chiffons and books to give away!
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.
Today we have given you one of our most popular sessions from our class archive, it is from rainbow week and is a great class to repeat often with your little one – repetition is amazing for brain development!
In this session we helped our visual skills, learnt where our body was in space, did lots of tracking of noises and objects, felt lots of textures and practice some of our motor skills
You will need
– chiffon, scarves or muslins
– music toy or shaker
– small toy for tracking
Contrast play is amazing for your baby, great for helping their visual development. When your baby is born they originally see in light and shade so things that are high 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-ordination, 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, it is an amazing activity to repeat.
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!
We’ve got a visual development printable
You will need –
click the image below to download your visual development contrast cards
Our sense of touch is one of our foundation senses, at the very bottom of that pyramid of learning so it is really important that we introduce lots of textures into our baby’s play.
Today we are putting together a texture basket, box, bag and popping in 5 toys that feel and touch different. Bonus points if your little one would need 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 five items in a much 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 play and build up concentration.
For our youngest babies in lying or tummy time we are letting them touch each toy. 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 do 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 & auditory processing.
So much benefit from one little activity, once you are finished, put them back in their bag, box or baseket and repeat it over the coming days, repetition is amazing for baby brain development! We have also included below a play along session focused on textures!
In this class we visited the desert as part of cowboy week and did a mixture of led play & exploratory play focusing on textures, our sense of balance and learning about where our bodies are in space.
you will need
– 2-3 green and yellow toys
– towel and a smoother textured fabric.