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Four Simple Ways to Play Together

Four Simple Ways to Play Together Play needn’t always be a scheduled event – you can and should embed playful learning into the simplest of activities when you are looking after children. The more you do it, the easier and more naturally it will come to you – and while we constantly drag children into the adult world of appointments, rules, deadlines and routines, it’s important for caregivers to enter into the world of the child.

Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Get Down on the Floor..

When your charges are playing with dolls, dinosaurs, farm animals, kitchen utensils or any other ‘imaginary worlds,’ sit down with them and ask if you can join in. Help develop their imaginations and bring more meaning to their play by asking questions like ‘which dinosaur can I be?’ and ‘where are we?’ ‘what are we cooking?’ and ‘what is going to happen next?’

2. Play Guessing and Finding Games..

Turn potentially tedious car journeys and shopping trips into fun missions by asking them to spot cars or vans of a certain colour – or get them to guess what’s around the corner in the supermarket as you push them along in the trolley. Simple challenges like this can bring fun to the most ordinary situations!

3. Draw Together..

Grab a pencil or crayon and join in next time your charges are doing some drawing. Your involvement might encourage them to stick at the activity for longer if they’re the type to tire easily of simple activities. Rather than playing with them directly, what you are doing here is playing ‘in parallel’ and you can do it with anything: duplo, puppets, play-doh – whatever they’re into. Parallel playing is what toddlers learn to do together before they start to play interactively, and it gives them the opportunity to observe your methods and copy them in their own play.

4. Let them Lead..

The way that children want to play is often not the way that grown ups want to play! For example, younger children enjoy doing the same thing over and over – it’s how they learn – but often we will try and ‘structure’ their play in a way that they are not ready for. This can often happen when creating, crafting and building as we give in to our own urges to ‘finish’ a LEGO project or make something perfect and tidy – but it destroys play and learning for the child, so try to resist this if you can!

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