Explore through Movement and Play
Playing is crucial for a child's overall development, and it's not just about their physical health. Through play, children build confidence and feel loved, happy, and secure. It helps them understand how the world works, develop social skills, learn language and communication, and become aware of how to care for others and the environment. As children grow, their attention span and physical abilities improve, and their playing style changes, too. They become more creative and experimental with toys, games, and ideas.
How you encourage a child's movement and play is directly linked to their future learning, development, confidence, and overall wellbeing.
Babies & Infants
Babies primarily learn through their senses. Their eyes, ears, nose, hands, and mouth serve as the tools for their exploration. As babies grow, they learn to utilize their bodies to make discoveries. Between birth and 12 months, babies become increasingly curious about the world. Play is the main avenue through which they develop, learn, and explore the world.
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Singing to your baby offers a range of benefits. It promotes language development, creates a stronger bond between you and your baby, and has a calming effect on them. This form of play can be enjoyed by all babies and children, regardless of their age or developmental stage.
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Tummy time encourages your baby to move and roll, helping them develop muscle strength and control. It strengthens the neck and upper body muscles they need to hold their head up and move around. It also enables your baby to see and experience the world differently. All you need is a playmat or blanket on the floor.
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Gentle touches from objects with different textures develop a baby's sense of touch. Try experimenting with things like feathers, scarves, or the arm of a soft toy.
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Playing peek-a-boo develops a baby's language, thinking, social and emotional skills. Not only is it fun for both baby and adult, but as you appear and disappear, the baby learns that people still exist even when you can't see them and learn to anticipate the game that comes with the phrase "peek-a-boo".
As babies explore through movement and play from birth to five months, their imagination grows, and they learn to experiment with new sounds, objects and movements, developing problem-solving skills and emotional intelligence. Even simply looking at your face and hearing your voice can be a form of play, especially when you're smiling.
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At around five to six months, babies start exploring and expanding their imagination using the senses of touch and taste. Although it may worry you when they put everything in their mouths, providing them with safe objects to play with is a natural way for them to learn and discover.
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Between the ages of six and nine months, many infants prefer lying on their stomachs instead of their backs. This position allows them to reach for toys more easily, move around more efficiently, and prepares them for crawling. You can encourage this by placing toys or objects of interest just out of reach, and safe furniture, balls, toys or boxes can motivate your child to crawl, stand, and eventually walk.
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By the time your baby is eight months old, they will start using their imagination to imitate actions that they have seen you perform. For instance, they might mimic your movements while cleaning or cover their face when you initiate a game of "peek-a-boo.”
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Between nine and twelve months, your baby will likely start crawling, rolling, and pulling themselves up to stand. As they become more physically capable, they become increasingly curious about their surroundings and love exploring. They may do so by looking into kitchen cupboards, under furniture, and through drawers, delighting in the things they discover.
Toddlers
Playing is the natural way toddlers learn and grow and is essential for their overall development. Providing toddlers with various play activities helps them develop their motor skills, strengthen muscles, and learn how to control their bodies. When toddlers get lots of physical play, it improves their overall well-being and health. It boosts their confidence as they test their abilities and realize they can improve with each passing day.
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Dance with your toddler. You could make up a silly dance or let them take the lead. Nursery rhymes with actions provide lots of opportunities for movement and play, with the simple songs helping them to remember the movements.
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Help your toddler develop their fine motor skills by providing different-sized containers to put small ones into larger ones. They will also enjoy taking lids on and off and filling up and tipping out objects. You can also do puzzles and try Duplo together.
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Take your toddler to parks, backyards, beaches or the bush to engage in outdoor play. Playing outdoors allows them to practice gross motor skills on different surfaces and the different environments will spark their imagination. Messy play - digging in the sand, building with mud or squeezing paint between fingers and toes- is popular with toddlers; allowing your child to take the lead provides more opportunities for creativity.
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As your toddler approaches age 3, you may notice that they have a lot of energy and are always on the move, running, jumping, or climbing over you and everything in sight. As they grow, they will become more coordinated and independent. They will try to do things on their own to test their physical limits, climbing higher and running farther. It is common for them to experience small bumps and falls during this learning process. Still, it is all a natural part of their development and growth.
Play and emotions
Toddlers often have big emotions they don't know how to express. Play helps them learn to manage their feelings, promoting self-regulation, good behaviour, and strong relationships. Play is one of the best ways young children can practise understanding, expressing and managing their emotions.
Playing and sharing with children of all ages helps to develop essential social skills like turn-taking, making friends, and cooperation. Children become better at sharing by learning to manage emotions and see things from other people's perspectives. Encourage sharing by praising the child when they do share and providing lots of opportunities to practice.
Engage in imaginative play with your toddler by pretending to care for a toy who is sad or anxious about an upcoming event. Suppose you know of something on the child's mind. In that case, you can use imaginative play to practice scenarios to put them at ease, helping your child develop coping skills and feel more comfortable expressing emotions.
Revise the classic nursery rhyme "If You're Happy and You Know It" to include a wider range of emotions, such as sad, frustrated, excited, nervous, calm, angry, and scared. You can also allow your toddler to release their emotions by playing, running, rolling and exploring freely outdoors in a park or open space.
Imaginative Play
Playing fosters creativity and imagination in toddlers, enabling them to explore the world and their place in it, gain self-awareness, empathize with others, and experiment with new ideas and problem-solving strategies.
From the age of 15 months, toddlers start engaging in pretend play and dressing up. They use items like sticks, leaves, or old clothes to imagine and act out different scenarios, such as cooking a meal or setting up a shop. Toddlers learn through imitation, mainly by observing older children or adults. You can assist them in this learning process by immersing yourself in their world and following their instructions. They will be delighted in the temporary power shift, and you can help them learn and grow by joining in.