A child investigating the idea of enveloping may repeatedly drop your keys behind the radiator or open the bin and look inside. Schema play is especially noticeable in toddlers. Bashing, banging, pushing, pulling: destruction testing is a key feature of this kind of activity. What does this thing do? What happens if I drop it? Will it break if I hit it? What if I hit it again? Your child wants the answers to all these questions and will persevere until she has them. She is trying to make sense of the world, one action at a time. But there’s another kind of schema – schemas of form, sometimes called graphic schemas. These help us understand how things are arranged. Read more about graphic schemas and children’s drawings here. Why do schemas matter? Schemas help us make sense of the world. They are mental models ofour current thinking.We update them over time as new information comes in. In this schema your child is trying to work out what happens if they wrap or hide an object. Can I still see it? Can I feel it? What if I wrap it in translucent fabric? Or paper? Or put it in a cupboard? Is it still there when I open or unwrap?

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It’s incredibly satisfying to identify the schema your child is interested in. You are then able to offer toys and activities that help them get the most from their investigations. Read more about the rotation schema and learn about the four levels of schema understanding. Orientation schema Here are some of the most commonly recognised schemas in toddlers. They’re mostly based around movement, though in principle a schema can be about anything. Trajectory schema In this article, we looked at action schemas. These are how we represent movements in our minds so that we can recreate them at a later time.

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Play encourages creativity, imagination, perseverance and the development of language and social skills.

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Understanding that this is a normal urge and allowing it to happen in a safe environment will give your child many happy hours of play.

A schema (also known as a play schema) is like a set of instructions. As adults we use them all the time, and we don’t really notice we’re doing it. Switch on a light or make a sandwich and you are using a schema to do it; a mental model you’ve created through a process of trial and error to find the best and most efficient way of completing your task. Does your child like to arrange her toys just-so? Does he spend hours lining his cars up in a row or find pleasure in creating scenes or displays? Then your child is exploring their positioning schema. Positioning provides early foundations for many key skills and activities, from laying the table and placing shoes under pegs, to creating patterns in maths and maintaining neat work in school books.