I can hardly believe that September marks two years of The PLAYlist.

When we started it, the idea was really simple. Somewhere that we could share useful Early Years content that was rooted in child development and genuine practice.

Two years later, we have built up a huge library of articles, training, interviews, downloads, activities, live sessions and conversations.

More importantly, though, we have built a brilliant community of people who care deeply about getting Early Years practice right for children. So, whether you have been here since the very beginning, joined us last week, subscribe to the free PLAYlist or are one of our paid subscribers, thank you.

We will be doing a little bit of celebrating during September, but we have also got a packed month of new content coming your way.

Here is what you can expect…

FREE on The PLAYlist

👂 Why Saying ‘Turn Your Listening Ears On’ Doesn’t Really Help Children Listen - By Me! - CLICK HERE

We use phrases like ‘good listening’, ‘show me you’re listening’ and ‘turn your listening ears on’ all the time.

But listening is much more complicated than looking at an adult, sitting still and appearing attentive.

So in this month’s ABC article I will be looking at what listening actually requires from a young child, why some of the behaviours we traditionally associate with ‘good listening’ can be misleading and what we can do instead to support children to become more effective listeners.

❤️ Guest article from Professor Suzanne Zeedyk – Why Relationships Matter - CLICK HERE

I am delighted that Dr Suzanne Zeedyk is our guest this month.

If you have heard Suzanne speak before, you will know how brilliantly she brings together neuroscience, attachment, relationships and everyday interactions with children.

Her guest article explores why relationships really matter – not as an Early Years ‘nice to have’, but as something absolutely fundamental to children’s development, wellbeing and ability to learn.

For Paid Subscribers

🎥 In conversation with Dr Suzanne Zeedyk - CLICK HERE

Alongside Suzanne’s guest article, I will be sitting down with her for a longer conversation where we can dig much more deeply into relationships, attachment, connection and what all of this looks like in real Early Years practice.

🎓 New subscriber training – Why Sitting Still Isn’t Evidence of School Readiness - CLICK HERE

September inevitably brings conversations about school readiness.

Unfortunately, that phrase can sometimes become shorthand for children being able to sit still, listen to an adult, follow instructions and complete adult-directed tasks.

But is being able to sit still actually evidence that a child is ready for school?

In this month’s subscriber training, I am going to dig much more deeply into what we mean by school readiness and look at the difference between compliance and development.

🖐 More Than Just Dough – Getting the Most Out of Malleable Materials - CLICK HERE

Playdough is probably one of the most familiar resources in Early Years.

Which can also mean that we stop really thinking about it.

This month we are going back to malleable materials and looking at how we can get much more from them.

There will be a new ABC article exploring their potential alongside a collection of five practical activities designed to extend children’s experience beyond simply putting a pot of dough and a box of cutters on the table.

🔴 LIVE Q&A – Tuesday 8th September at 7pm - CLICK HERE

And, of course, we will be LIVE again.

Our September Q&A will be on Tuesday 8th September at 7 pm.

Pop the date in your diary.

Whether September finds you welcoming a completely new cohort or settling children back into familiar routines, I hope The PLAYlist gives you some ideas, reassurance and things to think about along the way.

Alistair

[Note: You can listen to this article by clicking the play button at the top of the page. Although I won’t ask you to turn your listening ears on!]

‘Right everybody…turn your listening ears on!’

It is one of those phrases that has become part of the furniture in Early Years. Along with ‘good sitting’, ‘looking eyes’ and the occasional request to put an imaginary zip across your mouth! We use it to signal that something is about to happen and we would like the children to pay attention.

But does telling a child to ‘switch your listening ears on’ actually work?

Possibly, but not quite in the way we might think.

I can’t find any research that has specifically tested whether saying ‘switch your listening ears on’ helps young children to listen. What research does show is that attention involves different processes. These include becoming ready to pay attention and then turning that attention towards a particular person, sound or activity.

Studies using child-friendly attention tasks have shown that children can respond to cues that signal that something important is about to happen. So a familiar phrase, gesture, sound or routine may act as a cue that something is about to happen, so move your attention over here.

Saying ‘switch your listening ears on’ does not actually switch on a special listening system. It doesn’t increase a child’s working memory capacity, remove competing sounds from the room, make unfamiliar vocabulary familiar, lower their level of stress or magically give them the ability to sustain attention for longer than they developmentally can.

It might help a child orient towards us, but that is not the same as the child being able to process, understand, remember and act upon everything we then say, and that is a really important distinction. Because very often, once we have told children to put their listening ears on, we behave as though the responsibility for everything that follows has transferred entirely to them.

You told them to listen, they turned their listening ears on…but that still doesn’t explain why they didn’t, or couldn’t, listen.

Listening is much more than hearing

If you imagine this fairly ordinary instruction like ‘put the car back in the box, find your coat and wait by the door’. That feels fairly straightforward to us, but to a four-year-old, it may be anything but.

They have to stop attending to whatever they were doing, shift their attention toward us, process the language, hold several pieces of information in mind, act on them, and then maintain the rest of the instruction while moving through an environment full of other fascinating things.

