Why it is important to incorporate active play with your child into your daily routines?
Through play, children develop who they are. Their cognitive, language and physical skills develop through their play experiences, as well as their imagination, concentration, self-confidence and sociability skills.

Why they need you (as a parent) to play with them?
Children need play to relax, learn and develop various skills such as motor skills, cognitive skills and social skills. For younger kids, play is the primary way for them to express their feelings, communicate and solve emotional problems.



How to play?
Here are my top tens:
1. Sensory bottles

2. Peek-a-boo 
Toddlers love to play simple games of peek-a-boo or hide and seek. You can take turns in hiding under cover, behind furniture and pretending to wonder where your toddler has gone. These games help to teach your toddler the concept of object permanence - that is, just because they can’t see something, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

3. Balls, balls and more balls
Balls are popular toys for one year olds. You can do so many things with them- throwing, catching, rolling, bouncing, kicking, tossing, dropping etc. Toddlers will discover a ball's abilities and the different effects of activities with it. Balls are perfect for building arm muscles and developing hand-eye coordination and timing. Moreover you can introduce colors, sizes and materials by using different balls.

4. Cooking
Let you toddlers copy what they see you doing at home. Give them tools and material to play with. Once they have an opportunity to "play as you do", they will give you more freedom in the kitchen, when you really need to do something without their assistance. Beans, pasta, a big bowl and a spoon, work always. At first you will have beans (pasta) probably everywhere, but it will give you a great basic for introducing our next play (5.). Be there with your toddler and have fun cooking together. Later on they will be able to spend hours playing with beans (pasta) independantly. You can create a sensory bin together.

5. Cleaning
Toddlers love vacuum cleaners, brooms and realistic objects they see you using around the house. Once you give them a chance to make mess (4.) and clean up after themselves, they will learn more that only eye-hand coordination. You are setting a basic of teaching them the pattern- we make mess- we clean up. You can buy one of these realistic looking sets for toddlers, if you don't want them to use the big once. Later on they will understand better, why they need to clean up their toys after whole day play.



Find more:
Active play games and activities with a plan
Play types
Fun activities fo 1 year olds