Play
Puzzles and Shape Sorters for Young Children
Shape sorters and puzzles are among the most reliably developmental toys you can put on a shelf — they build spatial reasoning, fine motor control, an...
6 min read
Play
The importance of play and how to make the most of playtime.
Play
Puppet Theater as a Play Activity
The first time a 2-year-old hugs a sock puppet you're wearing on your hand, you'll see the suspension of disbelief in real time. The puppet is alive t...
5 min read
Play
Character-Based Games to Support Speech Development
A 2-year-old who answers "What did you do at daycare?" with a shrug will often spend ten minutes telling a sock puppet about it. The puppet does the t...
5 min read
Play
Why Play Is the Primary Language of Early Childhood
A 2-year-old who can barely string three words together can run a 20-minute pretend hospital. The reason: spoken language is one of the slowest things...
5 min read
Play
Puppet Shows: How to Make a Theater at Home
The trick to puppet theater is the barrier. Once the puppeteer is hidden, even the parent waving a sock above a tipped-over table becomes "the bear wh...
5 min read
Play
Why Pretend Play Is Important for Development
A toddler holding a banana to their ear and talking to grandma is doing one of the most cognitively impressive things humans ever do: using one thing...
5 min read
Play
Pretend Play: First Imaginative Games
The first time your toddler tips an empty cup to their mouth and "drinks," something important has clicked: they understand that an action can be perf...
6 min read
Play
Pretend Play and Its Role in Cognitive Development
The first time your toddler talks into a wooden block as if it were a phone, they have done something remarkable: they have used one thing to represen...
6 min read
Play
How to Prepare for Messy Play
Most parents who avoid messy play do not avoid it because they doubt the benefit. They avoid it because the cleanup feels disproportionate. That is a...
5 min read
Play
Developmental Pool Games for Young Children
A pool is one of the few places where a toddler can move against real resistance, work on balance, and feel proud of themselves all in the same 30 min...
7 min read
Play
Playdough and Clay: Developmental Benefits
A $3 tub of playdough does more for a preschooler's hand strength than most "developmental" toys three times the price. Children pinch, roll, squish,...
7 min read
Play
Playground Skills by Age
The playground is one of the few places where a child can practice the full menu of gross-motor skills — climbing, swinging, sliding, balancing, jumpi...
8 min read
Play
What to Do When Playdates Go Wrong
The playdate going badly in your living room right now is not a sign of a social problem. It is a sign that two small humans with limited regulation s...
7 min read
Play
Playdate Preparation: What to Expect
A playdate that goes well at 18 months looks suspiciously different from a playdate that goes well at five. The young version is short, low-key, has d...
7 min read
Play
How Play-Based Learning Transitions to Formal Education
The "academic readiness" pressure on three- and four-year-olds has gone up sharply in the last twenty years, and the children most affected are not th...
7 min read
Play
How Physical Play Supports Brain Development
"Get them outside" is sometimes treated as folk wisdom — pleasant but optional. The neuroscience and child-development literature of the last 30 years...
7 min read
Play
Parent–Child Games to Strengthen Connection
The "quality time" idea has been turned into a guilt-trip about elaborate craft projects, themed dinners, and "intentional parenting." It needn't be....
7 min read
Play
Painting Activities for Toddlers
Painting with a toddler is one of those activities that goes badly when adults try to make it go well. The brown-soup result feels like a failure if y...
6 min read
Play
Parallel Play: What It Is and When It Appears
The classic toddler scene — two children in the same room, a metre apart, doing similar things, not actually doing them with each other — looks oddly...
6 min read
Play
Painting Without Brushes: Alternative Techniques
The wobbly toddler-with-a-paintbrush scene is largely a problem we invented. Tripod grip is a 3- to 4-year-old skill; expecting it from an 18-month-ol...
6 min read