Play can be an important tool for promoting learning as well as have a significant impact on a child’s life. The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) suggests the following tips for promoting learning through play:

• Encourage exploratory play. This type of play prompts children to use their senses as they explore, discover, examine and organize their play activities. Balls, sand and water toys, slides, swings, finger paints and magnets can be used for exploratory play.
  
  
• Encourage the child to perform specific tasks. This can promote eye-hand coordination and dexterity. Parents and caregivers can encourage this by asking the child to stack cereal boxes, slip coins in a piggy bank or play with a deck of cards. Play items like puzzles, pegboards, beads and lacing cards also can be useful for promoting eye-hand coordination and dexterity.
  
  
• Encourage imaginative or symbolic play. This includes role-playing games, playing with dolls and stuffed animals, toy houses and furniture and telephones, etc. Not only is pretend play fun, but it also can encourage good social skills and a positive self-image in children.
  
  
• Choose age-appropriate toys, and supervise the child when introducing them as necessary. Parents and other caregivers also should keep in mind that toys do not have to be expensive or complicated to promote learning. Household objects like pots and pans, empty boxes, spools of thread, shoelaces and wooden spoons can stimulate activity. Parents and caregivers should keep in mind that the best toys are ones that require active participation.
  
  In addition, parents and caregivers also need to consider whether a child needs supervision while playing with the chosen toy. Toys and other play items that pose choking or injury risks such as items that have small parts that break easily or can be swallowed should not be given to young children, especially without supervision.
  
  
• Sharing and turn taking. Emphasis on these concepts is important for the development of a child’s social skills. Toys and educational games may be used to practice this skill.