12+ months
- Introduce your baby to the First Friends character(s).
- Let your child explore the toy and find out which features move and make a sound - if necessary assist and show them all the moving, clicking parts.
- If the character does a job, explain what that job is, and what the character does e.g. ‘She's a diver, she goes underwater to look at the fish or to find sunken treasure!’, ‘He's a pilot - he flies aeroplanes so that people can go to other places’
- Encourage your child to handle and move the character into different positions
- Encourage your child to join in with you and imitate the sounds the noises you might hear as the characters do their jobs, eg the sound of the engine as the racing car driver zooms along in his car
- Ask your child simple questions such as 'can you make the head move?'
- Praise your child for any attempt made to join in with making sounds and moving the parts
- Encourage your child to talk about his or her new friend
18+ months
- Talk about your child's First Friend character(s) - mentioning its different characteristics such as colour, clothes, etc.
- Talk with your child about the character's job - e.g what does a diver do? What sort of things might a diver see underwater?
- Introduce vocabulary such as ‘sitting’ ‘running’ ‘driving’ etc according to the different actions the character can demonstrate as you play
- Ask your child questions about the character and encourage your child to ask questions back!
- If the opportunity arises, show your child the real-life version of his/her First Friend's character and talk about the similarities between the two
- Encourage lots of pretend play with the characters, helping to devise scenarios if necessary but also letting your child take the lead with their ideas as much as possible.