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
• Ask your child simple questions such as 'can you make the head move?'
• Encourage your child to talk about his or her new friend
• Praise your child for any attempt made to join in with making sounds and moving the parts



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.

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