Someone has knocked over a tower, a child is singing, the outside door has opened, there is a dinosaur on the floor… and, frankly, that dinosaur looks considerably more interesting than getting your coat.

Professor Sam Wass’s research at the Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth (ISEY) is particularly useful because it challenges the rather simplistic idea that attention is something located entirely inside the child – something they either possess or don’t.

Sam’s work looks at attention as dynamic. It changes from moment to moment and is affected by arousal, the environment and interaction with other people. Researchers studied 12-month-old babies to see how their level of alertness affected what they paid attention to. They found that when a baby became more or less alert, their attention often changed soon afterwards. This doesn’t mean that babies and four-year-olds behave in exactly the same way, but it does remind us that attention is not fixed.

A child may find it easier to focus at some times of the day than at others, depending on how calm, excited, tired or overwhelmed they are.

You know your ability to listen to somebody telling you about a new initiative in a looong staff meeting is very different when you are calm, comfortable, and interested than when you are hungry, worried, late, cross, and someone is firing staples into the wall next door!

You have not suddenly become less intelligent. The conditions under which your brain is trying to process info

rmation have changed. Young children experience that too, but with systems for attention and self-regulation that are still developing.

The mental Post-it note (working memory)

I sometimes think of working memory as the mental equivalent of a Post-it note. It lets us hold information temporarily while we do something with it, but there isn’t unlimited space, and the information doesn’t necessarily stay there for long.

You experience this when somebody tells you the Wi-Fi password. You repeat it to yourself, you have got it! Then somebody asks you a question, and it’s gone…You heard it, you were concentrating, you understood every word but you just couldn’t keep it available for long enough to actually enter it.

That matters when we think about the number of verbal instructions young children receive across a day. ‘Wash your hands and sit on the carpet.’ ‘Put your book away, get your coat and find your partner.’ ‘Write your name at the top, put the pencil back and bring it to me.’

Each additional element requires information to remain available while the child is acting on the element before it.

Working memory and attention control are still developing throughout Early Years. Young children cannot yet hold lots of information in their heads or ignore distractions as easily as adults can. It is also important not to assume that practising one particular attention or memory task will automatically make a child better at concentrating in every other situation.

This brings us back to listening ears!

Practising the ritual of switching the

m on may create a useful shared cue. It does not make their Post-it note bigger or stickier.

When there is simply too much going on (cognitive load)

Cognitive Load Theory starts from the fact that working memory has limited capacity when dealing with new information. When a task needs us to process too much unfamiliar material simultaneously, performance can deteriorate.

If I ask an experienced Early Years practitioner to ‘sort snack’, that is an incredibly economical instruction. They already know what snack involves, where everything lives, which children need particular support, what needs cleaning and what the routine looks like. Give exactly the same instruction to somebody on their first morning in the setting, and it could mean almost anything.

Children are constantly encountering that difference.

We say ‘get ready to go outside’, but they may have to retrieve:

Where are my wellies? Am I allowed to go outside yet? Do I need my coat? Where is my coat? Do I put my picture somewhere first? Who am I lining up with? Where am I supposed to wait?

This is one reason routines can be so powerful. Once elements of an experience become predictable and familiar, they place fewer demands on active processing

.

It is not just about what happens in a child’s brain that is important, but the familiarity and predictability of the environment, and its impact on children’s ability to regulate and pay attention can’t be underestimated. The environment in which that brain is trying to operate can make a HUGE difference.

‘He’s easily distracted’

The Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth (ISEY) is currently undertaking work around noise in Early Years environments. Their Small Ears, Loud World work is examining how nursery sound environments may influence children’s opportunities for communication, interaction and attention. They suggest that background noise can make it more difficult for young children to process speech and maintain attention.

That should make us think differently about the phrase - He’s easily distracted. It sounds like a description of the child, but distraction is relational. A child is distracted by something.

If you are trying to listen to my voice while there are twenty-nine other voices, chairs scraping, music playing, construction collapsing and somebody shouting from the other side of the room, your brain has to work considerably harder to identify which auditory information is relevant.

Attention is not simply something children need to ‘try harder’ at, it is influenced by the environment, adult behaviour, task design, and children’s developing self-regulation.

Sometimes, before asking why a child cannot concentrate, it is worth looking at and listening to the room they are trying to concentrate in.

Attention can be supported by another person

A 2018 study found that children stayed focused for longer when they played with a parent than when they played alone. The adult’s attention and responses helped the child stay involved.

Other research has found something similar during parent–child interaction. This does not mean adults can simply ‘make’ children concentrate, but it does show that attention is not only the child’s responsibility. The way an adult joins in, responds and supports can help a child stay focused for longer.

The adult can be part of the child’s attention system. If a child is deeply involved in play, calling their name across a busy room may not be enough. They have to stop what they are doing, pick out your voice from all the other noise, shift their attention and then process what you say.

Often it is more effective to go to them, acknowledge what they are doing and give a short instruction: ‘You’ve nearly finished that apple Connor, coat next.’ We have not lowered the expectation; we have made it easier for the child to meet it. This is especially important when children are tired, upset, excited or overwhelmed, as listening can become harder.

