Play is a child’s chief method of learning about the world. Even basic forms of play – such as shaking a baby rattle – may offer lessons that can spur a child’s emotional, cognitive, social and motor development.

Children learn by playing on their own, with their parents and/or other caregivers, and with other children. Play tends to be solitary or with parents during infancy and gradually grows to incorporate other children after a child turns 3 or 4 years old.

Newborns can be introduced to simple toys, such as rattles, textured toys, musical toys and unbreakable crib mirrors. Toys that have contrasting colors and patterns and features such as curves can stimulate the child’s vision. Parents can also take a more active role in teaching their child through play. Making funny faces at an infant and smiling can help the child to learn to express similar emotions through imitation.

Children between 1 month and 3 months of age are increasingly alert and curious, and will begin to initiate actions rather than just responding to a parent’s overtures. They are capable of grasping and holding rattles and will begin to swat at and grasp favorite toys.

Between the ages of 4 months and 7 months, children begin to roll over, sit up and reach for things and generally become more active. As a result, parents are urged to create a safe area where a child can play. Babies this age are very likely to pick up objects and bring them to their mouths. For this reason, parents should be especially careful to make sure babies cannot reach (or even see) objects that are small enough to present a danger of choking.

Between the ages 8 months and 11 months, babies become even more mobile and inquisitive through crawling and pulling themselves up. Opportunities for play expand – as do the potential dangers. As children approach their first birthday, they may be able to perform tasks such as bringing two cubes together, placing objects into a container and pulling them out, poking with their index finger, and imitating words and gestures.

Sometime around 1 year to 14 months of age, children speak their first words. Once language skills develop, they can be incorporated into play. During the time a child is 1 to 5 years old, play will gradually become more sophisticated and more social, with peers being invited into the child’s playtime. Parents can help facilitate this process by introducing their child to potential playmates.

Children in this age group also will engage in “symbolic play” by imitating a parent’s actions or playing with play food, dolls and dress-up clothes. By this age, children understand that toys are symbols of things in real life.

Play is a child’s most important tool for learning basic concepts and ideas, communication and socialization techniques, and physical skills. Children learn virtually everything through play, and many experts have noted that play has the same role in a child’s life that work and study have for adults.

Play can help spur a child’s emotional, cognitive, social and motor development. Early in a child’s life, very basic forms of play have a significant impact on learning. For example, seemingly simple actions such as sitting on a rocking horse and leaning forward to make the horse move teach vital lessons about cause and effect. As a child grows, more sophisticated forms of play come to the fore. For example, older children may use stuffed animals or toy figures to create elaborate stories that emphasize the creative imagination.

As children play, they tend to learn in spurts. Once they learn an activity or concept, they continually practice it until they have it mastered. When they move on to learning a new skill, they sometimes appear to forget the skills they mastered earlier. However, once they feel comfortable using a new skill, they will return to using the older skills while also integrating their new lessons into their skill set.

Children learn by playing on their own, with their parents and/or other caregivers, and with other children. Play tends to be solitary or with parents during infancy and gradually grows to incorporate peers after a child turns 3 or 4 years old.

Parents often struggle to find the time and energy necessary to play with their children on a regular basis. However, such play time is vital to a child’s development. Play does not have to be elaborate, but merely has to challenge the child to learn new concepts or to practice lessons they have already learned. In many cases, parents merely need to give the child a start – such as demonstrating how to use clay – and the child will do the rest. In the case of highly imaginative play (such as creating stories involving stuffed animals or toy figures), parents are advised to leave the child alone unless they are invited to join the child.

Although play can enhance a child’s learning, it is important that parents not turn this fun time into a task or chore. Parents are urged to avoid boring the child, or making the child feel like the parent’s love is conditional based on how the child performs during these games. Children who enjoy learning at an early age are more likely to be encouraged to continue to explore new concepts and ideas.

At this age, babies learn primarily through play with their parents or other caregivers. The newborn seeks out faces and responds to the calming effects of parents’ voices and smiles.

Parents can begin to introduce simple toys into the child’s life. These include rattles, textured toys, musical toys and unbreakable crib mirrors. Toys that have contrasting colors and patterns and features such as curves can stimulate the child’s vision, which will lead to increased interaction with the environment.

Parents can also take an active role in teaching their child through play. Making funny faces at an infant and smiling can help the child to learn to express similar emotions through imitation. Parents can also shake a rattle in front of their child and encourage the newborn to focus on and follow the toy.

