When your child empties a basket of blocks, they are observing to see what happens: why do the blocks drop? How do they fall? And why do they land on the ground? When your child advances to filling containers, their learning advances as well. Why do some items fit and others don't? Why do some things tumble through a tube but stay in a bin? Your child is no longer a baby, but is becoming more active and is eager to explore the world around him.

Your infant is delighted to dump things out of containers, and this is the preliminary step of containerizing, which requires less fine motor precision than filling. In the next month or two, your infant may start putting objects back into a container one at a time.

It's important to containerize both spatial and conceptual learning. By dumping objects out of a container and eventually putting them back in, your baby learns about what fits inside something else, as well as the connection between 'in and out' or 'empty and full.' Conceptually, containerizing educates your child about gravity and cause and effect.

Your infant will continue to gain knowledge as they fill containers. When their basket of blocks is emptied, they will ask themselves why the blocks are going down, how they are falling, and what will happen when they hit the floor.

There are several ways to encourage children to play with containers.

Give your child lots of choices.

• Try to capitalise on your baby's love of emptying containers by providing an array of options.
• Start by filling the treasure basket with different kinds of objects or toys. Your baby keeps dumping out the container, and you keep refilling it. Your child will enjoy filling containers and emptying them once they start playing with them. You can provide them with a variety of things to fill and empty containers.

Tell your baby’s container play story with vivid words.

• This play allows working on their motor skills along with expanding their vocabulary. You can say put toys IN basket, take them OUT. When your child is developing their vocabulary, one of the best ways to help them is to repeatedly connect their real experiences to keywords like 'in' and 'out.' You can introduce various objects and name them, this is a ball, this is a leaf, etc.