A Play Date With A Difference - Part Two

- Advertorial brought to you in association with Aptamil Growing Up milks.

Aptamil Growing Up milks have recently created a series of 'The Science of Play' videos which focus on the way toddlers interact, play and learn alongside their peers. If you, like me, have a toddler you will know how fascinating they are to watch especially when it comes to how fast they learn and how their personality just grows and grows. 

I recently teamed up with Aptamil Growing Up milks to help spread the word about the campaign and about their Science of Play videos. In doing so I created a post in collaboration with them which you can read here. On this post I write about a play date with a difference and following on from that I'm now going to write about part two of our play date.

Our outdoor play date had gone perfectly and we'd managed to do everything that I had planned. The toddlers really enjoyed the fresh air, socialising with one another and were really pleased with items they had discovered too. Once we'd had our fill of the outdoors we decided to head back home to play, create and learn with the items they had collected and foraged along the way.

Once we got back inside I set up the first of two activities that I had chosen to do, the first being Sink or Float experiment. For this activity I placed a bowl of water on a towel in the living room and lined up the items that the toddlers found on their walk; a conker, stone, twig, acorn and a handful of leaves. I then explained to them that we were going to see which items would sink, and which would float. They also had to try and guess what would happen before they placed the items into the water. They were so excited and couldn't wait to get started but I managed to calm them down and have them all sit around the bowl of water. At this age they do need a little encouragement from time to time when it comes to sharing and taking turns but on the whole they were brilliant. They each took turns in dropping the items into the water and squealed in delight every time an item would float or sink. It was such an easy activity to arrange and one that was really enjoyed by all three toddlers. 

Our second and final activity was to enjoy a spot of crafting together. I drew each of the toddlers an outline of a hedgehog on coloured paper and demonstrated how we were going to complete them. Each toddler had a handful of different coloured leaves from our walk and non toxic glue. They didn't need much help when it came to sticking down the leaves as each toddler was really hands on and felt confident in what they were doing. Once they had almost completed the task they were getting a little tired and needed a little bit of help from the parents but they were really pleased with the work they had done and were happy to take it home with them. Overall we had such a great play date and it's something we will certainly do again soon.

If you'd like to find more information about toddlerhood and learning through play head over to the 'Discover Toddlers' section at The Huffington Post to view all of the Science of Play videos.