You can often hear me talk about the importance of children learning through play... but that leaves a lot of parents feeling anxious. If they are playing, how can we be sure that they are learning?

I want to share this example of my playtime with Little J this morning. He has just turned 2 and we have been working on colours and counting objects.

We sat on the floor in the sitting room - it allowed him to run around while we played rather than being restricted by sitting down...Little J isn't a 'sitting down' sort of kid, and I try to allow for that – especially when I want him to be learning something!!

I showed Little J some things I have been collecting – all of them have what I call ‘strong colours’…the sort of objects that are ideal for teaching about colour.

{One of the difficulties for children learning about colours is all of those lovely shades that make up each colour, and the fact that most things are made up of different colours - you may point to their red pram, but your child might only see the metal parts}

Today's toy collection included:

• A pack of coloured magnets (£1 from Homebase)… you know I love those money-saving ideas for play!

• A pack of coloured PVC tape (£1 from Homebase)… I hit the bargain shelves last weekend ;)

• Some coloured teddies that were given away last year in a Rays of Sunshine Children’s Charity raffle.

• A baking tray – a perfect example of a frugal magnetic surface for those magnets!!

• A laminated sheet of paper I had prepared on the computer with coloured circles.

For a while Little J just explored. We talked about what everything was called and I used the colour names a lot…’red like a fire engine’, ‘green like the grass’…Little J seems to find it very useful to match the colours with things he can associate with.

Then he started making a picture on the magnet board – his imagination is really developing through these sorts of activities…there are eyes, ladders, daddy’s jeep and all sorts of things in this picture! (you’ll have to take my word for that, I guess!)

Look at the brilliant fine motor skills he was using working with the tape!

After a while he switched to putting the coloured magnets onto the coloured circles. Matching is a great way of introducing colours to children before they have a full understanding of the concept. As he matched the magnets to the circles we were saying colour names and counting the piles.

And then we started to make piles of coloured objects and I asked Little J to run around and find other toys to put in the piles.

As soon as I sensed that he'd had enough of the activity we stopped...it probably lasted 15 minutes, which is pretty good for him!

And that was our learning play today … totally led by Little J, a little bit of input from me … but with some serious learning outcomes. Little J still doesn’t know his colours consistently, but the more we play with these toys in a fun and relaxed way, I know it won’t be long until he does. My job is to be relaxed and join in with the play…no pressure.

Other colour activities:

We are singing: I can sing a rainbow (we sign as we sing with Makatan signs)

We are reading: Painter Bear by Vivian French; Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr, Eric Carle; Colours by Shirley Hughes

We are playing with: Red Dog, Blue Dog (an Orchard Toys lotto game)

Your child may be older or younger than little J, but use some imagination and they’ll be able to learn by play too (have a look at my blog post about shot glasses!)

Please join in the conversation! I’d love to hear about how you encouraged your child to learn through play this week…especially if you’ve been playing with colour.

Juliet x