So, should we stop saying ‘turn on your listening ears’?

For some children, in some settings, it may become a familiar and playful cue that means: Stop for a moment. Something important is coming. What I would be wary of is treating the phrase as though it has actually created attention.

A child turning to look at us does not mean they can keep listening for the next ten minutes. Sitting still does not always mean they understand what we are saying, and looking at us does not mean they will remember a long instruction. Saying ‘listening ears’ again will not help if the listening task was too difficult in the first place.

If children regularly struggle to follow what we say, I would be much more interested in what happens after the cue.

Some useful things to ask yourself would be:

• How much language are we using?

• How many things are we asking them to remember?

• How noisy is the environment?

• Could part of the information be made visible rather than verbal?

• Do they understand the vocabulary?

• Are the routines sufficiently familiar?

• Are we giving them time to process?

• What were they attending to before we interrupted?

• What is their mental and physical state?

• Does the same child listen differently during a conversation about something they are fascinated by?

That last one is particularly interesting. A child who apparently has a two-minute attention span during an adult-led carpet session may spend twenty-five minutes trying to connect guttering to a milk crate outside.

That does not mean children do not need to learn to focus for longer. It simply means that how well they pay attention can change depending on what they are doing and what is happening around them. Sometimes children don’t listen because they don’t want to. Sometimes the dinosaur really is more interesting than us. You don’t need to explain every ignored instruction through neuroscience.

But sometimes the child who appears not to be listening has heard you perfectly well. They attended to you, processed what you were saying and started the task, but somewhere between the carpet and the coat peg, the mental Post-it note dropped off, and unfortunately, telling them to switch their listening ears back on isn’t going to help them to find it!

References

Casagrande, M., Marotta, A., Martella, D., Volpari, E., Agostini, F., Favieri, F., Forte, G., Rea, M., Ferri, R., Giordano, V., Doricchi, F. & Giovannoli, J. (2022). ‘Assessing the three attentional networks in children from three to six years: A child-friendly version of the Attentional Network Test for Interaction’. Behavior Research Methods, 54(3), 1403–1415.

de Barbaro, K., Clackson, K. & Wass, S. V. (2017). ‘Infant attention is dynamically modulated with changing arousal levels’. Child Development, 88(2), 629–639.

Wass, S. V., Clackson, K., Georgieva, S. D., Brightman, L., Nutbrown, R. & Leong, V. (2018). ‘Infants’ visual sustained attention is higher during joint play than solo play: Is this due to increased endogenous attention control or exogenous stimulus capture?’ Developmental Science, 21(6), e12667.

Wass, S. V., Noreika, V., Georgieva, S., Clackson, K., Brightman, L., Nutbrown, R., Santamaria, L. & Leong, V. (2018). ‘Parental neural responsivity to infants’ visual attention: How mature brains influence immature brains during social interaction’. PLOS Biology, 16(12), e2006328.

Wass, S., Greenwood, E., Esposito, G., Smith, C., Necef, I. & Phillips, E. (2024). ‘Annual Research Review: “There, the dance is – at the still point of the turning world” – dynamic systems perspectives on coregulation and dysregulation during early development’. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 65(4), 481–507.

Wass, S. & Goldenberg, G. (2025). Take Action on Distraction: The Definitive Guide to Improving Attention and Focus in the Early Years and Key Stage One. London: Bloomsbury Education.

This month, I’m chatting with Dr Suzanne Zeedyk about attachment, connection and the enormous influence Early Years practitioners can have on children’s developing emotions.

Early Year…

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[Note: You can listen to this article by clicking the play button at the top of the page!]

Hey PLAY People,

This month’s guest article comes to us from Dr Suzanne Zeedyk!

Suzanne is a developmental psychologist, research scientist and campaigner with a particular interest in the importance of relationships in shaping children’s development, emotional wellbeing and sense of self. In this article, Suzanne explores why connection sits right at the heart of healthy development - and why the relationships we build with children matter so much.

I also recorded a fascinating interview with Suzanne that’s available to paid subscribers right now! If you’re a paid subscriber, you can find it HERE.

We hear a lot these days about relationships mattering. The call for relational practice has increased as steadily as the call for trauma-informed practice. That’s because these are essentially two different names for the same thing. Many people may not realise that, though, because they’ve had too little opportunity to understand why it is that relational exchanges matter so much for children’s development. That’s the question I’m going to explore in this piece.

In my work, the statement I make more than any other is this one: “Babies are born already connected to other people.” Babies are fascinating. They come into the world with a brain already noticing other people’s facial expressions, including eyebrow lifts, head tilts, and mouth shapes. They notice how firm or lax the arms cuddling them feel, and they take note of how fast or slow the other person’s heart beats. They keep track of how often their own vocalisations receive a reply, noting how long that reply takes and what its tone is. Babies can do all that and more at birth! It isn’t done consciously or intentionally, of course. It happens automatically, built into the way babies’ brains and bodies naturally operate. Babies are so much more sophisticated than our culture gives them credit for.

In my work teaching the public about human development, I use the word ‘connection’ to describe this capacity of babies, because that’s a pretty good starting point for building understanding. But that capacity has a fancier, more technical term when it is discussed in the scientific literature. Many researchers who study babies call that capacity ‘intersubjectivity’. That word captures the idea that there are two (or more) people involved in an interaction -- two ‘subjects’, each with their own individual experience of the interaction. There is also a space between the two of them –- the ‘inter’ place. That space matters too. In fact, for a relationship, it matters most, because it is in that in-between place that responses and replies occur. It is in that in-between place that the relationship itself is constructed.

It was only in the 1970s that scientists began to realise how sophisticated babies’ communicative skills are. Until then, they didn’t have equipment that would allow them to look closely and meticulously. By the 1970s, camera and projection technology was advanced enough and cheap enough to allow researchers to examine babies’ behaviour in minute detail. That’s when they began to realise how much is missed by the naked eye. That’s when a whole new concept of ‘what a baby is’ began to emerge amongst developmental theorists. There were some very famous fights along the way, with scientists arguing amongst themselves as old theories collapsed in the face of new forms of data.

One of the leading voices of this era was Professor Colwyn Trevarthen, based at the University of Edinburgh. He and his colleagues and students designed clever experiments that revealed just how attuned a baby was to the adults in their world. He searched for a term that could describe the capacities they were discovering, settling eventually on one that already existed within the field of philosophy. That’s how the technical term ‘intersubjectivity’ entered into the study of babies. (Later, Trevarthen would come to have reservations about his choice of that word, but it was too late. It stuck!)

That’s also how the image below came into existence. I use it often in my training events. Trevarthen created this simple line drawing to try to express the idea that babies are using all their senses, all at the same time, to keep track of other people’s communicative acts and emotional displays. They draw on vision and sound and touch and movement, integrating these sensory inputs, to come to conclusions about what another person’s intentions are –- about what relationships feel like.

The drawing tries to convey the idea that a baby’s subjective experience is meeting the subjective experience of another person, in the space that exists between the two of them. It shows how, in that in-between meeting place, relationships come to be constructed. That’s profound. Think about it. This insight is saying that it is from a nebulous, nowhere, in-between place that we each develop, as babies, unconscious beliefs about what the relational world is like. Thus, the casual, fleeting, everyday exchanges that happen in that space hold immense psychological and physiological significance. This new account of ‘what a baby is’ turns out to be dramatically different from the one our culture has traditionally held.

If you would like to see Colwyn Trevarthen talking about these capacities, there are two options that I think are a good place to start. One is with the video that accompanies the Pre-Birth to Three Guidance in Scotland^[1] and the other is the documentary film I released in 2011, called the connected baby, which contains a number of contributions from him.^[2] If you want to take another step and think deeply about how these early relational experiences go on to affect health as an adult, then have a look at the documentary film Traumality, just released this year.^[3]

I think it is incredibly valuable for the staff who work with babies and young children to understand just how social human beings are from birth. It helps them to realise how important their attention is, how rich their moments of shared laughter are, how precious the tenderness they offer. Another way of putting this is that it helps them to realise how powerful they are. The way that adults treat children in their care lasts a lifetime. The children hold the feeling of care in their biology, forever. Unconscious and unremembered, yes, but stored nonetheless in the strands of their nervous systems and neural connections of their brains. Love shapes who we become.

Ironically, that knowledge is not always comforting. At first glance, it can seem joyous and hopeful. However, it can also feel overwhelming to realise just how much power you carry as an adult. That is why I like spending time in groups, with participants musing together on the wonder of relationships, helping one another to contemplate how big that question about ‘why they matter’ turns out to be.

As a scientist, I think it is pretty cool that empirical data can be translated in a way that leaves us contemplating wondrous aspects of our own humanity. I am delighted when it means that we come to see playing together as one of the most glorious, healthy things we can do with our children. So there’s a practical tip that we can end on: let the children know how much fun you find it to spend time in their company. Your legacy will live on in their biology. That is power indeed.

^[1]

^[2]

^[3]

Find out more about Suzanne and her work here:

• Websites:

  • www.suzannezeedyk.com

  • www.connectedbaby.net

• Social media:

  • Linked In.

    ---

• Classic documentary film of infant interaction: the connected baby (2011)

• Classic research demonstration of

  Still Face Procedure (1994)

• Piece about bringing knowledge of attachment to the public (2022):

  • https://mindinmind.org.uk/thought-pieces/science-of-attachment/

• Interview article on ACEs & trauma & the science of connection (2026):

  • https://leathersellers.org/story/the-science-of-connection/

• Podcast on relationships (2026):

When children start Nursery or Reception, we can become very interested in where they sit, how long they sit there and whether they can stay on their carpet spot without wandering of…

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Note: The Paid Subscriber version of this article comes with 5 free activities related to malleable materials to download and keep. Find it HERE. Subscribe using the button below.

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[You can also listen to this article by clicking the play button at the top of the page 🔊]

Hey PLAYlisters,

Is your dough on a table with four chairs, a rolling pin, a few cutters, and one plastic knife that usually disappears by Wednesday?

If so, you are not alone!

Now, I love dough. I have spent an unfeasibly large part of my career talking about dough! But what I have discovered is that the traditional ‘dough table’ can make the developmental possibilities of malleable materials much smaller than they need to be.

A malleable material is simply something that children can change. They can squash it, squeeze it, stretch it, roll it, pull it, join it, flatten it, poke it, scrape it, cut it and build with it. Dough does all of those things, but so can clay, mud, modelling wax, damp sand, paper pulp and a whole range of other materials. What matters is not really the name of the material, it is what children can do with it.

When a child pushes hard into clay and sees the mark they have made, stretches dough until it snaps, adds water to mud and feels it change, or keeps trying to make a thin clay stand up, they are finding out how materials behave and how much force to use, what happens when they change something and what they might need to do differently next time. It is very practical and impactful learning.

Hands are connected to bodies

One of the things I explore in Getting Ready to Write is that writing does not begin with a pencil. Before children can control a pencil well, they need lots of physical experiences involving their shoulders, arms, elbows, wrists, hands and fingers. Strength, coordination and control develop over time and through repeated movement.

Malleable materials can contribute to this, but only if we allow children to use their bodies.

If I imagine a typical dough table…A child sits on a chair, close to the table, with a small lump of soft dough in front of them. They may use their hands and fingers, but the position itself can limit their range of movement.

When the same child is standing in front of a much larger lump of firm dough or clay. They can lean into it, push with both hands, pull backwards, reach across, turn their body and use their shoulders and arms. The material has not suddenly become more ‘educational’. We have simply changed the scale, resistance and position. With malleable materials, scale changes movement (both large and small).

A small piece of clay encourages children to use finer finger movements, while a large block can involve hand, arm, and shoulder pivots. A huge shared lump on the floor might involve kneeling, leaning, reaching, pulling, pushing and working alongside somebody else.

This is why I don’t recommend sitting down the usual way to set up a malleable materials space. Children should have opportunities to sit, of course, but they might also stand, kneel, crouch or work on the floor. The current EYFS guidance around physical development reminds us that children need repeated and varied opportunities to develop both large and small movements. Malleable materials can give us both.

In Getting Ready to Write, I also look at this movement from larger physical development towards increasing control of the hands and fingers. Dough Gym grew from the same thinking. The point was never simply to make dough more exciting. It was to recognise that the whole body plays a part in developing the physical foundations that later support writing.

Dough is only one option

If we want to get more from malleable play, one of the easiest things we can do is vary the material.

One reason I like using natural clay is that it gives children a very different experience from dough. It is colder, firmer and heavier, and children have to put far more effort into changing it. Mud is different again, because it can shift from thick and sticky to loose and sloppy depending on how much water is added. Damp sand can be unpredictable. You can mould it and shape it, but it may suddenly collapse as it dries. I have also seen practitioners use things like modelling wax, which warms and softens in the children’s hands. Children can make paper pulp really easily, and it can be squeezed, spread, and pressed into shape. You may well have more examples. It is all about the variety.

If we only ever offer dough, children only ever get to explore one kind of material.

Rather than asking, ‘What activity shall we do with the dough?’, a better question might be, ‘How does this material behave?’

What will the children experience from using these materials, and what new skills could I introduce? What teaching opportunities might arise? Different materials will create different problems for children to solve.

That variety also means we should not assume that malleable materials need to stay in one place. You can have clay in the construction area, perhaps as a material for joining blocks, making walls or creating features around a structure. Mud can become part of outdoor building or art. A large sheet of dough can go on the floor, and modelling wax can enhance small world play.

Once we stop thinking about ‘the dough table’, the possibilities get much wider.

Watch what children actually do

This is also where Common Play Behaviours can be useful.

The idea behind Common Play Behaviours is not to create another checklist or a set of stages that every child must work through. It is about noticing the things children commonly do when they have access to a particular area or resource, and then thinking about whether our provision allows those behaviours to develop.

Making the Most of Malleable Materials in Continuous Provision on The PLAYList looks at things such as exploration, repetition, storytelling, consolidation and collaboration and how using malleable materials can really support this development.

A child may flatten a piece of dough, roll it back into a ball and flatten it again. They may do this twenty times. From an adult point of view, nothing has been ‘made’, but plenty is happening. The child is repeating a movement, adjusting the force they use, coordinating two hands, and watching the material change.

If we are mainly interested in the finished product, this sort of play is easy to miss.

It is also worth thinking carefully about the resources we add. Cutters are not wrong, but a tray full of shaped cutters can quickly turn the experience into making lots of identical stars, hearts and gingerbread people. Alongside those familiar tools, try wooden paddles, short pieces of dowel, smooth stones, shells, scrapers, potato mashers, garlic presses, large rollers and natural materials. Some children will use them to make marks, some to cut, some to join and some simply to explore pressure and texture.

The Common Play Behaviours approach asks us to notice what children are doing and build on it, rather than constantly trying to think of a new adult-led activity for them to complete.

Language rich

Malleable materials play is full of useful language because children are dealing with actions and changes they can see and feel.

Squash, squeeze, stretch, twist, tear, roll, flatten, press, scrape, cut, join, split and crumble are all words that make sense when you are actually doing them.

So do words such as sticky, smooth, rough, dry, wet, soft, hard, thick, thin, heavy and light.

Research on vocabulary development in play suggests that adult support can help children learn new words when those words are connected to meaningful activity. But it is really important that we don’t turn children’s discovery and play into a constant stream of questions.

Make sure any language is attached to something the child is already noticing. We are giving them words for their experience rather than testing them on it or just constantly commenting on what they are doing.

Not every child will want to touch it

Malleable materials can be wonderfully sensory, but that does not mean every child will enjoy putting their hands straight into wet mud, sticky dough or cold clay. For some children, that sort of touch can feel very uncomfortable. The solution is not to force it.

Children might use rollers, sticks, scrapers, spoons or other tools. We might offer firmer or drier materials. They may watch first, join in gradually or choose a different experience altogether. We want to offer them possibilities, not require every child to experience them in exactly the same way.

Perhaps we need to lose the dough table

Maybe we do not need to get rid of the dough table completely. It can still be useful. But it might help to stop thinking of it as the home of malleable materials.

If we use Common Play Behaviours to look closely at what children are actually doing, and think about the physical development that sits behind early writing, the question changes.

Instead of, ‘What shall we put on the dough table this week?’, we can begin to think about the material, the movement and the play. What can children change? How much force can they use? Can they work large and small? Can they stand, kneel, reach, pull and push? Can the material travel into another part of the provision where it might suddenly become useful in a completely different way?

Often, our provision does not need another activity or enhancement; it might simply need a bigger ‘lump’, fewer/no chairs, and knowledge that the dough is not just ‘allowed’ but also actively encouraged to leave the table!

Find out more:

Common Play Behaviours Online Training

Common Play Behaviours Skills Download

Moulding Opportunities: Malleable Materials E-Zine

5 Activities for Malleable Materials

by James Davolls

This month’s ideas are based on an ever-popular area of provision....playdough! In our digital world, there is a growing need to develop children’s fine and gross motor skills, and playdough is the perfect place to start. It is cost-effective, easy to set up, and most importantly, children love it (just make sure you remove the chairs from your malleable area!) With a little out-of-the-box thinking, playdough offers endless developmental opportunities.

These ideas also transfer easily to other malleable materials, such as clay or Plasticine, making them useful for whatever age range you are teaching!

Become a paid subscriber to download these activities:

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Who Makes Our Activities?

Hello PLAYlisters! My name is James Davolls and I am an Early Years Lead and author working in Bristol. I currently teach Preschool-aged children and have over a decade of Early Year’s teaching experience (I know, I don’t look that old, thanks guys!) I have two children of my own, 4 and 6, so I am very much living and breathing the Early Year’s life at home and in school. I have worked across several diverse settings across Bristol, leading in all of them.

I am passionate about outdoor and adventurous/risk play and love developing provisions that inspire and challenge children’s development.

Fun Facts....growing up, my dream job was to be a Butlin’s Redcoat (I never achieved this!) I am one of seven children, and I love pizza. My wife always says that without her, I would have the diet of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle!

References

Bryce-Clegg, A. (2025). Getting Ready to Write(2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Education.

Bryce-Clegg, A. Common Play Behaviours Across 8 Areas. ABC Does. (abcdoes.thinkific.com)

Bryce-Clegg, A. Making the Most of Malleable Materials in Continuous Provision. ABC Does / The PLAYlist. (abcdoes.substack.com)

Cameron, C. E., Brock, L. L., Murrah, W. M., Bell, L. H., Worzalla, S. L., Grissmer, D. & Morrison, F. J. (2012). Fine motor skills and executive function both contribute to kindergarten achievement. Child Development, 83(4), 1229–1244.

Department for Education. Development Matters and Early Years guidance on physical development.

Froebel Trust (2023). Rediscovering the Benefits of Clay.

I will be going live at 7 pm on Tuesday, 8th September for an hour, and I’ll be answering questions that you can submit here or ask live on the night!

Our previous Live Q&As have been great …

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As we approach the end of August and get ourselves ready for the new year ahead, I thought I’d share all of the great stuff that we’ve released this month.

Over the past year, we hav…

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I wanted to let you know about a small change to the price of your PLAYlist subscription.

From 01/08/26, the monthly subscription will increase from £6 to £7 per month, including VAT an…

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Hello and welcome to August!

Over the past year, we have created and shared a HUGE amount of content!

The problem with creating lots of good content is that it can sometimes disappear …

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Hello and welcome to August!

Over the past year, we have created and shared a HUGE amount of content!

The problem with creating lots of good content is that it can sometimes disappear down the page before you have had the chance to read it, watch it or use it properly.

You might have saved something with every intention of returning to it, spotted a title that looked useful during a particularly busy week or simply joined The PLAYlist after some of our most popular content was first published.

So, throughout August, we are going to pause, look back and bring together some of the very best things we have shared over the past year.

It is an opportunity to catch up on something you missed, revisit something that made you think, share useful content with your team or begin gathering ideas for the year ahead.

For Everyone:

Throughout August, we will be sharing:

The ABC Does Article Round-Up - CLICK HERE

We will bring together some of our articles from across the year in one place, with links to help you quickly find the subjects that are most useful to you.

There has been a lot to explore, from continuous provision and interactions to play, writing, environment and the role of the adult. Even when you have read an article before, returning to it at a different point in your practice can often make you notice something new.

The Guest Article Round-Up - CLICK HERE

We have been fortunate to share some brilliant guest articles this year, written by people with real experience, knowledge and insight.

We will gather those contributions together so that you can discover anything you missed, revisit your favourites and find useful voices and perspectives to share with colleagues.

The PLAYlist Questionnaire - CLICK HERE

As we look back over the year, we would also really value YOUR thoughts about what should come next.

We want The PLAYlist to continue to be useful, relevant and rooted in the reality of early years practice.

The questionnaire is your opportunity to tell us what you have enjoyed, what you have used and what you would like us to explore in the future.

For Paid PLAYlisters:

Alongside all of the free August content, paid subscribers will receive an even bigger collection of ideas, resources and professional development.

Brand-New Online Training - Explicit Teaching or Child Led Learning? - CLICK HERE

The training looks at what research says about the most effective balance between adult teaching and child-initiated learning - and everything that can happen in-between.

Best of the Guests - CLICK HERE

We have had some fascinating conversations with guests over the past year, covering a wide range of subjects, experiences and areas of expertise.

During August, we will bring together some of the very best guest sessions, with direct links so that you can easily find the conversations that interest you most.

You may discover someone you missed completely, revisit a conversation that changed your thinking or find the perfect session to share with your team.

Ten Activities from the 50 Fantastics Range - CLICK HERE

We will be bringing together ten of the 50 Fantastic Ideas collection from Bloomsbury

They are designed to be dipped into, adapted and used in ways that suit your children, your setting and the resources you already have.

We will also be sharing a separate 50 Fantastic book giveaway during August, so keep an eye out for that too.

Three Virtual Staff Meeting Giveaways - CLICK HERE

We will also be giving three settings the opportunity to win a Virtual Staff Meeting with me.

This could be used to explore a particular area of practice, talk through a challenge, reflect on your provision or simply ask the questions that your team have been trying to unpick.

3x ’50 Fantastic’…’ Bundle Giveaway - CLICK HERE

If you like the activities available to paid subscribers this month, then this giveaway is for you.

We’re giving away 3x bundles of ‘50 Fantastic…’ titles each containing 5 books. That’s 250 ideas!! All you need to do is comment on the post linked above, and you’ll have a chance of being one of our 3 winners drawn at the end of August. For more details, check the post above.

Whether you are working throughout the summer, preparing for September or making a determined effort not to think about early years for a few weeks, you can dip in whenever it suits you.

Thank you, as always, for being part of it…

Alistair

What a year it has been on The PLAYlist! We have explored everything from play and provision to interaction, language, learning and all the wonderfully fascinating bits inbetween.

So, before we pack away the flip-flops, put our new pencils in our new pencil case and head into September with renewed enthusiasm (and possibly another newly cultivated moustache!), I have brought together seven of my favourite articles from the past year.

1) PEARLS - What Makes Quality Interactions in the Early Years?

Find it HERE

This article introduces my PEARLS approach to quality interaction, including one of my favourite ideas: don’t just replyto children, return their communication and keep that lovely back-and-forth going.

2) Handwriting Sheets and Dotted Name Cards Do More Harm Than Good!

Find it HERE

Those dotted name cards might look purposeful, but they can overload children, embed awkward habits and take all of the meaning out of writing. This article explains why strong bodies, big movements and writing for a real reason will get children much further than another sheet of tracing.

3) Removing Provision & Resources as a Behaviour Management Strategy.

Find it HERE

When the water ends up on the floor or the blocks start flying, closing the area can feel like the obvious solution, But… provision is learning, not a reward for compliant behaviour. This article looks at what might happen when we replace removal with reflection, modelling and the right support.

4) Why Children Pretend to be Cats! (and other animals)

Find it HERE

Why do some children spend half their day crawling around, meowing and refusing to answer unless you address them as a cat? It turns out that being an animal gives children a wonderfully safe way to explore emotions, practise self-regulation, take risks and enjoy a little more control than being a child usually allows!

5) How Children Make Friends

Find it HERE

“We’re all friends here” sounds lovely, but friendship is actually a choice, and children need to learn about boundaries as well as belonging. This article explores how friendship grows through play, attachment, negotiation and all of those tricky moments when simply saying “sorry” isn’t quite enough.

6) The Writing Framework 2026: Protect Play, Respect Development

Find it HERE

The Writing Framework 2026 says that quality matters more than quantity and that children shouldn’t be expected to write at length before they are ready, but this is not always how it is being interpreted! This article gives you the evidence and language to argue for talk before text, foundations before formality and plenty of meaningful writing through play.

7) The Trouble with Being ‘Good’

Find it HERE

Every time we praise a child, we are telling them something about what we value. This article asks whether praising children, particularly girls, for being quiet, neat and compliant might unintentionally make them less willing to take risks, challenge themselves or make a glorious mistake.

