Give opportunities for babies to explore objects and materials.
When you talk to babies, make sure you are face to face.
Use plenty of facial expression, as babies will be interested in the movement of your face, eyes and lips as you speak and play.
Gently touch babies by stroking their cheeks or tummies. Talk as you do this and be aware of how they show their enjoyment of this close physical contact.
Try the following types of games to help babies become aware that the world is three dimensional:
– 'touch and tickle' games - tickling arms, legs and tummy;
– bouncing babies on your knee or rocking them;
– holding babies up in the air;
– moving babies' arms and legs up and down or from side to side.
When babies smile, laugh or move their limbs in response to games, respond with words, facial expressions or repeat the game.
Encourage babies to be aware of their own bodies by touching their face, counting their toes and fingers or giving them your finger to grasp.
Bring toys and interesting objects, including books, close enough for a baby to look at and reach. Talk about what they are looking at or reaching out for.
Give babies time to explore on their own. Babies enjoy things they can grip or swipe at, such as rattles or toys and mobiles dangling on their pram.
Choose toys in a range of textures, fabrics and with mirrors to build on babies' interest.
Develop babies' awareness of turn-taking by making play highly repetitive, so that they see again and again how their actions have an effect on adult behaviour. In this way babies make some very early discoveries about cause and effect.
Use rhyme and songs, linked to rhythmic movements such as rocking, bouncing and swinging. This creates a strong link between the rhythms of speech and the pace and rhythm of physical movement.
Talk to babies about particular objects and materials, drawing their attention to features such as their feel or sound.
Talk about the features of items that interest them such as a toy rabbit's floppy ears or a bear with a rumbling tummy.
Talk about what you are doing as you prepare a feed or a bath.
Encourage young babies' movements through your interactions, for example, touching their fingers and toes and showing delight at their kicking and waving.
Provide support for young babies when they are not with their key person, to give them manageable experiences with others, for example, ensure that others know a young baby's special characteristics and preferences.
8-20 Months
Give babies choices about what they can play with.
Play visual tracking games, such as "Wheeee!" games with aeroplanes, or spoons as they go into mouths. Play with moving toys in front of children to encourage them to follow the movement.
Provide babies with a range of toys that they can handle in several different ways. Talk about how toys look, feel, smell and taste. This helps babies to begin to compare and notice differences.
Pull funny faces and comment on the faces babies pull in response.
Play 'dropping' games, asking "Where's it gone?".
Use cause and effect toys that have a hidden surprise, such as a Jack-in-the-box. Talk about what babies see using exaggerated intonation and exclamations to reinforce the element of surprise.
Link actions such as bouncing babies on your knee to nursery rhymes and action rhymes.
Imitate babies' actions to help them become more aware of the effect of their actions on other people.
Make the language and actions you use in interactive play very repetitive. This will help babies to develop a sense of the sequence of actions and sounds.
Begin to push a car, roll or throw a ball, sharing with the babies the pushing, rolling and throwing.
Introduce variations to games, for example, roll a ball to a doll or another child instead of to the baby.
Stay close to babies as they play. This gives them the opportunity to explore things for themselves but means you can also show them different ways of playing with a toy.
Give opportunities for babies to play on their own and to work things out for themselves.
Continue to use rhymes and songs. Use simple, familiar tunes and words relating to people, objects and actions with which a baby is familiar. Make rhymes and songs more interesting to listen to by using a strong beat, rhythm and lots of repetition.
Talk about the way things balance or what happens when a structure falls down.
Share observations with parents so that you can compare notes.
Spend time looking at and talking about pictures of babies eating, sleeping, bathing and playing.
Draw attention to things in different areas that stimulate interest, such as a patterned surface.
Nurture babies' sense of themselves, while also helping them to feel that they belong to the group, for example, saying "This is Max's cup and there is a cup for Earl, Frankie and Lacey too".
16-26 Months
Encourage young children as they explore particular patterns of thought or movement, sometimes referred to as schemas.
