3 Months Old: Brain Boosting Play

3 Months Old: Brain Boosting Play

April 28th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

At three months old, your baby is really beginning to interact with the world around her. She is starting to be able to grasp toys and respond to you with smiles, laughter and coos. Her eyesight is improving and she can see her surroundings much better, allowing her to respond.

Talk to Me!

Language skills are just starting to develop at this time, and the more you speak, sing and read to your baby the more she will learn about sounds and words. If you haven’t yet, this is a great time introduce books. She can hold her head up relatively well, and will be able to sit in your lap while you read and look at the pictures. Point things out to her and talk about what is on the page.

Singing will not only entertain baby, but will further advance her introduction to sounds. Try songs with entertaining hand gestures such as “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”. Take baby’s hands and help her to perform the motions as well. This will help to develop her awareness of her body and learn what she can do.

When baby starts to vocalize, be sure to respond to her as much as possible. Hold a conversation with her as she talks by asking her questions like “And then what happened?” and “Are you sure?” She won’t know what you are saying, but she will begin to pick up the rhythm of conversation from these exchanges.

Body Language

Your three month old is just starting to be aware of his body and how he can use it to get what he wants and interact with the world. Part of this learning involves his developing understanding of cause and effect, object permanence, as well as hand-eye coordination and motor skills. Remember that physical development requires brain development! Every time your baby practices a new physical skill, his brain is forming new connections that will keep moving him forward.

Help baby’s brain figure it out with physical games. Hold a toy out to him and encourage him to reach for it. Pull it away, and then bring it back, making sure he catches it regularly so that he will remain entertained and not become frustrated. At this age tummy time becomes very important. Get down on the floor with your baby and play too! Hold a toy in front of his face, and lift it slowly into the air. As he tries to follow it with his eyes, he will lift his head and shoulders off the ground, strengthening important muscles. These skills will lead to baby’s ability to roll over, push himself up and eventually crawl.

Touch and Learn

Now that baby can hold and examine objects, he will begin to learn more about his world through touch. Offer him objects with varying textures and sizes to touch and hold. Let him touch your face, hair and clothing. Every new thing that your baby gets his hands on will help his brain to categorize and understand the things he encounters. Books that offer textured pages for baby to feel will make him a more active participant in reading and learning.

This age opens many new doors for baby, and every minute that he is awake he is learning something new. You are baby’s first teacher, and building his brain is as easy as being aware of the ways in which he learns from you every day, even at play!

Help your Baby Learn Through Games

Help your Baby Learn Through Games

April 26th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Playtime with your baby is more than just entertainment; through fun and games your baby is learning about how the world around him works, as well as developing his motor skills. Making time for play every day is not only a great way to spend time with your baby, it’s also vital to his development. So give these simple learning games a try and watch him discover his world!

Little One, Big One

Teach your baby all about opposites by gathering common items and toys together from around the house in contrasting pairs. Try items like a small teddy bear and a large one, a baby spoon and a soup spoon and a washcloth and bath towel. Hold the smaller one up first and say “Small!”, and then the larger one, saying “Big!”

Size isn’t the only comparison you can start to teach! Show him the concepts of in and out by placing toys in a bin and then removing them. Lift him up into the air saying “up!” and back to the floor with “down!” Let him touch opposite textures, such as soft and hard, smooth and rough. It will be a while before he learns all the words, but before you know it, when you ask him which one is soft, or which is bigger, he will surprise you by choosing correctly!

Where Did It Go?

Babies aren’t born with an understanding of object permanence. They have to learn that when something (or someone) disappears, it doesn’t cease to exist. Simple games to help your baby grasp this concept include various versions of peek-a-boo and hide and seek. Hide behind the couch and pop up at different angles, sometimes on the side, other times at the top. Once baby is on the move, you can call out to him saying “Where’s mommy? Can you find mommy?” and let him follow the sound of your voice to discover your location.

Hiding a toy behind your back and then bringing it out, or throwing a blanket over something and then removing it are basic playtime ways to teach object permanence. At first, baby will wait for you to reveal the object, but soon he will begin to crane his neck to see behind you or lift the blanket himself as he starts to understand that the object is still there, just hiding!

Did I Do That?

One of the major concepts your baby will develop through play is an understanding of cause and effect. As she starts to interact more with the world around her, she will slowly start to realize that she can make things happen! Take baby around the house and find fun things she can try out. Put her hand on a light switch and help her to flip it, or help her to turn on the faucet. Musical toys are great for teaching cause and effect, as she will learn how to make new and interesting noises. Let her bang on pots and pans with a wooden spoon, or fill an empty plastic bottle with a tight-fitting lid with beans to create a home made maraca.

Bath time offers opportunities to teach cause and effect as well. Give baby a sponge and show her how to wet it and then squeeze the water out. Let her fill a cup with water and dump it out. Even simply splashing in the tub is helping her to learn!

Simple games like these turn playtime into learning time and will keep baby stimulated and happy too!

