Writing is a vital skill that children will eventually use over and over again in all subjects at school.  Whether writing up an experiment in a science lesson, writing a story in an English lesson or writing about their favourite sport, writing is unavoidable.  But, learning to write can be tricky to start with and some children are simply put off by all the complications of writing.  This is easily avoidable and because writing is so vital at school and indeed in the adult world too, it's important to introduce children to writing in a fun and positive way.  Then, these early skills will be built upon and writing will be the next step.

Some ideas to make learning to write a positive experience:

1. Spend lots of time talking to your child and listening to them.
2. Read lots of stories - whenever and wherever you can.  Try all sorts of books with all sorts of pictures.  As they get to school age, introduce non-fiction books: how things work, children's books about topics they like such as cars, trains, dancing etc.
3. When writing yourself (shopping lists or notes to school or nursery) encourage your child to watch and see you write words.  Encourage them to write too.
4. Get some fun paper to practice writing on: different sizes, textures, colours etc.
5. Get some good (and fun!) pens and pencils for them to use.
6. Give lots of praise if they do manage to write and don't focus only on their mistakes.
7. Break down the letters when they are learning, so they an see how to build the letter shapes.  (ie. a P is a straight line and a circle at the top.)
8. Once they are beginning to learn, leave messages for your children or post it notes on their bed or door  Write on their chalk board say hello!
9. Put together a photo album and caption the pictures.
10. Send yourselves a postcard if you go away or out for the day.

It can be fun and with a little thought, you'll find that your little ones enjoy writing and begin to make great progress.  Perhaps one day they'll be writing their own blog!

Sums, maths, numbers - what ever you choose to call it, we cannot deny that learning the basics about numbers and adding up is one of the most important things your child will learn.  Numbers are everywhere and play a great part in our lives.  Even if you consider yourself to be no mathematical genius, there is still loads that can be done to put our children on the right path when it comes to numbers.  Apart form actively helping them understand their numbers, it is great for their self esteem if a parent or carer shows an active interest and shows a positive attitude towards numbers.

Here are some tips to get involved with numbers from an early age.

1. Count steps when you climb stairs.  Practicing over and over is the way to reinforce numbers and counting.
2. Play games with your child: throw dice and count the dots, play snakes and ladders, dominoes and other number related games.
3. For older children look at money and the numbers on the coins and notes.
4. Look at door numbers when you go for a walk.  Predict what number the next house will be.
5. Do some physical games that involve scoring or counting.  How many balls can be thrown in the bucket?  How many goals did you score?
6. Make sure there are some number toys in the toy box: rulers, clock, counters and coins, tape measure, pack of cards.
7. Keep an eye out for various patterns as you go out and about.   Copy any designs you see or spot shapes in the design (floor tiles for example).
8. Look at clocks and calendars together.  Talk about time and days.
9. Do simple arithmetic.  Add up grapes at tea or sandwiches on a picnic.
10. Do cooking.  Make some simple recipes and weigh out the ingredients together.

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!

There are lots of activities you can do with your child to introduce them to reading, that don't necessarily involve learning to read in the traditional sense.  Here are some tips to make learning to read an easy, fun and inspiring time for both you and your children!

1. Look at the pictures: Look at the cover, the pictures throughout the book.  Discuss the style, colour scheme, characters depicted.
2. Look carefully at the title of the book.  Explain to your child what the title is.
3. Look at the characters throughout the book.  What are they doing?  What do they look like?  Do they remind you of anyone you know?
4. Talk about the sequence of pictures in the book.  Look for differences and talk about why may be happening.
5. Chat about what might happen in the book.  Predict a story together and what the ending might be.
6. Make up a story with a different ending and describe what the picture might be if your ending was used instead of that actually in the book.
7. Start looking at the words together.  Follow the words with your finger and then with your child's finger.  Chat about what letters begin each word and sound out the words together.
8. Look at the pictures for clues of what's going on in the story.  Show your child how the pictures can be a great help when learning to read.
9. Focus on the easy words and brush over the hard words or those that are not easily read by new readers (the, said, giraffe).
10. Chat about the book the day after and see how much you can remember together.

Most importantly, have fun when reading with your child.  Don't get annoyed if they don't understand immediately  or struggle on words they knew yesterday.  Certainly don't force them to read or make them do it if they're tired or not in the right mood.

Enjoy... learning to read can be so much fun and they will make you so proud when they try hard and make progress.

