Number and Play Session 1

I’ve recently started going with Tristan to a local baby and toddler group and as well as being a drop in centre in my local town with various activities, events and groups happening throughout the week at the centre they also do Satellite sessions in surrounding villages for parents within the community to get together and benefit from what they have offer. 

We have been to their main centre a few times now and it’s lovely to see Tristan play with other little ones.  As I am eager to encourage learning in a fun way and to expose Tristan to creative activities, language, number, songs and a whole lot more I decided to sign up to the centre’s Number and Play course in my local Satellite session in the village next to mine.

The other day was our first ever visit to the Satellite session and after that we had our first Number and Play session.  There were a few other families at the satellite session but all of the children were at least a year older than Tristan.  He had a lovely time though, having a good old look around the hall and playing with toys and he liked his new pal, a 3 year old who followed Tristan around the place wanting to play with him.

Including me and Tristan there were 5 families for the Number and Play course, with 2 members of staff from the centre hosting the course.  During this first session we looked at songs and nursery rhymes that include numbers, singing along to lots of different ones.  They had provided a prop that they had made for one of the nursery rhymes for the children to play with as they sang the nursery rhyme.  It was great for the children to interact with the prop which was great for reinforcing the elements of the nursery rhyme.  Even though Tristan was a little too young to play with the prop himself we did the actions to lots of nursery rhymes and he was squealing in delight watching everyone else and hearing us sing songs.

We also got creative and decorated our own little birds to use as props for the nursery rhyme Two Little Dickie Birds.  It was a tad tricky attempting this with Tristan as he was teething quite bad and was attempting to put anything and everything in his mouth to chew on but we had a little go at decorating a little bird.

Tristan's little birdie

We were given two books to take home, one a Number and Play home time book that has lots of ideas and suggestions about what you can do at home to encourage learning numbers in a fun way and a bilingual Stories, Songs and Rhymes book with CD.

  

I’m looking forward to the next session where we are taking Tristan’s favourite teddy bear with us for a little picnic.  Even though Tristan can’t be as hands on creative and interactive as the other children there who are older I want him to get used to things like this and it gives me great ideas of what to do with him at home when he is a little older to make learning fun.