Here are 5 reasons why Imaginative play is beneficial for your child:

• To encourage imagination and creativity

• To support social and emotional development

• To improve language and communication skills

• To develop thinking, learning and problem solving abilities

• To enhance physical development.

If you are looking for ideas to keep your child's mind

stimulated whilst learning and having fun this Christmas... Then you have come to the right place! Here are 10 Christmas themed activities that you can do at home this Winter:

1. Christmas Tree Play Dough - Create a Christmas tree using play dough, you can use little ornaments such as small pom pom balls, glitter (if you want to get messy), buttons, to decorate the trees. Play Dough is great for your little one to build their fine and gross motor skills.

2. Role play Christmas shopping - This is great for teaching your little one the benefits of budgeting and how to grocery shop. Sit with your child and write a list of what they want. Then set yup your own supermarket at home (you can use old boxes and toys). One person can be the cashier and the other the shopper, then swap over.

3. Sensory Play Santa's Grotto - Why not create your very own Santa's Grotto from home? Using cotton balls as the snow on the ground (can you hear the crunching of the snow as you walk across them?) cut out and make snowflakes to hang from the ceiling and windows, use bedsheets, lights and other pieces of cloth to decorate the house. You can even open the windows to create an igloo feel.

4. Dress up as Santa's Elves - Using old clothes you have in the house, cut them up to create The Elves costumes. Can we use our imagination to help Santa save Christmas?

5. Christmas Colour Match up - This is a great way for your baby/toddler to learn their colours. Using any green, red and white objects that you have. Cut three large circles using red, white and green paper. The goal is to encourage your child to place the red objects on the red circle, green on green and white on white. Encourage them to call out the colours as they go along.

6. Bake Cookies for Santa - As we know Santa LOVES cookies and milk. So why not bake a few cookies using cookie cutters and leave them out from him on Christmas Eve. Baking is great for family bonding, helping your child to read instructions and improve their Motor skills.

7.Jingle Bells Scoop and Transfer - This is great activity for your child to learn their number and improve their Motor skills. Get two bowls, fill them with water and different food colourings (for example one bowl with Red food colouring and the other with Green). Place a bag of jingle bells in one bowl, give your little one a spoon and ask them to scoop each bell and place into the other bowl. Encourage your child to count each jingle bell and praise them for getting it right.

8.Create a Gingerbread House - Using old boxes in the house, decorate the house with paint, pen, pom pom's and other materials. This is great for igniting your child's imagination and creativity.

9. Sensory Bin - Using cornflour and conditioner create your own Snow at home. Add 1 bag of cornflour with 1 cup of conditioner. Then add it to a container to create your own sensory bin. You can add pine cones and glitter with it.

10. Finger Theatre - Create your own Nativity play or Christmas performance using cut out paper characters or finger puppets. You can build your own stage using boxes and paper. This is a great activity of older children, igniting their imagination and using their creativity.