Play is just as active and essential to learning for babies and toddlers as it is for older children, as Julia Manning-Morton explains
Many practitioners who work with babies and toddlers struggle to defend the role of play for very young children. They feel under pressure to plan their days in line with the curriculum for the Foundation Stage.
Such a top-down approach only frustrates adult and child alike. Babies become bored, while toddlers find themselves in a baby room that is too limiting or in a diluted three- to five-year-olds programme. This can lead to a negative view of babies and toddlers play, emphasising what they cant do or lack. Some adults even begin to think that babies do not really play at all and toddlers do not play properly.
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