* Glue a set of six clear magazine photographs of fruits that babies and toddlers in your care will recognise on to white cards.
* Buy real examples of the fruit in the photographs.
* Place the cards and fruit in a bowl or basket.
* Sit on a mat with one of the babies in your care and place each of the cards on the floor beside the bowl.
* Look at one photograph at a time, name the fruit, describe it and name it again.
* Take the fruit from the bowl and compare them to the photographs. Match some to the cards and mismatch others, then exclaim when you correct your mistake!
* Let the baby play with the cards and fruit.
* Run your hands over the fruits, smell them and describe their feel and smell.
* Roll the fruit to the baby and encourage them to pick up the fruit and put them back into the bowl.
* Cut up a few of the fruits and taste them together.
Shape up
* Cut sets of shapes from card, for example squares, rectangles, triangles, stars and hearts. Make the sets of different colours and including shapes of varying sizes.
* Make a black master card of each of the largest shapes.
* Place the smaller shapes in a basket.
* Space out the master cards on the floor like a series of stepping stones.
To start with, use only two very different shapes.
* Invite a child to walk along your shape path. As you move to each new shape, bend down, look at it and run your finger round its edge.
* Name the shape, but remember the main aim of the activity is to have fun exploring the shapes, not teach their names.
* Suggest that the child helps you place all the smaller shapes on the matching master cards.
* Look at a small shape together, compare it to one or two of the 'stepping stones' and ask the child where it should go or where they would place it.
It doesn't matter if they get it wrong.
* Then encourage the child to place the shapes on their own, offering support when necessary.
* Repeat the activity using more shapes.
* You could also repeat the activity using sets of splodges, all of the same shape but in different colours.
Alice Sharp is director of the training company Experiential Play, Glasgow
