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Making sense of play by playing games learning new skills and experimenting by enjoying organised activities, help develop essential early skills.

There is a wide range of toys and equipment to suit all ages to support teaching, but effective planned activities are essential.

Playtime Is a Significant Learning Time For Children

Play patterns where the child repeats an action is the child’s way of embedding skills and knowledge for themselves, exploring new ideas and testing theories.

Toddlers love throwing things without thinking they are developing their hand-eye coordination and motor skills. It is crucial to support them with plenty of different sized balls and space to throw, kick and catch safely.

Painting will help engage all their senses and being able to manipulate materials are all great favourites. Offering shaving foam with paint mixed in or coloured sand, flour and glitter homemade play dough etc.

Toddlers have big feelings and no knowledge how to process them, so this is why you often get a sudden meltdown out of the blue. Give plenty of opportunities for children to express these feelings in a safe manner and talk to them about it helps them through it.

Answering no to everything children are learning self-determination and an essential part of how to be independent.

Transporting play often children love to fill bags and pushchairs or trolleys and transport things from one place to another. Plenty of opportunities to do so both indoors and outside will be a popular favourite. Even at the water table, moving water from one container to another is fun.

Games help children learn how to take turns and play nicely and develop their cooperation skills.

Most children are naturally imaginative and need little encouragement, just help to extend ideas and thoughts to take activities further.

Talking and singing should be important parts of a child’s day. Children often feel uninhibited to sing as they play feed their natural curiosity and play music in the background.

Unfortunately faddish eaters are part and parcel of nursery life.

By thirteen months, a toddler should be able to drink from a cup and may be able to use a spoon or fork themselves. Eating food is a sensorial experience, and so the earlier you start toddlers trying new foods, the better.

The more diverse range of meals and varied fruits and vegetables introduced the better. It takes a long time to develop a liking of certain foods so we must be patient. Keep healthy fruit and vegetables readily available to snack on so at least the child eats something.

Apart from taste, they need to feel, see and touch the food and explore it before they might be willing to try it. Watching their peers and staff happily eating and not micro-managed to eat will empower them to try it for themselves.

Eat meals altogether to cement their understanding of lunch and snack time. If lead by example, they will quickly learn how to behave and make mealtimes fun.

Regularly introduce new foods to try, chopping it up very small or grating into meals will help them get their fruit and vegetable quota. However, they do need to see what it looks like beforehand. Children must be able to try it in its natural state too.

If every meal ends with the child in tears, it’s time to try a different approach so as not to make mealtimes a negative experience.

Avoid bribing the child with the promise of a lovely pudding, but you could reward them with something else instead. Sticker charts or certificates per day or week are always a favourite.

If possible, organise cooking sessions so the child can discover what they have made step by step. Knowing the effort put into it, they may be more happy to try the fruit of their labour.

Ninety per cent of children go through a fussy eating stage, so remember no matter how frustrating it is, it is only a stage in their development and learning.