Surely, once children begin to read or learn their numbers they should be doing that in their spare time, rather than playing?  This couldn't be further from the truth!  In fact, children that play tend to become better and more attentive learners on average, and what you must remember is that when chidren are playing, the are learning the whole time too!  This is what ToucanLearn is all about... sharing ideas of games, activities and crafts that are GREAT FUN, but we show you the learning elements too so you can see exactly what your little ones are actually learning about.  As they are doing the activities with you, they are learning even more (Two CAN Learn much better than one)!

Do you need special equipment at each age stage in order to encourage your child to play?

NO!  Play can involve anything (more or less!).  From wooden spoons and saucepans, to folded socks and a washing basket!  It can mean jumping in puddles to learn counting or throwing gloves to see how far you can get them or posting junk mail into a shoe box made into a letter box.  All sorts of things can be used as long as you are there to help the game along!

What do children learn through play?

They learn about the properties of objects and how they work.  That if you throw something hard, it will go far.  They learn about their own limitations: they may be great on the scooter but not so confident on a bike.  They learn about their environment (stairs and steps) and other places (on a walk to the park).  They learn how to play with other children and how to interact with adults.

Will playing make them better at school?

Many studies have concluded that children that play with their parents are more curious and interested in learning.  Playing is a great way to get them active and interested.  It may also help their social skills and helps develop healthy relationships with other children.

Plus, possibly most importantly, by playing with your children, you are developing and securing your won relationship with them - which is absolutley vital.

So, just get out there and do some ToucanLearn activities, fool around, have a laugh and enjoy these special years when playing can be so much fun for your both!

Baby showers, long popular in the USA, are becoming increasingly common in the UK and other European countries - for those new to this tradition, we offer some fun ideas for games and activities.  Before that, a word on protocol!

What is a baby shower?!  Contrary to common belief, a baby shower does not take its name from showering the expectant mother with gifts.  The name arises from Franz Schauer, a German immigrant and silversmith in New York who encouraged gift-giving amongst mothers-to-be.  You should bring a gift along for the lucky expecting mother, but much of the rest of the evening harks back to 'hen night', with frivolous games and much fun!  You may also be lucky enough to leave with a bag of 'favours', a goody bag to remind you of the event.

Here are some fun ideas for games that you could play at the next baby shower you're invited to:-

• Blind Tasting: Guests are blindfolded and made to sample a teaspoon of various baby foods - can they guess the flavours?
• Whos Who? Invite guests to bring along a photo of themselves as a baby - everyone must then work out who is who in the pictures.
• Dirty Nappies: Smear smelly sauces and foods into different nappies.  You could put one 'smell' in each, or mix three different ones for a greater challenge!  Blindfold the guests and have them guess the flavours.  Try ketchup, HP sauce, coffee, peanut butter, mashed banana, mint sauce, chocolate sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and anything else that comes to hand!  Catch out the mum to be with some really nasty odours - stilton cheese, garlic, chillies, tuna, Marmite and anything festering in your cupboards!
• Mummy Tummy: Pass a toilet roll around the guests, each one tears off a length as to how wide the expectant mother's girth is.  The winner is the one tearing off the best fit!
• Nappy Brain: Bring out a tray of up to 20 items relating to babies (dummy, nappy, cream, socks, toy, rattle, bottle and so on).  Everyone looks at the tray for one minute, then it's taken away, three items removed, and the guests must say what items have gone.
• Cotton Balls: Get two mixing bowls, a wooden spoon, cotton wool balls and a blindfold. Blindfolded guests have one minute to transfer the cotton wool balls from one bowl to the other with the wooden spoon.  Sounds easy?  Go try it out!
• Pillow Talk: As the mother-to-be opens gifts, one of the guests must secretly note down all the remarks made as she opens each gift.  At the end, the observer reads out the list of remarks, telling all the other guests that these notes were made from outside the expectant mother's bedroom on the night the baby was conceived!
• Famous Babes: Prepare two sets of cards, one with celebrity's names and the other with the names of their babies.  Guests have to match the celebrity with their baby!
• Down in One: Well, down in lots is more likely!  Fill a series of baby bottles with equal quantities of drink - milk or water for purists and expecting mum, wine or beer for the more adventurous!  Have guests quaff the drink as quickly as they can...leaving the teats intact!

Have fun, this could be the last fun evening the expectant mother has for a while!

The weather is warmer, the kids want to go out, but what can you do and why bother doing physical activity when you can just stay indoors?  It's important to encourage youngsters to get active and get used to the idea of doing physical activity.  Here are a few reasons why its important to do activities with children of all ages, because it helps them to:

1. Be happy and have fun
2. Sleep well at night
3. Pay attention and learn at school
4. Keep fit
5. Grow strong and  healthy
6. Make new friends and try new things
7. Become less stressed and anxious
8. Control their behaviour
9. Express themselves

How much exercise you do depends on you, but the advice is that it should be about an hour a day.  Sound a lot?  It's not really when you look at what's included:-

1. Walking to school
2. Swimming lessons
3. Sports and dancing
4. Physical games e.g. skipping rope, trampolining
5. Climbing, physical play at a park

How can you help?

• Undertake activities together: try and do a family walk in the woods, or a family cycle ride every now and then
• Set tasks and challenges for your children to achieve, eg. run on the spot for 2 minutes, run between 2 chairs 10 times, throw and catch a ball 5 times
• Use your imagination: try doing some funny running or walking; run like a penguin with your legs together, waddle like a duck, gallop like a horse etc
• Try something unusual: let your children choose something new, eg. yoga, rugby, tumble time
• Help your child with basic skills so they feel confident and happy to build on those skills eg. ball throwing, skipping, running and jumping
• Praise and give lots of positive feedback
• Get some simple equipment to help them eg. scooters, skipping ropes, hula hoops, skittles

So, get outside and have some fun!

Toddlers can't read, so why do we bother with reading them books?  The answer is simple: one day they will have to learn to read and if they like books, associate them with fun and good experiences, they will be more inclined to want to learn about letters and sounds and eventually reading.

Being able to read a book is a huge and marvelous gift.  It opens the world up for little children and allows them to enjoy the fantastic stories that are available and help them learn at school.  So, by reading to the toddlers and even babies, you're helping them for when they need to learn to read at school and indeed helping on their journey through school.  Plus, even more important at this stage, introducing them to a wonderful world of stories and adventures!

So, what to do to make books fun!  Here are a few tips:

1. Read as often as possible!  You can read a book in bed, while on a journey, in the morning.  Have some cuddly time together when you read and make it cosy and comforting for you both!
2. Try and bring the stories to life by using lots of expressions and funny voices!  It will make your child laugh and will help you get through all the kiddie books without getting bored yourself!
3. Talk about the stories together and try and guess what is going to happen.
4. Let your little on choose the books.  Read the favourites as many times as they want!  Children love things that are familiar so they love hearing books over and over again!
5. Try and encourage the children to say the rhyming bits with you or the catch phrase.
6. Try and get as many book as you can!  Go to the library, book sales, car boot sales and get a wide selection.
7. Allow children to handle books all the time.  Yes, teach them to be careful, but get board books if they are heavy handed and let the look at the pictures, feel the pages and turn the pages.  You don't need to have a shelf of pristine books that no one is allowed to touch.  Better a shelf of books that have been used, and read, and enjoyed for many years!