| | Play tips from Elemental Toys
- How you can guide play that under 5s will love and will help their developmentTo subcribe to our play tips newsletter Click Here to email us
Play is the real passion that drives everything we do at Elemental Toys. We really believe that play provides the greatest opportunity for our youngsters to enjoy themselves; and that it's through enjoying themselves that they best learn and develop. This belief isn't just a personal thing - it's backed up by early years' research and the observations of early years' professionals.
There are two things that I'm regularly asked by parents: Firstly, how can they know which toys and games are not just great fun, but also good developmentally for their children? And secondly, how can they help create great play experiences?
My downloadable Play Tips are written to help parents understand the basic principles of play in early years' development and inspire them with ideas for fun and learning orientated play for their children.
If you have your own thoughts on this area and would like to discuss them with myself and other parents, please post a message on my blog or email us at feedback@elementaltoys.co.uk
Early Years' specialists talk about play being a child's 'work'. That's because it's how they learn to make sense of the world around them - by re-enacting events from their own lives; it's also how they learn to form relationships, develop creative thought processes, communicate with other children and adults, estimate, hypothesise, negotiate, experiment ….and much much more!
So it's really important to take the time to understand each child as an individual when it comes to the toys, games and environment that make that child 'tick'! If a child is not engaged and excited by their toys and games, then the play experience will be shorter and the quality of their play will not be as good. However, get it right for them, and their higher levels of involvement will ensure that their play is more meaningful, will be remembered for longer, and will be repeated; reinforcing the ideas and concepts that they are absorbing.
I hope you find these Play Tips useful - please let me know. Download our playtips now:Play Tip 1 - Watch and listenPlay Tip 2 - Building confidence, self esteem and creativityPlay Tip 3 - Open ended toysPlay Tip 4 - Giving your child timePlay Tip 5 - Talk about itPlay Tip 6 - Learning to move and moving to learnPlay Tip 7 - CreativityPlay Tip 8 - Outside playPlay Tip 9 - Encouraging early literacyPlay Tip 10 - Parents know best
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