This brief focuses on supporting play for all infants and toddlers. Play comes in different varieties, so it is important to learn strategies and practices that ensure each child is supported. Find the most up-to-date information to answer these prompts:

• What does research say?
• What does it look like?
• Try this!

Download the PDF

Also check out the companion resource, Connecting at Home. It includes simple tips for families to support their children's engagement and learning.

Research Notes

Play is an important part of childhood that helps children learn and grow. Play supports brain development and skills across multiple Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework domains:

• Approaches to Learning
• Cognition
• Social and Emotional Learning
• Perceptual, Motor, and Physical Development
• Language and Literacy

Creating inclusive play environments ensures that every child can participate in meaningful ways. When we understand how to make play more inclusive, we support children’s development and learning.

The Take-home

1. Play looks different for each child. Their interests, cultural background, temperament, and family values and practices will affect how they play.
2. Adult attitudes and mindsets are consistently identified as the most important factors in adults’ ability to effectively support inclusive play.
3. Play needs to feel meaningful to children. Look for ways to increase their engagement and expression during play. Support families in helping children explore their interests and feel a sense of belonging.

What does research say?

Play style varies among children.

Play is universal, but how we play and what play looks like varies across individuals. Cultural influences can affect how children play. Children might play independently or socially, engage in competition or cooperation, be comfortable or uncomfortable playing with adults, or engage less in make-believe and more in exploration. All types of play expressions are valid and should be supported.

Our biases affect what kind of play is allowed or encouraged.

To help you better understand and support inclusive play for the children in your program, it is important to investigate your values around play. Do you dislike messy play, or avoid risky play? Do you encourage boys and girls to engage equally in block play and dramatic play?

Our internal ideas of what is “acceptable play” influence how we interact with and support families’ values around play. Take the time to ask families questions about how they view play. Find ways to expand your practice in ways that align with the families’ values about play.

Intentional supports create opportunities for inclusive play.

Expanding play opportunities can provide meaningful experiences for young children. This can include observing a child’s play interests, working with families to identify materials to expand their play, and talking with children’s families about their observations. Supporting inclusive play means learning from families as well as sharing strategies with them. This helps them build emotional connections with their infant or toddler. Children who feel secure in their spaces and relationships are more likely to explore.

What does it look like?

Look for these opportunities to support inclusive play for infants and toddlers.

• Notice items and materials the child likes to play with. Can they access them easily on their own in all of their learning spaces? Modifying toys or materials to make them more accessible can be simple, such as taping paper to the floor to create easy access to an easel or moving baskets of objects to lower shelves.
• Connecting with families is key. Learn about a child’s play preferences, their family’s culture and values around play, the child’s past experiences, and their family expectations. Use these insights to find creative ways of incorporating this knowledge into the play environment, both at home and during group gatherings. What kind of playful activities does the family enjoy doing together? Ask the family if they would be willing to share a song they like or photos of an activity they do together during the next group gathering.
• Help families notice and pay attention to nonverbal cues like eye gaze, pointing, gestures, and other body language. Infants and toddlers use a variety of communication cues. It’s important to validate and reward their attempts at communication!
• Families may not understand that playing is learning for young children. It’s important to share the importance of play. Work together to create play opportunities for children. Highlight some specific skills their child is learning while they are playing together.
• Talk with the families about how they play at home and work together to create an inclusive play environment. Create inviting play spaces by moving toy boxes to the floor for easy access, or even temporarily creating play spaces with furniture.

Try this!

The parent is the child's most important teacher, and you are their "guide on the side." Use these tips with families to help them support how their child learns:

• Encourage families to follow their child’s lead during play and discuss how it went. It might be a new, insightful experience for them!
• Model expanding on a child’s interest. If they love maracas, sing a song together with the maraca, or create a craft where they make their own. Try shaking other objects together to see if they make noise.
• Encourage parents to invite other children or peers to join in. This could be siblings, cousins, or neighbors. Play can be a supportive social experience. Make sure there are opportunities for each child to participate. For example, have them take turns stacking rings. Invite older children to copy the younger child’s movements, vocalizations, or actions with a toy.
• Model exploring objects through every sense. If you and the parent are exploring leaves, describe the experience: Can you hear it? Can you smell it? What do you see? What does it feel like? Including a multisensory experience allows children to engage in different ways.
• Use open-ended materials like boxes, bowls, and blocks to encourage creative play. Support parents in identifying materials their children can play with. For a crawling baby, suggest placing different materials on the floor for them to crawl over and explore. As they do, talk about different textures, shapes, colors, and patterns.
• Ask families if you can help them find items around the home that nurture children's curiosity, creativity, attention, and persistence.
• Help families adapt materials and activities to their child's ability level. Families might remove a couple of rings from a stacking toy to simplify the activity. Adding popsicle sticks to book pages can make them easier to turn.
• Encourage families to expand on everyday routines with their children. During bath time, they can use different words to describe the movement of water or introduce a new household item like a sponge.

Learn More

• Inclusive Learning Environments for Infants and Toddlers
• Playful and Fun Learning Environments for Infants and Toddlers
• Learning at Home and Homelike Environments

Connecting at Home

Play is natural for all children, though it looks different for each child. Follow your child's lead and see where the magic will take you!

Play with Me

With just a few simple changes, you can boost your success as a play partner with your child. Facing each other while playing, taking turns together, and using simple language like “put the ball in the box” can help boost your child’s motivation and interest in play.

Make It for Me

Be ready to adapt different activities for your child. Do they get overwhelmed when choosing what to play with? Try offering two to three different toy choices for them to choose from, and cycle in other toys another time. Experiment with different places to play. For example, move their blocks to the table where they can be seated, and see how that affects their attention.

Turn Out the Lights

Create a fun hide-and-seek game with your toddler by hiding toys in various safe places. Turn the lights off and guide them with a flashlight to the objects. Let them guide you to find objects too!

What’s inside?

Take a familiar object, like a spoon or a small toy, and hide it inside a sock or wrap it in a scarf. Allow your child to explore the different textures and feel the object inside. Narrate what you see them do and what textures they might be feeling. When they pull out the object, it will be a surprise discovery!

« Go to Connecting Research to Practice

Last Updated: October 2, 2024