There is a fabulous new campaign taking place called Make Time 2 Play.
The whole emphasis is that play is good for children for many wide and varied reasons. Mostly we think about the educational benefits of play but as a registered childminder I also think about the social and emotional benefits of play.
Watching and joining in with your children when they use their imaginations can be a fantastic way of understanding how they are feeling and what is going on in their lives.
Alison is great at using her imagination and whether she is pretending to be a member of the skyline gang, Jake from Jake and the neverland pirates or spending time at school I can always work out how she is feeling and if something is worrying her.
Using toys has helped us explain some difficult situations to both of the girls from showing Elizabeth what would happen to her on a special doll at the hospital or giving Alison a true hope doll to explain Elizabeth’s hair loss. Toys can also be a comforter like aah aah and ooh ooh (Elizabeth’s monkeys) or Cuddly Cow (Alisons cuddly toy). Comforters help children overcome their fears of hard situations just like with Woolly and Tig in the tv program of the same name.
Play is such an important part of our children’s life but sometimes we find we are just too busy. The thing is do we really need to be doing what we are doing right now? Could it wait until the children have gone to bed?
I know that I could do better and so I am taking the pledge to make time 2 play and I will start by having no computer time when the girls finish school. The laptop can be a huge barrier to play and so can my mobile phone but I don’t think I can do without both of them. From now on I want to be able to say that
The whole emphasis is that play is good for children for many wide and varied reasons. Mostly we think about the educational benefits of play but as a registered childminder I also think about the social and emotional benefits of play.
Watching and joining in with your children when they use their imaginations can be a fantastic way of understanding how they are feeling and what is going on in their lives.
Alison is great at using her imagination and whether she is pretending to be a member of the skyline gang, Jake from Jake and the neverland pirates or spending time at school I can always work out how she is feeling and if something is worrying her.
Using toys has helped us explain some difficult situations to both of the girls from showing Elizabeth what would happen to her on a special doll at the hospital or giving Alison a true hope doll to explain Elizabeth’s hair loss. Toys can also be a comforter like aah aah and ooh ooh (Elizabeth’s monkeys) or Cuddly Cow (Alisons cuddly toy). Comforters help children overcome their fears of hard situations just like with Woolly and Tig in the tv program of the same name.
Play is such an important part of our children’s life but sometimes we find we are just too busy. The thing is do we really need to be doing what we are doing right now? Could it wait until the children have gone to bed?
I know that I could do better and so I am taking the pledge to make time 2 play and I will start by having no computer time when the girls finish school. The laptop can be a huge barrier to play and so can my mobile phone but I don’t think I can do without both of them. From now on I want to be able to say that
Check out the Make time to play website where there are some fantastic ideas of things to play and some brilliant videos of how to do things and even some amazing downloadables.
Don’t forget there is also a free app with lots of different play ideas.