Play Challenge Week
We are so excited to welcome you along to our play challenge week!
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!
Day one - play challenge week!
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 - play challenge week!
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.
Reading to your baby play pack
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 - play challenge week!
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
Day four - play challenge week!
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 –
Red or contrast fabric, contrast toys, puppets or books red toys
Lie your toys out in your play space 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
Have an amazing time playing with your little one!
Visual development printable and contrast cards
click the image below to download your visual development contrast cards
Day five of five days of play!
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.