Placing the baby on his or her stomach can help strengthen the neck and shoulders. However, this should only be done for short periods of time, and babies should always be placed on their backs during sleep to decrease the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Infants are increasingly alert and curious during this time period, and will begin to initiate actions rather than just responding to overtures. Babies are capable of grasping and holding rattles and will begin to swat at and grasp favorite toys.

Parents are urged to provide babies of this age with colorful objects of various textures, shapes and sizes that can be explored. Infant gyms provide babies with objects that dangle. The baby will swat at these objects. Parents can hold toys just out of the baby’s reach and encourage the child to swat at or grab them. Toys should not be strung up onto cribs or other baby equipment, because the child may become tangled in them.

Parents can also encourage play by sitting the baby on a parent’s lap and gently clapping the baby’s hands together. Other techniques include stretching the arms overhead, or moving the baby’s legs in a pedaling motion. Parents are also encouraged to create games or songs that have a rhythmic pattern that suddenly change at the end. Over time, the child will learn to anticipate the change and may indicate this through laughing or a similar reaction.

Parents can also continue to engage in some of the play activities that they introduced when their child was a newborn, such as shaking and hiding a rattle for the child to find.

Babies should be able to almost hold their heads in line with their bodies by the end of their fourth month. To test this, lay the child on their back and use the baby’s arms to gently pull up to a sitting position. Watch to see where the head is in relation to the rest of the body as the child moves upright.

At this age, babies begin to build on the concepts they have learned and to explore them in greater detail. Various colors, patterns and shapes will grab the baby’s attention and as the baby explores them, lessons about touch, shape and texture will be learned. Babies also love to imitate their parents at this age. Interactive games such as peek-a-boo and patty-cake can be introduced at this point. Although the child may not be able to precisely repeat all the steps in these games, the simple act of trying is fun and beneficial.

Parents are urged to create a safe area where the child can play. This space should be big enough to incorporate the fact that by the end of this period, the child may be rolling over, sitting up and reaching for objects. This area should contain a variety of items of various sizes, shapes, colors and textures. It is acceptable to incorporate items not traditionally thought of as toys, such as wooden spoons and plastic cups. Any item can be used as a toy as long as it is safe for the child to handle. Using non-toy items for play also can help children learn about their use in everyday life. 

Babies this age are very likely to pick up objects and bring them to their mouths. For this reason, parents should be especially careful to make sure babies cannot reach (or even see) objects that are small enough to present a danger of choking.

Children also begin to develop a sense of object permanence at this time in their lives. This is the understanding that items continue to exist even when no longer in sight. Parents who partially hide a toy or other object may discover that their child will search for the object. In addition, babies often begin to drop objects in order to watch people retrieve them. This gives them a sense of cause and effect – when they drop something, a person reacts by picking it up.

Parents and caregivers can build on the techniques they used to play with the child during earlier stages of development. For example, when laying the child down on his/her stomach, parents can place a toy just in front of the child. This encourages the child to reach out and grasp the toy.

Incorporating new toys into a child’s play can enhance the learning experience. For example, toys that make noises when manipulated or see-through toys that show motion can help stimulate a child’s learning.

As babies become even more mobile and inquisitive at this age, the opportunities for play expand – as do the potential dangers. Babies look everywhere for items they can pick up, shake, throw or put into their mouths. Babies learn to crawl, pull themselves up and walk while holding onto furniture at this time, making more items available to them. Parents and other caregivers are urged to be extra vigilant about keeping all small and potentially dangerous items out of sight and out of reach.

At this age, babies begin to play their own version of peek-a-boo in which they may disappear around a corner, then look back to see if the other person is still there. This helps them test their newfound understanding of object permanence – the notion that an object still exists even when it is out of sight. They are also able to spot even minor variations in repetitive games such as patty-cake. Other games that can help a child learn at this age include hide-and-seek (a parent can hide a toy or oneself and ask the baby to seek), counting games and recitation of nursery rhymes.

Parents and caregivers are urged to provide toys that help the child develop hand-eye coordination, such as squeeze toys or even cups and bowls that the child can splash around during bath time. Reading to the child from books with vivid illustrations can help the child to identify certain people and objects. For example, begin by asking the child to point out simple concepts, such as a picture of the moon.

Children progress rapidly at this age. By the time they approach their first birthday, they may be able to perform tasks such as bringing two cubes together, placing objects into a container and pulling them out, poking with their index finger, and imitating words and gestures.