Role play forms a natural part of childhood, before long your little ones will assume characters in different scenarios and act out the different parts.  Often role play is based on what children have observed, such as caring for younger siblings, keeping a shop or playing doctors, families or schools.  As their imagination grows, so they begin to play made up scenarios such as fairies or princesses, explorers  or monsters!

Role play offers many lessons to a developing child; clearly pretend play extends language and social interaction as children play with one another, or with a parent.  Make believe nurtures imagination and helps children to develop abstract thought where they can extend the rules of the physical world into their pretend world.  As they play they are developing their understanding of the world, learning to solve problems and learning the ability to view the world from the perspective of others.

Many role play games reinforce gender stereotypes from an early age; this seems to be a natural part of early play.  Doctors and nurses and mummies and daddies might seem politically incorrect in this day and age, but the lessons learned from free play are much more important than lessons enforced about gender stereotyping at this young age.  Any separation along lines of gender simply mirrors their understanding of the world through their own observation, and is done entirely innocently.

Other role play games reinforce notions of good and bad; cops and robbers, fairies and witches, cowboys and indians or simply goodies and baddies all draw lines between the good side and bad side and children dividing themselves in such ways will conform to the expected behaviour.

Young children should be encouraged in their make-believe worlds.  They might be asissted with dressing up clothes or large props such as play houses or camps, but at the end of the day, children will be children and will explore their imaginary worlds even without these!

Children can be very inquisitive, often asking very good questions, and it's easy to brush off or ignore ones we can't answer, but if they ask a question that you don't know the answer to, seize the opportunity to explore the topic and both you and your children will learn something new!

The internet gives us the most amazing resource imaginable - at our fingertips are the answers to almost any question on the planet, and certainly to any questions that our children will pose!  If a challenging question comes your way, take time to research the answer, and encourage the inquisitive, learning nature of your little ones.

The internet is not the only resource at hand.  Perhaps a question might lead to a trip to the library, a museum or the zoo?  You don't have to answer just a single question, take the time to explore the topic area more broadly and that way your children will learn so much more.  Young children absorb facts in an astounding way, but they also need to hear the conceptual reasons behind something as they build up their knowledge and understanding of the world more broadly.

Of course, your children won't understand scientific reasoning behind complex answers, your job is to couch  explanations in terms that they will comprehend.  Reference things that they do understand, and explain things using examples and experiences from everyday life that your little ones will understand.

Well, why is the sky blue and why do fish live in water?

The sky appears to be blue because air molecules scatter more blue light than other colours, until the sun sinks on the horizon at which point the light is coming indirectly and more red, yellow and orange light is scattered, sometimes leading to glorious sunsets!

Fish don't have lungs, but gills - these have developed to filter oxygen out of water rather than taking oxygen from the air.

Now, try explaining those in terms that a four year old will understand!

Play is important for every child and for the first few years of their lives, babies and toddlers learn a huge amount during what they consider to be 'play'.  This is why teaching through play is such a great way to guide and educate our children because the message gets through, they learn and yet it all happens while they are having fun, playing!

During play, children expand their understand of the world, their understanding of themselves, and indeed their understanding of other people.  Once children play together, it is also a way to start communicating with other children and sharing ideas and games.

By six months, children have learned, through trial and error, various sequences that they practice.  If they push a ball, it rolls!  They see that something happens and they like the feeling of it happening.   They are learning to grip and drop and use their hands.

By nine months they might push a ball, crawl to get it and push it again.  They master new skills and make the play more interesting and complex for themselves. They use props more and gravitate towards toys they like.

By a year, they are able to be even more accurate with their props/toys.  They know a rattle will rattle and can kick or throw or roll a ball.

Types of play

• Sensory play: As they gain confidence and control their games become even more complex.  They enjoy the sensation of movement such as swings and slides. They will do things over again to relive the experience.

• Pretend Play: Children begin by being adult led and take the initiative from parents when starting out with pretend play.  Once they see what they can do, they may take the lead.  They may take familiar roles of doctor, or Dad when playing.  They may need, props and costumes and will probably be happy making a dressing gown into a super hero cape or tying a scarf round their head to make a princess veil.

• By 4 or 5, pretend play becomes peer focused and they children will happy to share a pretend game together, working out what to do and who is going to be who in the game.  They will discuss the rules of the game, how it will unfold.  They may well guide behaviour by suggesting an action.  "You'll need to drink your tea before you go to work, Dad."  Pre-schoolers will also have to overcome conflict and negotiate.

