Have a biological drive to use their bodies and develop their physical skills.
Express themselves through action and sound.
Are excited by their own increasing mobility and often set their own challenges.
Walks with shorter steps and legs closer together, no longer needs to hold arms up for balance.
Runs taking care, some difficulty with avoiding obstacles.
Starts to climb.
Walks upstairs holding hand of adult.
Steps backwards downstairs, holding on to each step.
Bumps down a few steps on bottom.
Gets onto child's chair themselves backwards or sideways.
Has a wide variety of different ways to sit to play.
Kneels upright on flat surface without support.
Builds a tower with three blocks.
Scribbles spontaneously and makes dots on paper.
Fits large round shapes into posting box, puzzle or shape sorter.
Runs without bumping into obstacles.
Climbs onto and down from furniture without help.
Squats down to pick up toy from floor.
Walks up and down stairs holding on, putting two feet on each step (with supervision).
Throws small ball overhand.
'Walks into' large ball when trying to kick it.
Sits on small tricycle, moving it with feet pushing on floor.
How young children move with their whole bodies to show their excitement, interest, amusement or annoyance.
The sensory experiences of, for example, rolling, spinning, rocking and physical contact with adults enjoyed by children.
The ways in which young children are developing skills, sometimes creeping, crawling, climbing, walking or throwing.
The circumstances in which children ask for help and want to hold an adult's hand to help them walk or climb up and down stairs.
How independent children want to be as they climb into a child's chair or sit at a table.
How aware children are of obstacles when they walk or run and how they learn to negotiate furniture and other objects safely.
Encourage independence as young children explore particular patterns of movement, sometimes referred to as schemas.
Use music to stimulate exploration with rhythms of movement.
Anticipate young children's exuberance and ensure the space is clear and suitable for their rapid, and sometimes unpredictable, movements.
Hold children upright with a little weight on their legs and gently bounce them on your knee. You'll know when they're ready for this when they start to push down on your legs.
Continue to give children the experience of standing, while you support them. Gradually allow them to take more weight on to their legs. At this stage children often enjoy bouncing while you hold them by the hands.
When children are sitting on the floor, encourage them to lean round or lean over to reach a toy to increase trunk control and balance.
Give experience of playing with toys on a low table to develop leg muscles for standing or scatter toys along a sofa so that children have to reach out to get them once they're standing.
Encourage cruising (side-steps) around furniture by offering a favourite toy from a step or two away. Get other adults to call the child and encourage them to cruise along the sofa and reach them for a cuddle or song.
Encourage walking forward with support by facing a child, holding both their hands (holding their arms straight in front at their shoulder level) and gently pulling them forward with gentle pressure on one side at a time, alternating from side to side. Call the child to you as you do this and reward them when they reach you.
Use a sturdy and safe push-along toy as an alternative form of support.
As balance improves, support children holding just one hand and as confidence grows, gradually release your grip a step or two away from some form of support to encourage the first independent steps.
Encourage children to follow simple one-step directions to move their body by playing games and singing songs such as 'If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands'.
Help children to begin to explore steps and stairs - safety gates discourage unsupervised exploration but it's important to show children how this can be done safely as soon as a child is able to move independently.
Provide young children who have physical disabilities with equipment that is easily accessed and resources that meet their individual needs.
Tell stories that encourage children to think about the way they move.
Provide different arrangements of toys and soft play materials to encourage crawling, tumbling, rolling and climbing.
Health and Bodily Awareness
Show some awareness of bladder and bowel urges.
Develop their own likes and dislikes in food, drink and activity.
Practise and develop what they can do.
Feeding:
Can locate mouth with an empty spoon.
Scoops food into spoon independently.
Accepts food from a fork.
Holds cup with both hands and drinks without much spilling.
Able to participate in mealtime routines, sits in high chair at table, joins in interaction.
Drinks from a straw.
Takes spoon from plate to mouth with some spilling.
