Paper is a resource that can be used in many exciting ways with babies and toddlers to stimulate their learning and promote their physical skills.
Be guided by the Birth to Three Matters framework when planning the aspects of development that you intend to encourage.
'A healthy child' is a happy child who has the confidence both to choose what to do and engage in challenging physical exercise.
'A competent child' learns from experiences by investigating the nature of the materials in the environment.
Both these aspects of development need to be supported actively by adult carers who think imaginatively and have the ability to perceive the world from a young child's point of view.
Paper mobiles
In the first few months of life, babies react with interest to contrasting colours and strong images that help them focus their eyes. They also enjoy gazing at pictures of faces and seem pre-programmed with the knowledge that they should interact with their carers, responding with interest to facial expressions and verbal interaction.
You can hang mobiles from the ceiling and over cots, ensuring that they fall to a level where babies can focus on them as they lie on rugs or sit on bouncy chairs.
Make black and white hanging mobiles with a few of the following shapes to suspend from a piece of bamboo:
* A twirling spiral - cut thick white paper in a circle and paint one side black. Draw a spiral from a point on the edge of the paper to the centre.
Cut along this line and attach a piece of thread so that it can hang on the bamboo.
* Two striped cylinders - roll two squares of thick white paper into cylindrical shapes and fix each in place with glue. Paint black stripes horizontally on one cylinder and vertically on the other.
* Paper spotty cones - make cones with pieces of triangular white paper folded over to form a cone and then glued. Paint regular black spots on the cones.
* Attach all these shapes with cotton to a length of bamboo so that the mobile is evenly balanced, and then fix the finished mobile in place.
Colours and textures
Use textured and coloured papers to create a range of interesting treasure baskets. As soon as children are able to sit on their own, they will enjoy employing their developing manipulative and sensory skills to explore materials and objects of interest.
Envelopes galore
Encourage staff, parents and carers to bring in junkmail envelopes that come in all shapes, sizes and colours and are safe to handle. Fill a basket with envelopes for the babies to play with. The bigger envelopes will fit on their heads like hats. The smaller ones can be put on your hands like gloves so that when you clap them together they make a good noise. Hide smaller envelopes in larger ones and encourage the toddlers to find them.
Use lots of rich vocabulary to describe what you and they are doing.
Shredded paper
Many offices shred sensitive paperwork, so ask the parents who work there to save it for you. A cardboard box full of shredded paper is great fun to children. Bundles of it can be pulled apart to cover your head, which will make toddlers laugh.
Grab clumps of the paper to form into small balls and roll them between you and the children. They will also enjoy holding threads of paper in their fingers and will gain confidence in practising the skill of releasing it and watching it fall as it comes to rest before them.
Shiny paper
Collect shiny paper, such as that used for packaging and wrapping gifts, and cardboard chocolate boxes for the children to play with. Sort the paper and boxes by colour, so that as the young children investigate each box, you can support them by naming the colours that they discover as they explore.
Shiny paper catches the light and makes an intriguing scratchy sound when it is scrunched in the hand. Exploit these materials as much as you can to extend children's interest and curiosity.
Newsprint
Newsprint is easy to tear, exciting to paint on, and wonderful to use to create simple shelters.
* Collect a variety of newspapers, including the pink Financial Times.
Demonstrate how to tear the paper into strips and shapes, and let children do it too. It is good fun to hear it rip apart and see the result of the action. Encourage children to enjoy tearing and throwing the paper around as much as they like. Later, make a game of collecting it all in a cardboard box or sack.
* Prepare an area for painting where young children can get as messy as they want with newspaper and paint.
* Stick large pieces of newspaper together with masking tape to make lightweight shelters strung between tables or chairs. These will provide temporary dens and exciting places where a variety of props can promote imaginative play.
Paper trails
Offer safe and challenging physical experiences by making masking tape trails on linoleum and wooden floors. Masking tape is excellent because it can be removed at the end of the day and thrown away.
Create circles, triangles, curving or straight lines with the tape, and encourage the children to move over and into them in a variety of exciting games:
* Pretending to balance like circus clowns and acrobats on tightropes
* Playing 'follow my leader' and imitating the adult or child in front of you
* Imagining that the circle of tape represents a raft at sea and that you have to fish for food and search for land. Suggest that the children use a variety of props and dressing-up clothes to embellish their creative play
* Using the lines and circles as boundaries to throw balls over and into
* Playing soothing music and leading children in a circular dance along the curving lines, and playing marching music to initiate lots of jumping into and out of the circles.
Outdoors
Young children who have been initiated into these forms of physical play gain the confidence to develop games of their own in other contexts. You can extend their knowledge and expertise by offering masking tape shapes outdoors as well.
In the garden, children will enjoy learning to steer bikes and wheelbarrows along these lines. They will learn to keep within the boundaries that are mapped on the ground and enjoy the increased physical challenges that can be posed outside.
Encourage children to be creative by telling you where they want pathways and shapes, and allow them to choose props and equipment for developing various play experiences.
Home play
Help children appreciate how to make the most of recycled materials so they can pursue these activities at home.
Ensure that parents are kept informed about what you do and explain carefully how their babies and toddlers enjoy the play. If you can communicate to them the sense of excitement that playing with paper can bring, soon they will be telling you how they use it creatively at home.