• Constructive play: Blocks and boxes are used to create a pretend miniature world.  This type of play, allows the child complete freedom to create a world of their own.

• Physical Play: Rough and tumble, running games, chasing games are all popular with pre-schoolers.  They have more control at this age and can jump, run, climb and chase.  Overly aggressive behaviour should be checked, but it's all about learning how to control their body and what they are capable of.

• Organised games: A more logical and formal game arrangement becomes popular between 4 and 5 years old.  They can cope with and understand the idea of having rules and  are able to follow those rules in order to have a fun game.  The idea of competition is introduced and that of winner or loser!  Teams are also introduced and the idea of working together for a common goal.

What's our role?

Observe and comment in a positive way to encourage them.

Play with them especially when they are young,  It affirms the idea of playing and makes them feel worthwhile if you are willing to play too.

Create a playful atmosphere and allow them to play - give them permission to make some noise or a mess!

Make suggestions if they are stuck.

Ensure everyone plays safely ie. the equipment is safe and that the children behave properly too!

New research brings consensus to the idea that the dinosaurs were wiped out after a phenomenal asteroid collision sited at what is now the Yucatan Peninsular in Mexico - this is the stuff of boys' imagination, combining two fascinating boundaries of knowledge: dinosaurs and space.

Although your little ones are probably too young to comprehend the reality of either space or dinosaurs, why not at least introduce these ideas?  No matter where you live you probably aren't that far from a museum that has exhibits on at least one, if not both, of these topical areas.  Plan a visit and activities around one of these two areas!

Space

To foster an interest in space, take your little ones outside after dark to observe the moon and stars; explain that every star is like our sun but so far away that they appear to be tiny.  Talk about concepts of near and far based on things you can see nearby, explain how further objects appear to be smaller than nearby ones.

Introduce the idea that we live on a planet called Earth and that there are lots of other planets in space but so far away that we can't see them.  Look at a map of the world and describe how we have lots of countries and lots of sea, and perhaps name some of the countries that your little ones might have heard of.

Create a spaceship out of old bottles, boxes or cartons and encourage your kids to go off exploring the universe!

Dinosaurs

Time is a very confusing and abstract concept.  Children struggle to distinguish 'today', 'tomorrow' and 'yesterday', so having them conceptiualise dinosoars roaming the land hundreds of millions of years ago is going to be a challenge!  But you can explain that dinosaurs were like giant monsters and that there were lots of them a long, long time ago!

Find pictures of dinosaurs in a book, online, or best of all, in a sticker book, and look at the different creatures.  Point out their different characteristics such the styles of their legs, tails, horns; maybe some of them have funny necks and small heads, others might have huge teeth; lots walk, some fly, others swim.  Study the pictures and tell your children their names.  See if they can pronounce the really tricky ones - to them the sounds may be no more alien than many of the other words and phrases they hear every day.

Why not make a dinosaur park?  Draw and cut out your own dinosaurs, make more out of card or old bottles, and see if you can create a dinosaur menagerie.

Dramatic play is a great way to encourage communication, teach your children about social behaviour and show them how they should respond in unfamiliar situations.  It is a means by which children can imitate adults and act out various situations.  But, remember even dramatic play, is still play!  Don't make it arduous.  It's just a way to re-enact situations or practice behaviour and use their imagination!  Most of all, its a way to have some FUN!

When children dress up and do dramatic play, they can try out new roles, experiment with behaviour and watch for other people's reaction.  It's a way to further understand their world.

How can you encourage this type of play?  Here are a few tips.

Be a playmate. Don't just tell them what to do; get down there and play with them!  If you become a playmate, an equal, it will seem that you are both on the same level and this may encourage dramatic play.  Act out going shopping, going out for coffee, going to a library.  Get your child to talk and act like the shopkeeper or librarian.  Choose a situation that your child will relate to.  Keep it casual, keep it simple and keep it fun.

Don't interfere. If you want to encourage creative, dramatic play try not in interfere too much or lead the game.  Try not to suddenly announce all stop for lunch and spoil the flow.  Why not have lunch in the underground cave or on the pretend plane?  Play along with what they are doing.  Welcome their ideas.

Space. Creative play needs space so try to create some space that can be used and not worry too much about it getting messy or untidy!  A dining room table can become a cavern, the sofas can be moved round to create an indoor play house.  It can all be tidied away afterwards!  It helps the children be creative in their play and makes them feel they are a little in control of the game if their ideas of building a blanket rocket are not always met with a no!

