Playing with your Toddler

Playing with your toddler encourages learning, growth and development. Things such as movement skills, thinking skills, interactive, emotional and language development happens more likely when your toddler is involved activities such as having fun (when they are playing). As being a parent your their teacher before they even attend school and their playing friend). You assist with choosing what toys and activites that motivates your toddler to play, expore and learn about the toys and theirselves. You must make time to spend with your toddler and play and learn with them.

Physical Skills
Physical skills such as rolling, sitting crawling, standing and taking their first few steps from 12 - 15 months is huge. Babies can normally reach for toys around the age of 4 months and then go on to passing from one hand to their other hand. They learn to bang, shake, squeeze toys to make noises. By at least 12 months most babies not all can finger feed and pick up small objects with their little fingers (thumb and index fingers).

Discovery
Babies become busy discovering themselves and all their surroundings. They love peoples faces and sounds that people make and expressions. They learn this by looking, listening, touching, puting it in their mouths, shaking and even smelling things to banging or dropping objects. This is all part of dicovering how the world works.

Communication
Babies communicate from the time they are born practically. They listen and respond when the are spoken to such as gooing, babbling, smiling, imatating sounds, crying and even laughing at you. Around the age of 18 months they can say six clear words or more and understand alot more things that is said to them like simple instructions eg; "can you please get your shoes"

Fun Activities
As your baby gets more and more active find toys that will help delelop movement skills. They like things like tunnels and cubby houses they are lots of fun. You can make a tunnel using a cardboard box. Balls are good for throwing or kicking. Swings, ride on toys, sand and pull and push along toys help encourage alot of movement skills and a lot of fun at the same time.

Bathtime fun is great playing with squirting toys, sponges, bubbles, cups funnels etc. Always make sure you are with your toddler at all time and after your toddlers bath get a large bath towel to try them properly and maybe even a nice massage that makes them feel nice.

Music is another encouragement from birth you can indroduce this. Singing rymes and songs and also tv shows with music such as The Wiggles or Hi 5 are good ones. Sesame Street  is good for learning the alphabet and counting. You can sing nursery rymes such as Twinkle Twinkle, Incy Wincy Spider, Round and Round the Garden etc are some of the popular ones.

Last of all make sure you supervise your toddler when playing at all times. So they dont get stuck or hurt themselves or unable to breathe because they are suffocated by a pillow or something. Their brains/ skulls are still deveoping so dont shake them as it may result in brain damage. Also clean all toys requently incase of germs and bugs and dont give them small object or small toys that can be swallowed or put up their noses or in their ears. Long cords on curtins are another thing to be aware of because they can strangle themselves, tie the cords up high or put a bracket or hook to put the cords on.

Have fun playing.