A big hello from Milly and Miles. This section provides you with some guidance to support your young children with their learning and development as a parent or carer.
Who are Milly and Miles?
Milly and Miles were brought to life by Alison and Mandy, who are both from an Early Years education background. Both have over 30 years experience working with children and are parents of young children themselves. The characters were developed to support parents and children in their early years learning and development through play, winning two national awards for their contribution to early years education.
Young children enjoy imaginary play which involves different characters they are familiar with or interested in from story books and TV cartoons which they can relate to.
I’m sure you can remember your own favourite toys and characters such as Winnie the Pooh, Paddington bear, Disney or a range of super heroes.
The story book introduces Milly and Miles and includes a range of optional learning activities to help you support and interact with your child encouraging key skills through engaging with the characters.
Parent friendly
Don’t worry we know you’re not educators, so we have made the packs parent friendly, with lots of suggestions on how you can encourage your child's early years development.
Our resources have a range of educational objectives which work alongside activities that they may also be involved with at their child minders, nursery or school.
Encouraging conversations
There are lots of ideas in the book which support you when interacting with your child.
Before you start to look through the book, your conversations can start by asking your child to guess the names of the characters, their ages, what they may like to play with and their favourite toys.
The book can be used repeatedly for different conversations to reinforce learning. The book helps to develop your child’s communication, language, vocabulary and comprehension skills
There are lots to choose from
The range of Let’s Learn with Milly and Miles sets have been developed to work alongside any of your child’s existing toys and play equipment to promote a wide range of skills. They can also be used independently.
Ideas for use include:
- Learn to interact, concentrate and pay attention
- Learn how to share and turn take
- Learn to communicate and develop language skills
- Learn about a wide range of feelings and actions
- Learn how to count and order numbers
- Learn prepositions – behind/side/under/top/beside etc
Rewards and further activities
Milly and Miles packs include of 5 prompt visual cards relating to key words and instructions, signs and pictures to help children understand and follow instructions, encourage their communication skills and support the following key aspects of their development:
- Super Sitting
- Wonderful Watching
- Lovely Listening
- Terrific Talking
- Good Sharing
Visit our activities page where you can print a range of free colouring pictures and certificates These can be provided to children as rewards for efforts and achievements.
Take Milly and Miles out and about with you
"My daughter Pheobe and I love taking Milly or Miles on trips out in the car to the park, zoo or when we go shopping.
These opportunities have provided lots of discussions with Phoebe about the importance of staying safe e.g. car and road safety; holding hands and staying close." Joanne - Parent, Blackpool
See our products and start great conversations to help develop your child’s learning.