Early Years

Role playing with children helps support your child's social and life skills such as self-care, sharing and cooperating with others and problem solving. Imaginative play helps support children’s emotional development by helping them understand and express their feelings through re-enacting experiences.

Arts and Crafts activities can help keep children busy whilst they are restricted to being indoors. Craft activities also support the development of fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination. These activities also promote children’s self-esteem, creativity and thinking skills.

There are so many ways to keep stories, songs, rhymes and play alive during lockdown. Reading a story is a brilliant way to have some quality time with your child and help them develop their speech, listening and imagination skills. Click on the picture for top tips on reading.

Maths is in the world around us, and there are plenty of ways for you and your family to have fun with counting and maths at home, and out and about. Simple things like counting socks, clothes pegs and stairs. Sing nursery rhymes and songs that use numbers. Noticing shapes and patterns and talking about them around the house, in books and nature in the garden or walks. Why not make up games to find some squares or triangles?

Games are fun and develop your child’s thinking and social skills. Learning to follow rules or directions helps them focus their attention and teaches them about patience. Games help children learn how to take turns and play nicely and develop their cooperation skills. Ideas include matching games, puzzles and card games such as snap!

Messy play is a sensory experience which helps children understand their senses. Exploring how things feel, smell and taste, also nurtures an awareness and understanding of the world around them. Materials such as sand, water, chalk, paint, play dough or pasta allow children’s imaginations to run wild and they often can spend a long time exploring these and making their own discoveries. It also sparks curiosity and develops their knowledge.