What Children Learn Through Play

What Children Learn Through Play

April 23rd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Playtime isn’t just fun and games. It is the most important tool children have for learning. From the infant years where babies learn simple concepts like cause and effect, through childhood, where play encourages learning of social skills and more, a child at play is a child developing.

Infants: Learning about the World

The earliest forms of play in infancy are the ways in which a baby discovers what is in his world, how it works, and how he fits into it. Through play a baby learns about cause and effect; how he can have an impact on objects and people, and how to elicit responses in different ways. He learns how to move his body, improve his motor skills, and make his way through the world. Play encourages an understanding of spatial awareness, object permanence, differences between objects and more.

Through play, an infant is also learning how to use his voice, how to communicate his needs and desires, and creating the building blocks of language. Games involving a lot of interaction with mom and dad are vital to this learning process.

Toddlers: Independence and Personality

Entering the toddler years, play is an avenue for a child to develop a sense of who he is as a person, and what his role is in the family. Play encourages your toddler to test his independence while learning – and then pushing past – his limitations. Toddlers begin to build a foundation for social skills and also develop imagination, both of which are important to future endeavors. As independence blossoms, your toddler will learn to play by himself and to solve his own problems

Your toddler is also swiftly adding to a wider knowledge base about the world, as he learns colors, numbers, sizes and even more abstract concepts like feelings. Vocabulary is expanding at an incredible rate as he learns the labels for more and more things and can relate experiences to each other. All of these things are learned through play, which becomes more imaginative and involving during these years.

Preschoolers: Social Skills and Problem Solving

As your preschooler begins to interact more and more with her peers, the play they engage in together will teach her vital social skills. Your preschooler is learning to share, and to think about other people’s needs. She is learning how to cooperate with other children, through negotiation, compromise and exploring options. She is learning patience, taking turns, and how to deal with delayed gratification. Play with others also teaches preschoolers about empathy; she is learning to consider other people’s feelings, and to understand how others might feel in various situations.

Although problem solving skills begin at a very young age, in preschool they go to a whole new level. Your preschooler is working with more abstract concepts and solving problems that are not always right in front of her. In addition to teaching cooperation, working out the issues encountered while playing with others teaches problem solving. At this age, she is also practicing these skills through role-playing games which allows her to see things from a different perspective.

Throughout childhood, the most important task at hand is learning, and the number one way children do this is through play. From infancy through into school, the skills learned at playtime build upon each other to help children to make sense of their world and prepare to be citizens within it.

What is your Preschooler’s Favorite Type of Play?

What is your Preschooler’s Favorite Type of Play?

April 19th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

In the preschool years, play becomes more sophisticated, and so does the learning process behind it. What your preschooler enjoys most at playtime can tell you a lot about what is going with his development and learning. Children at this age engage in several different types of play, and each provides a different method for a preschooler to learn about his world and how to become a part of it.

Symbolic Play

Does your little one like to pretend his building blocks are a birthday cake, or his teddy bear is a baby? He’s engaging in symbolic play. This important stage in cognitive development is allowing your preschooler to place a symbolic value on an object, which is important for his understanding of how the world works. By pretending his teddy bear is a baby and imitating the same behaviors he has seen in you and other mothers, he developing an understanding of his place in the world, and the roles of others around him.

Parallel Play

You may notice that when you get your young preschooler together with other kids, he doesn’t really play with them so much as next to them. This doesn’t mean he isn’t aware of the presence of his friends, or that he doesn’t want to play with them. This type of side-by-side play is just the beginning of social play for children. While two children may sit next to each other playing with different toys, they are learning to share space with others and also the very first rules of interaction, which they will build upon later in the preschool years.

Watch for things like imitative play, verbal communications that may seem unrelated to the play at hand (but make perfect sense in your little one’s mind) and the important first steps towards sharing. When the little girl next to him suddenly develops an interest in the toy he is playing with, he will likely be defensive of it. But this reaction is an important starting point for learning about cooperation and sharing, so as much as you can, let the kids work it out amongst themselves. You might just catch the kid who took away your son’s truck offering him another toy in return!

Imaginary Play

Is the bathtub an ocean or the couch a space ship? Does your preschooler present you with invisible cookies to eat, or talk to someone who isn’t there? She is developing her imagination, an important tool for her social development. The ability to imagine herself in the shoes of another person is the beginning of developing empathy. Imagination will also help her to begin anticipating events and guessing (correctly!) at the outcome of her behaviors.

If your child has an imaginary friend, don’t worry about it at all. This natural phase of development is a mark of a very active imagination, which research shows is a positive sign for future social interaction.

Collaborative Play

As your child head further into her preschool years, you will start to see more direct interaction with other kids during play. As she plays more with other children, she will learn all about the rules of society. This play is crucial to helping your child learn how to have successful work and personal relationships.

She is learning things such as sharing, taking turns, how to work out differences through negotiation and compromise, and how to follow social norms and rules. Collaborative play will help her to learn to keep her impulses in check and delay gratification, all things which are difficult for children, who are naturally self-centered.

Every type of play is important to preschoolers, but if your child enjoys one type more than another, don’t worry. Remember that personality plays a role as well, and your little one might be focused on one area of learning right now, but will move on soon.