Learning through everyday activities#

Everyday activities like cooking meals, getting dressed, and helping to sort the washing are great opportunities for learning.

When tamariki help, they learn to make a valued contribution to their whānau | family. Helping can give tamariki a feeling of confidence.

Talking with your tamaiti | child during everyday activities helps their language develop and helps them learn about the world around them.

Use of space in the home#

The way the home is organised can change how tamariki play, share, and get along with each other.

You can help to avoid conflicts and help tamariki focus on what they’re doing by making some separated spaces in a room.

A space behind a couch could be used by 2 tamariki to build towers with boxes, while another tamaiti dances in the main part of the room.

Perhaps noisy play can happen in a hallway or bedroom while a school student is studying in the main room.

Tamariki of different ages often like playing together, but sometimes they’ll also want to do their own thing. A high table can create a space for older tamariki to do things that are unsafe for babies or to play with things that are easily broken. For babies, try to make space on the floor that is safe for them to move around freely.