Inserts spoon in mouth without turning it upside down.
Accepts new textures and tastes such as larger pieces of food and increasing range.
Starts to be less messy with food.
Washing:
Tolerates use of toothpaste and brush.
Cooperates with washing hands, rubs hands and body with soap and puts under water to rinse.
Beginning to brush own hair.
Toileting:
Clearly communicates wet or soiled nappy or pants.
Shows awareness of what a potty or toilet is used for.
Young children's interest in bodily functions and when they communicate their needs.
The choices young children make, for example, asking for the same story again and again.
Patterns of play, such as repeatedly climbing on to and off a step.
Feeding:
How children begin to participate in mealtime routines with other children and adults.
How children learn to scoop food up with a spoon for themselves and learn to use a fork.
How children hold a cup and learn to drink without spilling.
How the range of food textures and tastes enjoyed by a child increases and how they learn to eat larger pieces of food.
Washing:
The way children learn to wash their hands.
Toileting:
How children tell you their nappy or pants need changing.
How children begin to show that they understand what a potty or toilet is used for.
Support parents' routines with young children's toileting by having flexible routines and by encouraging children's efforts at independence.
Discuss cultural expectations for toileting, since in some cultures young boys may be used to sitting rather than standing at the toilet.
Value children's choices and encourage them to try something new and healthy.
Feeding:
Encourage children to participate in eating routines in your setting by sitting them at a small table at snack time or telling them it's tea time and moving them towards a high chair.
When children begin to use a spoon to scoop food, choose a bowl with a deep vertical side to give an edge to push food against. In the early stages it can be helpful to sit behind a child and guide their hand to scoop food. Do the first few scoops yourself if a child is very hungry to avoid frustration, then encourage them to use the spoon while they're still quite hungry. A favourite food will encourage children to use a spoon.
This is a messy time and it's important that children are not discouraged from trying by anxiety over mess. A plastic mat on the floor is a good idea!
Introduce a spouted cup with one handle.
Give some finger foods in open-topped packets for children to pick out for themselves.
Introduce open-topped cups and allow children time to play with them empty at mealtimes for some days before you use them. Start by using very small quantities of a drink children like. Sit them on your knee at the start of a meal when they're hungry and thirsty. Show children how to tip the cup to deliver liquid.
Demonstrate how chunks of food can be speared with a fork and encourage children to try this for themselves.
Put some favourite food inside a small carton or tub with a lid and show how to get at it.
Ask children what they are going to eat and see if they can identify any food being prepared by smell or taste.
Always tell children the name of the things they're eating.
Help children tip a jug to pour out liquid. Practise this during play, pouring out sand or dry rice before moving on to water. Ladle spoonfuls of material into a container and then tip it out again.
Washing:
Encourage children to wash their hands before and after meals and after messy play, using a hand basin.
Show children how to rub hands with soap to get them clean and then how to rinse and dry them afterwards. It will be some time before they master this skill.
Demonstrate how to brush hair and encourage children to brush yours as well.
Encourage children to use the cold tap when using a hand basin. Talk about 'hot' and 'cold' and place the children's hands under the warm and cold taps while the water is running, to show the difference.
Allow children to explore the plughole so that they understand that water flows out of the basin down the hole.
Toileting:
Tell children what they've done when changing nappies to get them used to the language, using consistent words that you are comfortable with.
Encourage children to hold and play with clean wipes while you're cleaning them and explain what they're for.
Take your child with you to the door of the bathroom and tell them what you're doing so they realise everyone does this.
Encourage children to explore a potty that you keep in the setting and talk to them about what it's for.
In preparation for toilet training, get into the habit of taking children to the bathroom to change their nappy to give the message that this is the appropriate place for such activities.
Ask children if they need changing (even when it's clear that they do) to encourage them to communicate their toileting needs.
Encourage children to get involved in the disposing of nappies, by asking them to put them in the bin.