Make sure books relate to everyday experiences with pictures that contain a lot of detail. The best stories are those that incorporate short sequences of familiar events, like going to the shops or going out for a walk.
Children will love books that build up anticipation and that have flaps to lift or familiar words that they can join in with. Encourage children to take the lead, for example by turning pages or lifting flaps.
Make and share scrapbooks together and encourage children to show them to people who come into the setting. These books could include your own drawings, pictures from magazines of familiar places or toys, photographs of family members and family holidays or special occasions. Include anything that is personal to particular children and therefore meaningful and interesting to them.
Play games that encourage and maintain joint attention. Try taking turns at imitating one another, copying facial expressions. Try copying actions with a teddy bear or hiding things, finding them and saying "There it is!".
Play throwing games with a ball to involve several people in turn-taking.
Play 'hide and find' games: "Where's my… ?".
Pretend to get things wrong: children will love it!
Encourage children to become more equal partners in play and exploration. Let them take the lead or swap roles with them in a familiar routine.
Encourage pretend play and play alongside children as they begin to develop 'pretend' ideas. Offer suggestions for new things to do and 'dialogue' for those taking part, such as the child's teddy bear or a toy cat.
Change and personalise rhymes and songs. Change wording and routines to suit the children's interests and personalise material by adding in the child's name.
Encourage children to join in when other children are playing close by.
Offer a commentary on what young children are doing, describing actions such as "You nearly managed it then, by pulling that handle".
Talk about the effect of children's actions, as they investigate what things can do.
Let young children know that you understand their routines. Talk them through the things you do as you get things ready.
Encourage young children to explore puddles, trees and surfaces such as grass, concrete or pebbles.
Talk to young children about the special people in their lives.
Talk with young children about valuing all skin colour differences.
22-36 Months
Recognise that when a child does such things as jumping in a puddle, they are engaging in investigation.
Talk about activities as children investigate things, for example, pouring water from one container to another or finding out what floats and what sinks. This helps children to understand what they are seeing and to learn the language they need to describe it.
Encourage children to help you with everyday activities such as doing the washing-up or cleaning. Give them a duster, too. These are all 'games' to young children, as they explore their environment.
Show children how a toy can be used, then withdraw while they try things out for themselves. Once they have mastered basic skills show them how to take things further by introducing variation.
Make up and share stories about the familiar sequences of events in a child's daily life. Use these to lead to discussion of past and future events.
Children are now able to be interested in books and stories for longer and to observe the detail in more complex pictures. Choose books with colourful and realistic pictures that children can easily recognise.
Be sensitive to when children want to do their own thing, but get involved in their play when they invite you. Your suggestions can help to extend the range of a child's play when you model actions, roles and imaginative ways of playing with familiar toys.
Make junk models together. Use these and construction toys to help with imaginary games.
Recognise that children's investigations may appear futile, but that a child may be on the brink of an amazing discovery as they meticulously place more and more things on top of one another.
Talk about ICT apparatus, what it does, what they can do with it and how to use it safely.
Let children use the photocopier to copy their own pictures.
Make a diary of photographs to record a special occasion.
Use the language of time such as 'yesterday', 'tomorrow' or 'next week'.
Tell stories about places and journeys, for example, Whatever Next! by Jill Murphy.
Encourage children to take on different roles during role-play.
Support children's friendships by talking to them about their characteristics, such as being kind, or fun to be with.
30-50 Months
Encourage and respond to children's signs of interest, and extend these through questions, discussions and further investigation.
Give additional support to children who are learning English as an additional language, through pictorial support, or from familiar adults who can interpret for them.
Continue to suggest different ways of using and combining toys and materials.
Use daily events and special treats, such as walking the dog or a birthday party, as the starting point for your shared play. This will help children act out and understand what they have experienced.
Use hide and seek or hunt the thimble games to build on children's curiosity, interest and anticipation of what might happen next.
When you are walking outside, ask children to look for particular people or objects. "Who can find… ?" games encourage children to explore the environment and to look out for special things.
