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Child Development: Imaginative & Pretend Play

Imaginative or pretend play stimulates the senses, creates opportunities for exploration and creative thinking, and helps your child to develop key skills vital for intellectual and emotional growth as well as social success. When Do Children Start Pretend Play? Newborn – 2 Years The first signs of pretend play emerge around 12 to 18 months.…

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10 Easy Ways To Promote Numeracy with Pre-School Children

Everyone has the cognitive capacity to learn and it is the information and structures present in the environment that create the conditions for learning. Count – count everything as you go along, the steps you walk up, how many people are in front of you at the check-out, the numbers on the elevator buttons. Notice…

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Valuing The Outdoors

The benefits of being outdoors are widely known and accepted. This can including minimising illnesses, building a respect for nature, gross and fine motor developments, enhancing social complicity when engaging with others, as well as instilling an overall sense of calm. Here are some ideas to encourage your children to be outside more often: Gardening…

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Top 10 Indoor Activities for Rainy Days

Having children outside and learning with nature is always what we aim for. However, sometimes this is not possible. In our house we have a jar for rainy days and a jar for sunny days. Each jar has activities written on pieces of paper. My three children take turns each week selecting a slip of…

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6 Tips for Safe Sleeping – Red Nose Australia

Red Nose has been a part of Australian culture for over 40 years! We see fundraisers each year, cars with the big read circle and people sporting the attractive foam red nose. But what are they actually for? Red Nose Australia all began in Victoria in 1977 by Kaarene Fitzgerald following the death of Glenn…

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Loose Parts Play – Is It Really A Thing?!

In short, absolutely yes! And here are some reasons why: Freedom – offering children loose parts means there are no rules nor predetermined outcomes of how things are ‘meant’ to be used. Loose parts celebrates the process over the product in play. Fine and gross motor skills – children involved in loose parts benefit from…

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The Benefits of Sensory Play

“Don’t do that, you’ll get dirty” “Take that out of your mouth” “Out of the puddle”. I think that at some stage or another, we’re all guilty of saying these words to our children. And at certain times it is of course appropriate, but are we doing a disservice for our children if we don’t…

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I’m Bored!

I am a massive advocate for outdoor play and feel it is very important for children to have lots of time spent outdoors. However, there are times when going outside is not an option such as heavy rain or strong winds, or perhaps you just don’t feel like braving the cold! Here are some fun…

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Just Go Outside!

We are finding ourselves in a time that is very unfamiliar. With all the awful negatives affiliated with the COVID19 pandemic, there are definitely a few positives that some of us are experiencing. Getting outside and being physically active has challenges with social distancing and the cancellation of organized sport. However, many of us now…

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