Take some pasta. Anything with a hole in it will do. Now get some twine. And slip the pasta pieces onto it one by one. That’s it. You have successfully completed one of the trickiest, most beneficial preschooler activities of all time. Threading activities are simple but their impact can be profound. What is threading? […]
Threading activities: the secret to perfect pencil grip Read More »
A toddler stands in front of the washing machine, watching it go round. And around. Later he takes a crayon and draws jerky spirals on paper. He also runs round and round a tree in the garden and spends a long time pushing his wooden train around the track. These are all physical manifestations of
The rotation schema Read More »
Here is a girl. She is lining up beans along the windowsill. One, then another, then another. All in a row, evenly spaced out. She didn’t start out with this arrangement in mind. She simply put one bean down and then another. Something about the configuration looked right. The line travelling in the same direction
The positioning schema Read More »
From A to B. It’s such a simple idea. You can go by yourself. Or you can take something with you. This concept is known as the transportation schema. Schemas are mental models of how we think the world works. Your transportation schema is a representation in your mind of what happens when an object
The transportation schema Read More »
Do you remember the nature table at school? Some autumn leaves, a handful of conkers and some acorns? Or, in the spring, a vase with a branch of blossoming cherry? There was something magical about it, it drew you in. These common objects, things you passed by on your way to school every day, had
How to make a nature table Read More »
You don’t have to spend long online to come across sensory play. Fill a bowl with slime and plunge your hands into it Put shaving foam into a tuff spot and draw pictures with your finger Play with rice using scoops and bowls Hmm… I thought there was more than one sense. What happened to
Here is a boy. He is rolling a ball along a track and it is fun. Down, down, it rolls, snaking left and right until it reaches the bottom. But the game doesn’t stop there. Back to the start it goes and the ball sets off again. How many times does he do this? He
The trajectory schema Read More »
Symbolic play is the highest form of play. Your child has learnt to play with ideas rather than physical objects. But how did she get there? In a previous post we saw that it all starts with imitative play. We saw imitation is a skill that children have to learn. It’s not something they are born with.
Symbolic play: the key to your child’s imagination Read More »
My son comes into the living room to find a line of cars, buses and taxis perched on the second shelf of the bookcase, two feet off the ground. He notices a second line of vehicles on the coffee table, pointing in the opposite direction. Yesterday we took a trip into London to spend time by
Provocations and invitations to play Read More »
Imaginative play – any game that begins with ‘let’s pretend’, dressing-up and make-believe – is a powerful way for children to learn that our thoughts and feelings may be different from someone else’s, helping them to develop a sense of empathy and emotional intelligence. Here’s our at-a-glance guide to imaginative play for the under-fives: Contents: