Now did you know how important creative play is for your toddler's development? It's not just fun, although it is fun, it also affects your imagination and even the future in numeracy skills. Joining us today on the Ant-Mum Pedipro 3 Coffee Group Child Development Experts, Emma Hurrell and Nathan. Well, it's good morning, Tivo. Good morning. Lovely to have you here. Let's start with you, Emma. Firstly, what would you call creative play? It's spontaneous self-directed play, during which children have the freedom to express their thoughts and feelings. It can be initiated through different contexts and materials, but I think the beauty of creative play really shines through when children use a familiar object, but in a new and unusual way. So we're not just talking about painting and and finger painting and that sort of thing. No, I mean there's a variety of different creative play activities which we'll be speaking about. Yes. Nathan, when kids use your imagination, what's going on in their brains? It's really about using both sides of the brain. The stuff that we tend to want our kids to produce, you know, what colour is this, and what number comes after that is all very left brain. So creative play, I think, more is a right brain thing. And really true intelligence is found in that connection between the left and the right brain. So in the brain, this area called the Corpus Colossum that joins the left in the right brain, it's lots to do with integrating, it's just lots to do with intelligence. So that's really exercised and strengthened by creative play. Just like Emma said, that creative play means that it's the opposite to what adults do. There is no outcome. You don't have to produce anything at the end. There doesn't have to be any purpose. It's about, I think of it as like, I used to build dams in the creek when I was a kid. There's no outcome to that because the tide's going to wash it away. There's no one's necessarily going to see it. Yeah, kids will spend hours doing those sorts of unstructured, non purposeful. I used to get lumps of clay and dry them out and then sort of carve little holes in them and then fill them up again. Right, there you go. That was an advantage. Emma, why is it so important? I mean, we've mentioned that it allows them, you know, that freedom to express their thoughts and their feelings which are so important, but it also allows for sensory exploration and murder skill development. I mean, it fosters mental growth because they have to come up with new ideas and problem solve. It develops their language skills and social skills. And as Nathan said, a lot of creative play activities involve those initial stages of numeracy. Is it creative play with the adult or is it we're talking just on the realm of the children? It can be both, but you just have to be careful because a children are so much better at it than adults. Yeah. And adults are used to being in charge and directing. So an adult, if I'm an adult gets involved, they're often try to make it towards purposeful and structured and yes, no, no, so let the, but I think have adults involved but let the child lead. They're the experts on play. Trust them. So when I had, when I only had two children before the third one, we used to play one of them would dress up as Superman and he would lead around and I would just have the newborn baby and follow around and be his sidekick. That's essentially and we would just sit in the car for ages and pretend to drive at and all sorts of things. Basically they're going, I'm so tired. But that was creative play. Absolutely. He's leading it. He was definitely leading it because I'm in the zombie. Okay, can you give us some examples of the best kind of creative play? Emma. I would say an activity that can encourage siblings to play together would be a activity like football. I mean, we all loved footballing and children can use large sheets and blankets and clothing pegs and rubber bands and they can spend hours building sports together and I think it's really important that we also come up with activities that really allow the siblings to join together and then. Yeah, you know, better cooperation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, bubbles. I mean, bubbles, you can't go wrong. Yeah, bubbles can go wrong. Can you do that? Yeah, she did. It's true. Bubbles and thoughts would be two great things to do and as a parent, when you see your children building a fort together, you do feel really quite usual. Yeah. Look at my children. Yeah, yeah. They're not near the screens. They're just building a nice little fort. Yeah, they're not pulling each other's hair out. Exactly. Everyone's playing nicely. This is great. Yeah. Finally, we've got a question from a viewer, Carla McKay. What are some tips to encourage siblings to play together while apart from the fort that we've just answered there? One of the big tips I think I can give parents for siblings to play together is when you have the second child, parents often set up sibling rivalry accidentally like I'm going, okay, I want to make sure my second baby gets the same attention as the first baby. So when the first child to sleep, I will, I'm sorry, when the second baby's asleep, I'll give child number one, all the extra attention that he's now missing out on. That sets the first child up to think life's a whole lot better when that baby's in bed and it's gone. So what I'd do is the opposite to that is that when the baby's in bed having a sleep and then you say to the three-year-old, mum's lying on the couch having a rest, play by yourself and then when the baby is up and the baby's fed and churns and held their needs met, then you give the one-on-one time to the three-year-old and the three-year-old with the baby in your arms and the three-year-old starts to think, life's a whole lot better when the baby's around. Yeah. And you set it up for siblings to get on one. I see. We can play Superman for hours with mommy when she's got the newborn baby in her arms. That's right. That's right. Yes. It was a great game. Okay. Well that's excellent advice. Thank you so much for joining us today. Both of you. Coffee Group is brought to you by Ann Mumpedia Pro 3, the only toddler milk with no added sugars. No, if you have any worries that you'd like addressed by our parenting panel, you can message the website on screen at the Cafe Facebook page. Just what if you like? Now, one contributor, well when this cool e-book from Ann Mump, hang on. It's going to... Frankie the frightened frog. Yes, it allows you to record your voice reading the stringry. Sorry Frankie, you're out. This week's winner is Karla McKay. Congratulations. you