- Reading, talking, telling stories and singing to your baby will help them learn about language, words, and sounds.
- Have fun making funny noises, squealing and babbling together (an early form of talk).
- Tummy time strengthens your baby’s head, neck and upper body muscles. This will help them develop movement control. Try to do supervised tummy time every day.
- Toys and objects in different shapes, textures, colours and sizes can help your baby reach and grasp. Soft blocks, balls, stuffed toys and plastic rings are good options.
- Listening to music can help your baby’s hearing development. Try listening to nursery rhymes together or make your own music with items around the home. Plastic bottles filled with rice make fun shakers and you can use wooden spoons and pots and pans to make drums.
- Sitting your baby near sturdy furniture can encourage them to pull themselves up and stand. You can encourage crawling by making tunnels out of cardboard boxes or chairs.
Educational resources to use at home
Learning through play at home supports children's development. Families can use everyday items for fun, educational activities, with online resources and printable activities available below.
What is learning through play?
Children learn about the world and their place in it through play. Providing opportunities to explore, experiment, question, and discover is key to their learning, development, and wellbeing.
Children can learn through play both at home and in formal settings. Parents and caregivers are their first teachers and can support development by creating play opportunities at home.
Play can occur indoors and outdoors using everyday household items like cardboard, cups, spoons, and old clothes. Expensive toys aren’t needed. Creativity with common items supports learning through play.
Ideas for learning through play in the home
Babies
Toddlers
- Making collages with paper, scissors, and glue can help your toddler develop fine motor skills and use their creativity. You can use scraps of paper or fabric, dried pasta or cereal, tin foil, pipe-cleaners, ice-cream sticks, buttons or even natural items like feathers, sand and leaves.
- Building blanket forts or cubby houses in the home will encourage your toddler to use their imagination and solve problems. You can make a blanket fort by hanging a blanket over a table. Large cardboard boxes can be used for cubbyhouses, with holes cut out for windows and doors. You can paint and decorate the cubbyhouse together as a fun activity.
- Sports equipment like balls, rope and hoops encourage throwing, catching, jumping, running and stretching. This develops your toddler’s gross motor skills.
- Listening to family-friendly music and radio is a fun way of increasing language and communication skills. Music and rhyme can increase pattern recognition and dancing is a creative way to help your child express feelings and ideas. This can help foster their social and emotional development. Ideas for learning through play in the home
- Camp in the back yard, sit around a fire pit and tell stories or do shadow plays. Children love to get wet, dirty and tired, and learn new things.
Preschoolers
- Playing games like dress-up, make-believe, hide and seek or I Spy engages your child’s imagination and creativity.
- Playing with sensory materials like playdough can develop your child’s fine motor skills. You can buy playdough, or make it at home. Consider using shape, alphabet and number cookie cutters to build literacy and numeracy skills. You can also add textured materials like beads, buttons and pasta shells to playdough to encourage sensory exploration.
- Playing board games and sorting puzzles will help children learn to think critically and solve problems.
- Ask your child to ‘read’ you a story.
- Doing simple household tasks together like cooking, gardening, hanging up washing, feeding your pet and tidying up messes can teach children about teamwork and build their confidence.
- Building obstacle courses in the house or yard supports both fine and gross motor skills. Make obstacles using empty cardboard boxes, jump rope or cord, small ladders, hoops, cones and more to encourage movements like running, jumping, stepping, climbing, and hopping. This helps overall physical fitness and coordination.
- Reaching out to family and friends by video or phone call can foster social, communication and language skills. This sort of playful interaction can teach children how to get along with adults and other children.
- Look up and engage in activities you can do away from the home such as playgroups, libraries, or what your local council has to offer.
Download a printable version of the above activities - Learning through play (PDF 1.1MB)
Other online resources for families
The online resources below offer further activities you and your child can try at home.
Toddlers
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Stories Podcast |
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Preschoolers
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children specific. This is a school readiness resource. |
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Raising Children Network |
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Helping your child with literacy and numeracy at home This is a school readiness resource. |
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| |
Kinderling (radio available) |
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Brisbane Kids: World zoos that offer virtual tours |
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Twinkl – Dual Language Suitable for children from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. |
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| Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary |
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| Go Noodle |
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All ages
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
Twinkl - English as an Additional Language Suitable for children from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This is a school readiness resource. |
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Suitable for children with a disability. |
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| Healthy Kids |
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| Playgroup NSW |
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More resources for families
Page details
Last modified date
10/07/2026
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