Ideas. Use things you see or read about as ideas for imaginative play.  Create a fairy cave or a vets on the moon in your living room and try and encourage any ideas your child has.

It's a good idea to have a collection of bits and pieces that you can use again and again for dramatic play.  You could use an old cardboard container as a prop box and keep some useful props in there at the ready.  Or, just gather the bits and pieces as you need them.  Below are some ideas of things to put together to really make a bit of imaginative play into something really special - especially if you permit your child to use real, grown-up items!

Ideas for a prop box:

• At the Beach: Sunglasses, towel, sun cream, shells, play food, picnic rug, sun hats
• The Vets: Stuffed animals, cotton wool balls, doctor's kit, blanket, basket, money, boxes, real carrot for the rabbit
• Post Office: Pens, paper, paper clips etc.  Paying-in slips and forms from a real post office/bank.  Money, envelopes, junk mail, hole punch, stamper.
• Decorator (a good one for outside!):  Buckets and pots of water, apron, different sized paintbrushes, child step to reach high, cap, rags and cloths.

Put a bit of thought into your dramatic play together and you'll find you both really enjoy it!

World Book Day 2010 falls on Thusday, 4th March (in the UK) and events all over the country are already underway to embrace and celebrate reading, why not attend an event in your area?  The World Book Day website has a list of events largely focused on public libraries.  If your children don't already borrow books from your library, then this offers the perfect opportunity to join up and introduce your children to the wonders of books!

World Book Day was designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading.  In the UK events are organised by a charity with financial backing from National Book Tokens, publishers and booksellers.  The aim is to encourage children to explore the pleasures of reading and encourage book ownership.  World Book Day is celebrated in over 100 countries, although most countries celebrate it on St. George's Day (April 23rd).

Even if there aren't any events local to you, you can always organsie your own World Book Day event in your own home!  Why not dress your children as characters from their favourite books and have a special reading in the afternoon where you read their favourite books to them?  Visit the shops and let them choose a new book to buy, or arrange with friends to lend your favourite stories to each other so that you can share the delights of your own library!

The EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) is a set of guidelines provided by the government to set the standards for the learning, development and care of children. It covers babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers from birth to age 5.

It gives childminders, carers and nurseries guidelines within which they can care for and guide the children. It provides targets for children and a means by which to measure a child's progress.

There are six Areas of Learning and Development defined in the Early Years Foundation Stage. These are as follows:

1. Personal, Social and Emotional Development: This includes among other things how to make a maintain relationships, self-confidence and self-esteem; behaviour and self care and children's sense of community.
2. Communication, Language and Literacy: How children use and develop language to speak, how they think, how they learn letters and soundsm how they learn to read and write.
3. Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy: This includes numbers, counting, shapes and calculating.
4. Knowledge and Understanding of the World: How children explore new places and objects; how they design and make things. How they use information and technology to learn; also, time, history and other people's cultures.
5. Physical Development: How children move and use space and equipment, their health and bodily awareness.
6. Creative Development: How children respond to what they see, hear, feel smell and touch; how they use new materials and make new things; dance, music and imaginative play.

Since 2008 all childminders registered in England who look after children must deliver the EYFS and be inspected by OFSTED.  Although childminders are trained professionals, its not restricted to them alone and parents can also learn a great deal from the EYFS and the guidelines it offers.

All of ToucanLearn's activities are linked to the EYFS Areas of Learning and Development which means premium members can search for activities within each area and encourage and entertain their children with appropriate crafts, games and activities.

The EYFS makes it easy for childminders and parents to see what each child should be doing. ToucanLearn gives a practical implementation and a whole lot of fun!

The use of the internet and computers in schools is becoming increasingly important for learning, research and having fun, but how can we ensure appropriate, and safe use of such a phenomenal resource? ICT is covered in the Early Years Foundation Stage Areas of Learning and Development, so it is recognised that little ones of reception or pre-school age should be introduced to the computer.

The first thing is to do is chat with your child about the internet and what it can be used for. Show them your emails, show them how to type keys and letters on screen.

Try a bit of 'art' with a drawing package, make it fun and simple.

Talk about the internet and what can be found there. Look up a favourite character together, or a local landmark you have been to or a map of your home area. Keep it simple and fun!

As they become more confident and begin to work independently, just be there to guide and help them practice their skills, learn about the keyboard and navigate the child-friendly sites that exist.

