Hello, and welcome to my latest post, where I’m sharing expert advice around the importance of playfulness training.

I have been sharing posts about the importance of playfulness and using a theme inspired by, and rooted in, your child’s interests when playing with them.

What is systematic planning?

Systematic planning is a cornerstone in an early invention home-based programme and, as promised, over the next few months each newsletter will focus on an early childhood theme and ways to maximise your systematic planning.

This month, as we begin the summer holidays, I have chosen the theme ‘Under the Sea.’ If you don’t get to the sea this summer you can still enjoy a sea theme at home. Below, I have shared images of different activities I did with a lovely little boy that I work with and ways in which we incorporated this theme into our play.

In image 1 you can see a wonderful musical book ‘Disco Fish’ which gave us the opportunity to read, look at pictures and also have some fun dancing and moving. Image 2 shows a themed area, where we placed toys and books on display for our Under the Sea theme.

Here, we played with textures and colours, hiding beneath different fabrics (representing seaweed) and dancing to the Little Mermaid song: Under the Sea.

Other fun activities included making sea creature figures with Play-Doh, exploring water beads which give a wonderful sensory aspect to play and can be used, as we did, to hide puzzles or other toys for an element of surprise and discovery – we used an inset puzzle and wooden toys. We also did finger painting sea creature images, which again, while keeping to the theme, provide an opportunity to play with texture, touch and colour – and of course get messy! I’ve shared a few images of these below:

I hope you enjoyed this information and found it helpful! I look forward to sharing more about the importance of playfulness training soon.

Wishing you much fun and playfulness to you and your little ones.

Love,
Dr. Donia