Introduce the idea of good hygiene by explaining that you always wash hands after changing nappies or using the toilet.
Use storybooks and toys to prepare children for toilet training. All their teddies and dollies need to go to the toilet too!
Offer choices for children in terms of potties, trainer seats or steps.
Establish routines that enable children to look after themselves, for example, putting their clothes and aprons on hooks or washing themselves.
Create time to discuss options so that young children have choices between healthy options, such as whether they will drink water, juice or milk.
Using Equipment and Materials
Use tools and materials for particular purposes.
Begin to make, and manipulate, objects and tools.
Put together a sequence of actions.
Builds a tower with three blocks.
Holds pencil with tripod grip (between thumb and two fingers) no longer using palmar grasp.
Scribbles spontaneously and makes dots on paper. Later, begins to imitate circular scribble and draw vertical lines.
Places large round pegs in pegboard.
Fits round shapes into puzzle.
Posts round shape into posting box or shape sorter.
Builds a tower of up to six blocks.
Threads large beads onto firm cord, stick or pipe cleaner.
Shows a preference for one hand or the other, for example, reaches out with one hand more than the other to pick up toys and, over time, begins to show a definite hand preference.
Uses both hands together and in the middle (not to one side or the other) one to hold and the other to manipulate.
Uses appropriate actions to explore properties of objects, for example, turning, twisting, rolling and pressing.
Ways babies prefer to eat their food, such as grasping a spoon, using their fingers, or holding a fork.
How young children begin to recognise the conventional uses of some objects, such as a cup for drinking.
How children show they are beginning to prefer their right or left hand.
How children play with bricks and how they learn to build taller towers using more bricks as time goes by.
How children use both of their hands, for example, holding a toy with one hand and manipulating it with the other.
How children play with pieces of a puzzle.
How children explore the properties of new objects by turning, pressing or rolling them.
Treat mealtimes as an opportunity to help children to use fingers, spoon and cup to feed themselves.
Help young children to find comfortable ways of grasping, holding and using things they wish to use, such as a hammer, a paintbrush or a teapot in the home corner.
Choose toys that require more complex movements to make them work and stronger and better coordinated finger movements, such as turning a stiffer knob or pressing individual buttons.
Encourage individual finger use with toys that invite children to put fingers in small holes (such as a block with round slots and pegs). Taking small pegs from a board will encourage children to use their fingers. Encourage them to pick up small objects to develop their pincer grip (thumb and index finger).
Put a number of small objects in a bag and encourage children to feel inside and pull the toys out.
As building activities begin to interest children, show them how to stack one object on top of another, for example, put one brick on top of another and show them how to knock them down again so that they make a clatter. Take turns building and then knocking the bricks down.
Encourage children to put objects back in their places as part of everyday life in your setting - put used cups in the sink, toys back in a play box, paper in a bin and so on.
Children will develop coordination of hands and fingers as they explore the relationship between different containers and lids and learn to put a lid on a container.
Introduce simple posting activities, for example, dropping a ball into a shoebox with a large hole. Later, children will enjoy posting smaller objects and learning how to rotate their forearm so they start to experience twisting of the wrist.
Help children hammer pegs into a pegboard or play notes on a xylophone. This helps with the coordination needed to strike objects precisely.
Children at this stage often enjoy putting bricks in a bucket and then taking them out again. Show children how to tip the bucket so that they all fall out.
Play with water and show children how to pour water from a jug into a bowl.
Introduce stacking toys and show children how to take rings off and put rings on.
Make and cut out simple shapes from dough and draw shapes in the sand outside.
Help children unwrap parcels, removing the wrapping paper.
Introduce finger painting, making big, bright marks on paper. Cut potatoes together, to make potato prints.
Provide materials that enable children to help with chores such as sweeping, pouring, digging or feeding pets.
Provide sticks, rollers and moulds for young children to use in dough, clay or sand.
Acknowledgements
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