Explore objects and materials with hands and mouth.
The objects that interest and engage babies' attention.
Talk to babies about particular objects and materials, drawing their attention to features such as their feel or sound.
Provide objects that give young babies opportunities to explore textures, shapes and sizes.
8-20 Months
Show curiosity and interest in things that are built up and fall down, and that open and close.
How babies handle and arrange objects such as blocks or bricks.
Talk about the way things balance or what happens when a structure falls down.
Provide a range of resources that babies can use in their play that encourage their interest in balancing and building things.
16-26 Months
Are interested in pushing and pulling things, and begin to build structures.
The things young children enjoy building, opening and closing or pushing and pulling.
Offer a commentary on what young children are doing, describing actions such as "You nearly managed it then, by pulling that handle".
Provide a range of items to inspire young children's curiosity, ensuring that their investigations are conducted safely.
Provide culturally diverse artefacts and encourage parents to bring in culturally specific and familiar items from home to share.
22-36 Months
Are curious and interested in making things happen.
How children investigate by, for example, taking all the cushions from several areas, piling them up and jumping on top of them.
Recognise that children's investigations may appear futile, but that a child may be on the brink of an amazing discovery as they meticulously place more and more things on top of one another.
Build on children's particular interests by adding resources to sustain and extend their efforts.
30-50 Months
Investigate various construction materials.
Realise tools can be used for a purpose.
Join construction pieces together to build and balance.
Begin to try out a range of tools and techniques safely.
How children are using tools, for example, using a stick to make holes in dough.
How children link experiences and use their knowledge to design and make things.
Children's developing skills in using tools, including which tools they choose for particular tasks.
Introduce children to appropriate tools for different materials.
Provide a range of construction materials, including construction kits containing a variety of shapes, sizes and ways of joining, and support children in their use.
Provide ideas and stimuli for children, for example, photographs, books, visits and close observation of buildings.
Provide a range of tools, for example, scissors, hole punch, stapler, junior hacksaw, glue spreader, rolling pin, cutter, knife, grater, and encourage children to handle them carefully and use their correct names.
40-60+ Months
Construct with a purpose in mind, using a variety of resources.
Use simple tools and techniques competently and appropriately.
Build and construct with a wide range of objects, selecting appropriate resources and adapting their work where necessary.
Select the tools and techniques they need to shape, assemble and join materials they are using.
The ways that children make things, for example, a child might use card, scissors, glue, string and a hole punch to make a bag to carry some things home.
How children construct for their own purposes.
Children's own assessment of the fitness for purpose of their designs and the modifications they decide to make to them.
Making a model with glue - In reception class, a practitioner supports the child in fixing boxes together. [transcript]
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Discuss purposes of design and making tasks.
Teach joining, measuring, cutting and finishing techniques and their names.
Encourage children's evaluations, helping them to use words to explain, such as 'longer', 'shorter', 'lighter'.
Make links with children's experiences to provide opportunities to design and make things, such as a ladder for Anansi the spider (in the West African traditional tale).
Provide opportunities for children to practise skills, initiate and plan simple projects, and find their own solutions in the design and making process.
Ensure that the organisation of workshop areas allows children real choices of techniques, materials and resources.
