Today Date Triggered Content

The jobs our children will do in the future might not exist yet, but with a changing world we know we’ll need innovative thinkers. We explain a bit more about what your child needs to innovate and give you some ideas for ways to play that will help support these skills. 

Divergent thinking is an aspect of creativity. It involves thinking of lots of possible solutions to a problem or task.^[1]  

"Reading and writing float on a sea of talk.”
-- James Britton, educator and researcher 

All our activities use things you’re likely to have at home or just outside your front door, and we shared our summer play kit last month which answered the question, “What do you think I have at home?” This month we thought we’d share some suggestions for a play kit that makes the most of the changing season, with our suggestions for an Autumn play kit.  

If you have any suggestions you’d add to the list, let us know on our Facebook community. 

If someone mentions creativity most of us immediately think about art and craft, but creativity is about much more than paint and glue. And we think lots of the activities that people call creative really aren’t at all, they’re much more about following instructions and conforming. If you’re ready to help your child get their creative juices flowing, we’ve got some ideas for you – and there isn’t any crafting involved! 

The Cambridge dictionary defines creativity as, “The ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas.”^[1] 

This is a story inspired by the author’s experience as a teacher, seeing children’s lack of confidence in their artistic ability. The author was motivated to help children and adults to explore and discover their creativity – and to put an end to us saying, “I can’t draw!”  

In this story, Vashti doesn’t draw a picture in art class because she says, “I can’t draw.”  

Books can be enjoyed simply anywhere and there is something rather magical about taking a good book outside to enjoy in the forest, by the stream or in the local park. Because reading is fun wherever you do it! We've compiled a list of great books that are perfect for enjoying outdoors. 

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We know spending time in nature helps our children to learn about looking after the world around them. As it's Earth day on Monday, we thought we’d share a few ideas to get you started playing and learning outdoors (and there are lots more among the ideas on your activities page).  

If you live in a built-up area you might feel that activities with nature aren’t for you, but even in a busy area you can find the natural world, either by finding a green space, noticing the plants and insects which do manage to grow in your street or even planting some seeds to bring nature into your home. 

There is growing interest in the role nature plays in learning, with many people believing that spending time with nature not only helps children (and adults) care more about the planet but also helps them learn more generally. A research review, published in February 2019, concluded that this belief can be backed by research evidence. 

On our podcast we spoke to Charlotte from Parents For Future, an organisation supporting parents to campaign for climate action.

She described the complicated emotions of raising children while aware of the climate crisis - and they shared some small changes or action you can take to reduce that anxiety. Listen to the podcast here, and read on to see how we use research to support our ideas - and to support you. 

It can be really difficult, with so much information and opinions surrounding you both online and in real life, to work you what information to trust. That’s why as well as drawing on our years of experience, and experts in their field such as Charlotte, we look into the latest research to stay up to date with current evidence.

We've gathered some of our favourite books which celebrate the beauty of Earth and give our children (and us) an understanding of how to care for it. This zero waste week, why not see if you can borrow one of these, or another book about our world, from your local library. If that’s not practical for you, you can still enjoy new books without buying new by shopping second-hand, or arranging a book-swap with some friends. 

Your ‘Discover more...’ section has a range of articles linked to the skills your child is developing now – so you can always find the information you need. You’ve told us sometimes you’d like to understand what's coming next so we’re going to be sharing themed articles all in one place.  

This time we’ve put together all our articles about feeding, weaning and nutrition.  

You want to know that everything you read is written by experts and backed by research. Our content is written by our child development team, who are experienced early years teachers and researchers.