All the fun activities that you do with your child at home are important in supporting their learning and development and have long lasting effects on your child's learning as they progress through school.

Even when your child is very young and not yet able to talk, talking to them helps them to learn and understand new words and ideas. If you make the time every day to do some of the following things with your child it can make a real difference to your child's confidence as a young learner.

• Sing to them and tell them nursery rhymes.
• Talk about numbers, colours, words and letters you see when you are out and about.
• Allow your child to cut and stick pictures from magazines.
• Cook/bake together.
• Plant seeds or bulbs in a pot or garden patch.
• Use the weather: shadows, rain, puddles, snow, wind, mist and sun to extend your child's vocabulary.
• Explore the park at different times of the years.
• Share a book.
• Talk to your child at every opportunity e.g.what are you doing today?
• On a trip to the supermarket, talk about all the different packaging and shapes.

Try to talk to your child's key person as often as possible about what your child has been doing, what they have enjoyed, what they needs to be doing more of and what you can do at home.