What is play? - Carson Street School

You need to provide plenty of opportunities in the general course of daily life for your
child to practice doing things that show cause and effect. In this way your child can
learn that their actions have an effect on what they can achieve. Your child can also
begin to learn and understand how things work.
• Show your child how one action causes a certain predictable result:
- if your child tips out all the blocks, the box becomes empty
- if your child hits different bars on the xylophone, different notes are heard
- if your child presses a certain button on a toy, it will play a song
• As much as possible, let your child discover these results for themselves. The toy
can be explained and demonstrated initially, and then they should be allowed
to explore it for themselves.
• Help your child to learn about what is in the various rooms of the house:
- tipping out a drawer of clothes, or pulling over a pile of magazines
- the obvious activity to follow this is to put everything back where it
should be, and you can play counting and naming games relating to
what you are doing whilst doing that.
- banging saucepan lids to make a noise, and showing your child how to
put them away when she has finished
• Talk to your child, explaining what is going on
• Let your child do as much for themselves, because this is how a child learns