It was surprisingly difficult to choose just seven articles from everything we have explored this year!

We have questioned some familiar practice, looked beneath some fascinating (and challenging) behaviour and, hopefully, gathered plenty of ideas that have made you stop and think.

Thank you for reading, listening, commenting and sharing your own experiences along the way. The most rewarding part about writing for The PLAYlist is seeing how PLAYlisters react and hearing their thoughts.

I hope you enjoy revisiting a few old favourites, or discovering something that passed you by the first time.

We will be back in September with lots more new content, fresh ideas and renewed enthusiasm. (I can make no promises about the moustache!).

Alistair

Hey PLAY People,

One of the trickiest parts of Early Years practice is knowing when to step in and teach, when to joi…

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Some of the most interesting pieces on The PLAYlist this year have come from our brilliant guest writers.

They have shared research, challenged some very familiar assumptions and given us practical ideas that we can take straight back into our settings.

From attention, communication and neuroinclusion to handwriting, play and the ongoing battle to protect Reception from becoming Year One, there has been lots to think about!

Neuroinclusion in the Early Years - by Cheryl Warren

Find it HERE

Cheryl talks about moving away from compliance, conformity and control and to become curious about what children’s behaviour might be communicating. One thought that really stayed with me was her reminder that movement can be regulation rather than misbehaviour, sometimes rocking, pacing, climbing or fidgeting is exactly what enables a child to engage.

Handwriting for Left-Handed Children - by Mark Stewart

Find it HERE

Being left-handed isn’t simply the mirror image of being right-handed, and a few small adjustments can make an enormous difference. Mark encourages us to look not only at what a child has written, but how they have written it, particularly their grip, wrist position and the angle of their paper.

Building an Inclusive Toolkit for Observing and Supporting Every Child’s Play - by Cath Evans

Find it HERE

As Cath brilliantly points out, there really is no such thing as an ‘average child’, just as you will never meet a family with precisely 1.74 children! This article helps us build a much more complete picture of individual play by beginning with wellbeing, sensory preferences and the fascinations that make each child ‘light up’.

Valuing Children’s Drawings - Guest Article By Dame Prof Cathy Nutbrown & Dr Josephine Deguara

Find it HERE

What if a child’s drawing is not simply a picture, but a glimpse into how they are making sense of their world? Cathy and Jo explore drawing as a powerful language for thinking, storytelling, memory and identity, and reveal why the conversations that happen while children draw can be even more fascinating than the finished image. It is a brilliant reminder to pause, look beyond the marks and listen carefully to the stories hidden within them.

Play in Reception Classes: ‘It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it!’ - By Dr Viki Veale

Find it HERE

Viki makes a powerful case for keeping play at the heart of Reception without pretending that play and teaching have to sit at opposite ends of the room. One particularly useful suggestion is that more access to active outdoor play might develop children’s physical foundations for writing more effectively than all the dough gym and funky fingers interventions we can squeeze into the timetable.

When the Words Don’t Come - by Bryony Rust

Find it HERE

Bryony writes about how communication is a two-way street and that the adult also has to work at being understood. Rather than continually asking children to copy us or “use your words”, she suggests that we begin by sitting quietly, noticing the smallest signals and reflecting the child’s sounds, gestures or actions back to them.

Schools Can and Should Be Places for Play - by Peter Gray

Find it HERE

Peter Gray is a true early childhood icon! He argues that real play, initiated and managed by children themselves, is where they learn to negotiate, solve problems, manage emotions and build friendships. His example of mixed-age Play Clubs is wonderfully simple - give children time, space and choice, keep the rules to a minimum, and ask the adults to behave more like lifeguards than entertainment officers!

Choosing only these guest articles was no easy task because there have been so many brilliant contributions over the year. Each one has brought their own expertise, experience and perspective, but all of these articles have something important in common - they encourage us to look more closely at the child in front of us and think carefully about the environments, expectations and interactions we create around them.

A huge thank you to all of our guest writers for sharing their knowledge so generously, and to all of you who have read, commented, shared and carried those ideas back into your own practice.

There are plenty more guest articles in The PLAYlist archive, so this might be the perfect moment to make yourself a brew and have a little rummage!

Alistair

Win ‘me’ is back! This is your chance to win a session with me, Dr Alistair Bryce-Clegg!

There will be 3 winners of this giveaway who will all get to use my Early Years expertise for …

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Over the past year, I have had some fascinating conversations with guests who have challenged assumptions, shared practical advice and helped us look at familiar aspects of Early Yea…

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This month, all 10 of our activities are taken from Bloomsbury’s 50 Fantastic Ideas series, and they’re completely free for you to download and keep.

The 50 Fantastic Ideas series of b…

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This month, we’re giving away 3x bundles of ‘50 Fantastic Ideas For…’ Titles, exclusively for paid subscribers!

There will be 3 winners of this giveaway who will each receive the foll…

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I can’t believe The PLAYlist is almost two years old already!

We want to make sure it continues to give you what you want and need, so please leave a comment on this post with any ide…

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