As a parent, how did you start weaving learning into play? Win a £200 voucher

[EllieSmumsnet]

We all know play is such an important part of childhood, but it can also be a brilliant way to build in early learning. From counting blocks, to spotting colours in everyday objects, or even turning a walk to the park into a mini science adventure, there are so many ways to bring learning into play without it feeling like “work.”

How did you first start weaving learning into play with your child? Did you have any go-to games, toys, or activities that made it fun and easy to introduce learning?

Did you find certain toys helped with this too, for example ones that encouraged problem-solving, numbers, letters or imaginative play?

• Post your advice and go to play and learn tips and toy recommendations below in the thread below to be entered into a prize draw.
• One lucky MNer will win a £200 VEX voucher for a store of their choice.
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Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

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Watching CBEEBIES together, singing counting and colour songs, lots of books, and stacking toys -ALWAYS talking and engaging them in everyday activities.

It's so important to have time when you're allowing your child to lead the play and you're joining their world, trying to shoehorn 'learning' into all play can be counterproductive. Children are learning all the time through play, it may be social and emotional rather than academic, we need to value that just the same.

Being with them - I really dislike the tech culture when a baby is sat in front of a tv, or given a tablet or mobile phone in their pram to distract and occupy them - it's just lazy and bad parenting if done long term and for long periods.
Involve them in family activities, read and point out works and names of pictures to them - they love being with a parent of carer and will learn so much when being interacted with.

We have bath foam letters that stick to the bath and talk about these sounds and hide them in the bubbles and shoot them with his water squirter

All play is learning. Leaving kids to get on with working things out for themselves and negotiate with each other is hugely important. Turning play into prescribed learning too often means kids miss out on those skills.

Looking through childrens encyclopaedias, lots of pictures words, animals, trees, seasons, we just turn over quickly or slowly and talk about each page

Incorporate letter, numbers, colours, facts, general knowledge etc into anything and everything. I just think talking is key (and less screens).

We had some wooden blocks which had letters, numbers. colours and shapes on each side and would like them up to count, learn colours and do spellings - they were from a school fair and have been a really good addition to the toy box

One more. I did a bit of childiminding and in my setting children were taught not to share toys. The golden rule was: if you got the toy first its yours till you stop playing with it.
If another child wanted same toy they would have to wait or be creative and pretend that they have amazing toy, so the other child drop the toy they oryginally wanted.
This resulted in children beeing always happy, no fights over toys ever. The rule was so simple that it was easy for even 2 year olds to understand.

When children from my setting were going to same parties - parents noticed that my children were always so settled and happy playing.

I really think this is a wonderful idea. But no one else think so, except me :) And parents of those children, as they have seen the results.
Happy peacefuly playing children. They learned patience, respect for other kids time with the toy, and learned to be creative and find solution or other toys.

Mayba a research has to be made about it :)

Sitting with them on the floor or on your knee, reading books with a short story, there's nothing better, we ask questions about the pictures, point out colours, animals, animal noises and then a wooden trainset, with big fastening and a magnetic links to the multiple carriages.

From my degreee in child psychology I did my research on the issues of asking children questions during play which I learnt can actually remove the fun and turn play time into more of a lesson then play. Instead modelling using language is the way forward for me, for example I just built a tower with 7 blocks look one two three are red and one two are yellow and one two are red. Often the children will begin counting along and playing with me.
I also continue this with creative activities like painting by saying tell me about your picture rather then what have you drawn as it encourages a conversation rather then a reply.

@Wetwipe44 That sounds quite similar to John Holt's 'how children fail' where he found that asking questions about what a child was reading/doing made them fearful about being wrong and actually stunted their learning.

His work is quite old, but I found it interesting.

Your discussion of looking for conversation rather than reply also made me think of Tizard and hughes work which showed that children use much more varied language when chatting with parents than answering 'directed questions' from teachers.

There is no need for artificial weaving of teaching. Learning is something that a child is designed to do non-stop.

I think the very first learning would have started outdoors as we spent a lot of time going on walks and exploring the countryside both where we lived and further afield. I would describe everything to my babies / toddlers and by the time they could talk confidently they could also identify a lot of plants, describe the weather, count (recite numbers rather than truly count of course) steps as we walked up them etc. As we spent a lot of time outside, I think that sort of learning came very naturally to us. Co-incidentally both our children still love nature and plying outdoors and are now teen / tween age! Maybe it’s coincidence or maybe it’s that early exposure.

