Inspiring Ideas for 0-4 Year Olds

Written by Hannah Adamson (from Boom Buddies Family, The Adamsons)

Hannah is a primary school teacher in Derby and mum to 15-month-old Lucy. Here she shares some activities for 0-4 year olds which can help children develop essential skills.

Maria Montessori said, “The wise mother will remember that play time is never wasted.”

This quote really struck me recently. I was filling Lucy’s tuff tray with cuddly dogs to use alongside the book Dogs by Emily Gravett, when I started to doubt myself about the potential learning benefits. I voiced my concern to my husband and he pointed out, “She’ll enjoy it, isn’t that enough?” Of course it is, but once I started to think about it, the benefits seemed obvious. She would be exploring an interest, engaging in imaginative play, working on her fine motor skills by scooping ‘dog food’ into the bowl, communicating by signing the word ‘dog’, exploring early phonics by thinking about the sounds dogs make and learning about care needs (using her comb to brush the dogs)! All that from an activity I had thrown together with things we already had!

I know Lucy is only 15 months old and ‘school-readiness’ doesn’t need to be a priority yet, but creating opportunities for her that develop essential skills has become one of my favourite things. I love watching her excited face when she realises there are new things to explore. Each setup stays out for around a week, giving her ample opportunity to engage with it fully and read any related books multiple times!

Here are some of our favourite activities we’ve tried so far, with suggestions of what to include, the learning benefits and how to uplevel it depending on your child’s age:

1)    Flower Potions

Activity: making ‘potions’ using natural materials (outdoors, unless you don’t mind mess inside!)

Resources: water, a ‘cauldron’, jugs, spoons, scoops, whisk, petals, grass, leaves

Learning benefits: gross motor lifting, fine motor scooping, pouring and mixing, hand-eye coordination, colour recognition, imaginative play

Potential uplevelling: counting, measuring, colour mixing (using coloured water)

2)    That’s Not My… Material Exploration

Activity: taking inspiration from the Usborne touchy-feely books, exploring different textured materials

Resources: a wide range of child-safe materials from around the house, including different fabrics, wood, plastic and metal

Learning benefits: phase 1 phonics (experimenting with sounds that different materials make), fine motor grasping and manipulating (e.g. scrunching fabrics up), colour recognition

Potential uplevelling: expanding vocabulary (describing the materials in different ways), sorting, comparing and contrasting the materials, simple experiments (e.g. is it waterproof?)

3)    Construction and DIY

Activity: exploring all things construction and DIY

Resources: a toy toolkit, a hard hat and hi-vis jacket, building blocks/boxes, toy construction vehicles, something for the vehicles to move (ceramic baking beans, rice or pasta are cheap, reusable options)

Learning benefits: gross and fine motor skills, imaginative play, phase 1 phonics (experimenting with sounds of hammering, stacking, screwing, etc.)

Potential uplevelling: provide real tools and let them have a go (closely supervised of course!), provide building challenges that involve turn taking

We’d love to hear about your favourite activities for 0-4 year olds too, so feel free to tag us in any social media posts about activities we can try!