In the early years, cultivating learning at home is all about play.
When babies, toddlers and young children play, it gives them an opportunity to explore their world and understand how the things around them work and to learn about themselves.
As parents, we often feel pressure to be constantly entertaining our children. However, a little boredom can actually be good for young children and their learning.
When a child has unstructured time in a safe environment, with no particular task at hand, their active, curious mind will automatically look for opportunities to play and explore.
As a parent, there are many ways you can harness this principle to help your child’s learning and development:
Understand more about this idea with this short video from the Raising Children Network: https://raisingchildren.net.au/preschoolers/play-learning/getting-play-started/stepping-back-from-play
If you have a play space for your child, whether that’s in their bedroom or another room, there are a couple of small tweaks you can make that will make your life easier and create a good environment for play and learning:
If you’re able to, store some of your child’s toys and craft materials somewhere else and rotate out what’s in their play space. This helps your child focus on what’s there and allows you to introduce items that are ‘new’ to your child without having to spend time or money getting new things.
In general young children respond well to order, but they need help in establishing and maintaining that. Give each thing in your child’s play space its place. Even the act of finding things and putting them away can become part of your child’s play ‘routine’.
Every child deserves the best start in life. Get in touch today!
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