Place the computer somewhere central so you can keep an eye on how things are looking. Don't put computers in the bedroom if you can help it. Make it a family event when you do some online games or learning together as a family. Talk about what you are doing on line and make it easy for the children to flag up a problem if they encounter something.

The internet is a fabulous resource, but be aware of the potential dangers of allowing little children too much access.

Shapes and colours are amongst the first concepts that babies learn and learning them helps to stimulate connections in the brain that will continue to serve your baby as they learn throughout their childhood.  Learning both shapes and colours with your baby can be fun for both of you.  Here's a fun idea on how to familiarise your baby with both.

Take two potatoes and cut them in half so that at least one of the cross sections makes a circle.  Now carve the other faces into a rectangle, square and triangle. You now have four large stampers!

Dip the face of the potatoes in finger paint and stamp different coloured shapes onto a large sheet of paper.  Practice the stamping and discuss each shape with your baby - count the sides on the shape and point your finger around each shape as you show them.  Start with a single colour and state the colour with each stamp: 'red circle', 'red square', 'red triangle', 'red rectangle'.  Wipe the paint off the face each time and then start on another colour.

When you have played with these for a bit, show the effect of mixing colours; demonstrate how two colours mixed together create a different colour.  Try mixing various combinations of colours to create a varied array.

Playing with shapes and colours will help to cement these concepts in your child's mind and start them on a learning path that will set them up well for school in a few years!

It's never too early to introduce your toddlers to science - you don't call it science, of course, but there are plenty of fun activities that you can do to help build an understanding of the world around them.  Here are a few ideas:-

Weather: Create a series of card pictures for different types of weather, and a picture for each of the seasons.  Each morning look at the weather and put the appropriate weather and season pictures up on the wall.

Faces: Create a large picture of a head and then create a series of different eyes, noses, mouths, ears, eyebrows, hair and pairs of glasses.  Have your toddler create faces, placing features in the right place.  Discuss different coloured eyes, different shaped features and talk about what glasses are for.

Planting: Buy some cress or mung beans, plant them in a plastic pot, water them and watch them grow.  Have your child chart the progress each day as they germinate and shoot up.  Discuss the ways that they change each day, draw how they look and at the end, make a sandwich and enjoy them!  Talk about how healthy they are and that good food makes you grow.

Colours: Show how mixing finger paints creates different colours.  Create swirling patterns on paper by pouring on generous amounts of paint and swirling with your finger.

Growing: Use a wall to mark the height of your children.  Have them stand against the wall, make a pencil mark at the height they stand and measure how tall they are.  Add a date, and repeat on the first day of each month.  Sometimes you'll see almost no difference, other months you might notice change.  Over a prolonged time you will see how they grow.  Discuss what makes you grow and the concept that your little ones are growing into big children.

These are just a few ideas, there are hundreds more activities that you can undertake with your toddlers to get them used to the concepts of science, and to spark an interest in the world around them.

Getting your baby used to water is very important - taking them for a swim as soon as you are able can make them more confident in the water, more relaxed and open to learning to swim a few years down the road. It's good exercise for Mums and a great reason to get out of the house when you have a new baby. However, beyond all these benefits (and certainly not belittling them) is the wonderful twenty minutes you can spend with your baby or toddler being really close, playing games and having fun!

Tips for having fun in the pool with a baby

• Have a practice run... play some games and sing songs together in the bath!
• Try to go to the pool off-peak.  Avoid loud water aerobics lessons or school swimming lessons.
• When you get in the pool for the first time, start gently by sitting yourself on the side of the pool and do some gentle splashing.
• Once you get in, keep baby close and sprinkle water on his back and arms.
• Keep plenty of eye contact, hold baby close to your body at all times and keep your face near her.
• When you are more confident, move baby through the water, cradling and supporting at all times and keep them close to you.  Lots of body contact feels great in the water for you and for baby too!
• The weightlessness of swimming feels lovely for baby too - so enjoy moving through the pool together focusing on the unusual properties of water and how it changes how you both feel!

When to get out

• As soon as your baby begins to shiver, get them out and wrap in a towel.
• Only start with short sessions to begin with - about 10 minutes may be enough.  Remember, you're not looking for value for money - you're introducing your little one to swimming!  Certainly if your baby is under one don't stay longer than thirty minutes.
• Don't go if your baby is unwell or has a cold.
• Check with your GP if your baby has dry skin or nappy rash.  Swimming may help or may irritate some conditions.

Dry your baby well and keep them warm after a swim.  Enjoy the time together and be as close and as cuddly you can.