One of the objectives of our creches is providing safe and nurturing spaces where children spend time away from home. As we all know, the age group of our creche is 7 months to 3 years, the focus is to ensure children feel happy and cared for and give them opportunities in which they can play and get engaged. Engagement at this age should be through joyful activities, vibrant surroundings, and play materials that attract their curiosity. The aim is not to structure this as per domain-based opportunity or formal teaching but helping children grow through play, everyday experiences with surroundings, and interaction with caregivers. Children feel secure when they are happy and enjoy what they do. Every day the creche should be filled with smiles, play, rhymes and stories. Caregivers can make this happen by creating a joyful space where children feel loved, safe, and excited to explore. Like, storytelling in local language, local songs, and simple games can engage children while keeping local culture alive. The key is to make the environment friendly, joyful, and full of opportunities of engagement while ensuring the safety of children.

Principles of child engagement in Creches

1. Include every child—All activities should allow all children to participate in their own way. Caregivers should invite and encourage but not force any child to join an activity.

2. Keep children safe—Only clean, non-sharp, non-toxic, age-appropriate materials should be used in activities. Caregivers must watch children closely to prevent falls, fights, or choking and keep the play area free from dangerous objects. One caregiver needs to be with children all the time.

3. Vibrant creches—We should make sure that our creches are vibrant with local, contextual paintings. It could be animals, trees using colors. Not to paint an academic print like digits/alphabets.
4. Use of play materials—Materials should be used as per the age of a child (big play materials). Rattles should not be given to any child but to be used by caregivers to get attention. As per the list of play materials, all the toys should be given in each creche from the day of opening.

5. No fixed timetable—There should be no fixed time/time slot for giving these toys to children. Caregivers are free to give these materials to children anytime to engage children. It could be after breakfast/before lunch/after naptime. We should not be strict regarding playing time in creche, it should be flexible.

6. Caregiver and child interaction—The caregiver should keep materials ready, join in play, talk to children, and gently guide them. Caregivers should also participate in children’s playing time.

7. Free play—We should encourage caregivers and children to indulge in free play i.e., children can play freely with the play material.

8. Cultural relevance—Use of local language, songs, stories, and games that children and families know from their community. We should encourage caregivers to use such rhymes and stories.

Suggestive Play materials

S.No	Name of the Play Materials	Image
1	Bowling Ring - Plastics
2	Rattles -
3	Small Balls - Rubber
4	Fruit-Veggie Toys - Plastics
5	Ring Tower – 7 Rings - Plastics
6	Blocks – Legos – Bigger- Plastics
7	Cup Stacks – Plastics
8	Rectangular Cup Stacks - Plastics
9	Fluffy Duck– Rubber/Plastics
10	Joints - Plastics