I used to say can you see a blue car.. Van.. can you see a yellow one.. red.. ect.. silver.. Black...

Mine responded really well to educational board games. Things by Orchard Toys especially. People always think of them just in terms of the Shopping List game but they have so many options! We did buy the extension packs for Shopping List but we also loved playing Pop to the Shops which teaches decimals to under fives without them even realising because it's money and Bus Stop which encourages addition and subtraction. I also discovered Silly Sentences and Funny Phonics which encourages reading and teaches the basics of sentence formation by having fun.

Out and about, it's easy to teach your child how to write (draw) a shopping list or use the magnetic picture ones you can buy. This teaches them about different types of foods and where they are in the different areas of the supermarket. Or get them to look at colours of things and decide on better word choices than blue, red, yellow or green. Even a nursery age child can say it's the same shade of blue as the sky or that it's the colour of grass. Using the correct word for things or being more descriptive — this is a spaniel, it's a type of dog, is vastly better than saying look at the doggie. Then looking out for different types of dog or cat (or tree, bird or flower).

We also loved having a play kitchen and a play shop. We used real money which helped them with recognising coins and also how amounts are made of of 1, 2 and 5s.

Reading books together and watching tv with songs and actions, and toddler groups for interaction and social skills

We often went on walks, observing and identifying trees, birds, and other wildlife. Almost every time we went up or down steps, we counted them together. We would also count toy cars, balls, and dinosaurs. Some of the toys might “go off” to rescue something or take a nap, and we’d see how many were left. I encouraged my child to notice the changing seasons and the differences we could see each time we visited the park or went for a walk. We often took a magnifying glass to examine flowers and insects closely. Stacking cups were a favourite activity—when playing together, we would count them and identify the colours. On their own, my child explored stacking, rolling, observing movement, fitting different objects inside, or filling them with cars and stones. They were also great for water play in the bath, pouring from one cup to another, fostering lots of independent learning and discovery.

Kids are always learning though? I read with them since they were babies, would mention colours or size of toys as we played with them, counting games e.g. jump over a puddle and each choose a number to jump in on, spot different coloured cars first, read number plates (they loved this for some reason), talk about what we were seeing and hearing, feelings, sharing, cooking, playing shops, making up stories together, counting backwards in hide and seek or if setting a timer to tidy up toys, sometimes singing different rhyming words in songs, eye spy with colours or numbers before they could read/spell (e.g. something green might be grass, two might be windscreen wipers). Sometimes in pretend play with dolls/lego/cuddly toys etc, it was really humbling to hear what the kids would say if a toy got in to trouble - their patience and understanding far outstripped mine. It was useful (and a bit sad) to hear what behaviour they thought would trigger a trip to a Y6 classroom when they were in reception and who the shouty teachers were. I know people frown about screens, but I think things like number blocks are great. I also don’t have a problem with them watching kids programmes just because they want to as long as it’s in moderation. Also just being silly, having fun and enjoying the moment is so important too.

Any book, an encyclopedia, story book, a colourful catalogue where we look through and point out pictures colours, items we also count, look at colours. We watch tv together to sing, count, do basic maths and develop language skills

When my daughter was little, we'd have great fun with Pop to the Shops board game, which helped teach her the basics about money. I used to read a lot of books to her but because of her special needs, she didn't really enjoy reading books herself. But she did love going shopping with me, so I'd ask her to read out text on toy boxes, cereal boxes, etc and that did help improve her reading skills. She would also be 'in charge' of reading toy/game instructions, which made her feel in control whilst helping her develop reading and comprehension skills.

Asking for 'help' with housework, "can i have the YELLOW cloth please" or cooking, "i need TWO eggs please" or just talking about what we saw when out and about. I don't think we did a lot of specific teaching, but just blended learning into everyday activities.
DS has autism (not known when young) and wouldn't respond to open questions, so maybe our conversations were slightly different: "what animal is that?" would have been met with silence but "is that a cat or a dog?" would have got a response!

It just evolves as your baby grows, talking to them, involving them with what you are doing, and why, colours, noises, counting, giving eye contact when speaking to them, and reading to them when they need some down time.

Please can you let posters know if the winner been announced yet @MNHQ?

Congratulations @Susan7654 you are the winner of this discussion!