Observe which are the children's favourite songs and rhymes and continue to use these, changing words around and inserting nonsense words.
Encourage finger rhymes and songs that include counting, for example 'One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four'.
Introduce children to appropriate tools for different materials.
Provide a range of construction materials, including construction kits containing a variety of shapes, sizes and ways of joining, and support children in their use.
Draw young children's attention to pieces of ICT apparatus they see or that they use with adult supervision.
Talk about and show interest in children's lives and experiences.
Use, and encourage children to use, the language of time in conversations, for example, 'past', 'now' and 'then'.
Encourage discussion of important events in the lives of people children know, such as their family.
Make books of events in settings, for example, summer fair, building a climbing frame, shopping expedition or learning about a festival.
Encourage role-play of events in children's lives.
Observe changes in the environment, for example, through the seasons or as a building extension is completed.
Arouse awareness of features of the environment in the setting and immediate local area, for example, make visits to shops or a park.
Introduce vocabulary to enable children to talk about their observations and to ask questions.
Encourage parents to provide vocabulary in their home language to support language development and reinforce understanding.
Pirates's treasure - In a pre-school, a practitioner offers resources, questions and ideas to a child exploring 'pirates'.
[transcript]
You can watch the video via modem or slow / fast / superfast broadband connections. If you are behind a network firewall, why not click here to view a flash file of the video. You do need to have the flash plugin.
Introduce language that describes emotions, for example, 'sad', 'happy', 'angry' and 'lonely', in conversations when children express their feelings about special events.
Use group times to share events in children's lives.
Listen carefully and ask questions that show respect for children's individual contributions.
Explain the significance of special events to children.
Visit workplaces and invite people who work in the community to talk to children about their roles. Wherever possible encourage the challenging of strereotypes by, for example, using a male midwife or a female firefighter.
40-60+ Months
Help children to notice and discuss patterns around them, for example, rubbings from grates, covers, or bricks.
Encourage children to raise questions and suggest solutions and answers.
Examine change over time, for example, growing plants, and change that may be reversed, for example, melting ice.
Discuss purposes of design and making tasks.
Teach joining, measuring, cutting and finishing techniques and their names.
Encourage children's evaluations, helping them to use words to explain, such as 'longer', 'shorter', 'lighter'.
Teach and encourage children to click on different icons to cause things to happen in a computer program.
Ensure safe use of all ICT apparatus and make appropriate risk assessments for their use.
Sequence events, for example, photographs of children from birth.
Use stories that introduce a sense of time and people from the past.
Encourage children to ask questions about events in each other's lives in discussions, and explore these experiences in role-play.
Compare artefacts of different times, for example, garden and household tools.
Make the most of opportunities to value children's histories. Involve families in sharing memories. This might include celebration of a travelling background or of African-Caribbean roots.
Use appropriate words, for example, 'town', 'village', 'road', 'path', 'house', 'flat', 'temple' and 'synagogue', to help children make distinctions in their observations.
Help children to find out about the environment by talking to people, examining photographs and simple maps and visiting local places.
Encourage children to express opinions on natural and built environments and give opportunities for them to hear different points of view on the quality of the environment.
Ensure all children have opportunities to express themselves and learn the vocabulary to talk about their surroundings, drawing on and encouraging the home language to support the learning of English.
Encourage the use of words that help children to express opinions, for example, 'busy', 'quiet' and 'pollution'.
Introduce children to a range of cultures and religions, for example, tell stories, listen to music, dance and eat foods from a range of cultures. Use resources in role-play that reflect a variety of cultures, such as clothes, symbols, candles and toys.
Extend children's knowledge of cultures within and beyond the setting through books, videos and DVDs, and photographs; listening to simple short stories in various languages; handling artefacts; inviting visitors from a range of religious and ethnic groups, and visiting local places of worship and cultural centres.
Ensure that any cultural assumptions and stereotypes that are already held are countered in activities.
Acknowledgements
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00012-2007CDO-EN