Sometime around 1 year to 14 months of age, children speak their first words. Once language skills develop, they can be incorporated into play. For example, parents can ask children to identify the location of their nose or the family pet. Pronunciation is less important at this point than the act of verbalizing. In addition, parents can model appropriate times for verbalization. For example, if a child points to a favorite book, the parent can respond with a verbal question such as “Read the doggie book?”

This is the age when children begin to use their play skills to develop social relationships with other children. Parents can help facilitate this process by introducing their child to potential playmates. Initially, a child may play alongside other children without any interaction – a style of play known as parallel play. If the child does interact, it may be in an apparently negative manner, such as grabbing a toy away and shouting “Mine!” Physical confrontations are common among children in this age group.

However, by the time a child is 18 months old, such confrontations should give way to more productive social interactions. Children learn from one another by copying each other’s style of play and by mimicking each other’s behavior (such as laughing when their peer laughs).

Parents can also subtly increase the complexity of certain tasks as children grow older. For example, by 15 months, many children can successfully point to the lion in a group of illustrated animals.

Children in this age group also engage in “symbolic play” by imitating a parent’s actions. For example, they may follow their parent around with a dust rag and help perform housework or take a toy shovel out to help dig the garden. They may also enjoy playing with play food, dolls and dress-up clothes. By this age, children understand that toys are symbols of things in real life. Parents can also encourage their child to mimic adult behaviors, such as brushing teeth or putting on shoes.

Symbolic play is an important tool for learning a wide range of lessons. It helps teach the difference between real things and imaginary things and contributes to the cognitive development necessary to understand and manipulate symbols. This is an important factor in learning to add and subtract, and to read and write.

Other toys that can help children to explore and experiment include toy trains, outdoor swing sets and slides, crayons, blocks, and pots and pans. Children can develop fine motor skills and sharpen their analytical skills with pegboards, puzzles and shape-sorters. For example, using shape-sorters helps them to distinguish a square from a triangle. Toys than can be pushed, pulled, ridden or climbed on help children develop gross motor skills. Balls encourage the development of hand-eye coordination while playing with sets of toys, cars or animals promote sorting and categorization abilities.

By the end of a child’s second year, most boys and girls are able to engage in symbolic play, speak two-word sentences, follow instructions and imitate expressions. Over time, they will become increasingly sophisticated in using these techniques. They may first use objects that are miniature versions of real items (e.g., toy cups and plates). Eventually, they learn to pretend other items, such as a piece of cardboard, can be a plate.

By the time children reach age 3, they have a firm grasp of spatial relationships and can improve this understanding by completing puzzles. They can also identify colors. Imaginative play becomes increasingly creative and involves more elaborate storytelling. Despite all this advancement, children at age 3 may not yet have a firm grasp of the difference between reality and fantasy. They may even view cartoon characters and computer games as having a basis in reality, and may believe that their parents have omnipotent powers.

Around the age of 3, children also begin to play more cooperatively. They can learn that they have to take turns during games. They also begin to test their playmates by teasing them or displaying anger toward them in an attempt to see how far they can push while still remaining friends.

By age 4, children are becoming much more aware of all aspects of their lives. Their play with peers is highly cooperative and they begin to comfortably engage in activities such as ball games, playing house and building things together (e.g., with blocks or sand). They are much more likely to share toys, and have learned that sharing belongings with others means this act is likely to be reciprocated.

Imaginative play continues to become more creative, with children frequently using storytelling through toys as a way to act out their emotions. Parents should not become alarmed if this play occasionally has violent overtones (e.g., having two stuffed animals fight one another), as this is a way for the child to release aggression.

Children this age often develop imaginary friends with whom they may “play” when they are alone. This is normal, and typically is only considered a problem if children repeatedly blame their imaginary friend for bad behavior. Children this age can also learn to develop mental and physical skills by trying out equipment at a local playground.

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.

Preparing questions in advance can help parents have more meaningful discussions with physicians regarding their child’s conditions. Parents may wish to ask their child’s doctor the following questions related to learning and play:

1. What toys and techniques will best stimulate my newborn’s learning?
   
   
2. How can I be sure a toy is safe for my child?
   
   
3. What things should I keep in mind while creating a safe play area for my child?
   
   
4. What signs might indicate that my child has developed a sense of object permanence?
   
   
5. Which toys can help develop my child’s hand-eye coordination?
   
   
6. What are some tips for incorporating verbalization into my child’s learning?
   
   
7. How can I encourage my child to play with other children?
   
   
8. What should I do if my child has trouble getting along with other children?
   
   
9. At what age should I start taking my child to the playground?
   
   
10. How will I know if my child’s belief in an imaginary friend is a problem?