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A few weekends ago, my daughter was feeling a bit unwell. On the Saturday morning, we took her to see some highland cows on a nature reserve. She wasn't too interested and seemed a bit lethargic. Before dinner, I sat down with her and some Peppa Pig stickers I'd got the day before. We spent a good 10 minutes peeling them off and sticking them into a sketchbook. We talked about the characters, especially "Mummy Pig" and "Daddy Pig," and she used a word I hadn't heard her use before: "brella," while pointing to Peppa's umbrella. She got some of the smaller stickers caught on her thumbs and asked for help getting them off. "They're really sticky," I said. She lit up at this interaction between us, and her enjoyment of the stickers continued over the next few days. In the settings I've worked in as an Early Years teacher, a certain pedagogy has mostly held sway. Open-ended and well-built toys, often made from wood,...