Listening activities for young children are an important part of early childhood development. From story time to music appreciation, these top listening activities provide a foundation for learning and social skills that will last throughout their lives. In this blog post, we’ll explore the benefits of these activities, the different types of materials available, strategies […]
Listening activities for young children Read More »
What do you do when your pre-schooler develops an all-consuming passion, like volcanoes, ponies or whip spiders? Buy them a book? Show them a video on YouTube? Make a small-world scene in a builder’s tray? All of the above are great jumping-off points. But if you believe in inquiry-based learning, this is only the beginning.
65. Project-based Learning Read More »
Research suggests that there is a link between the amount of detail in a four year-old’s drawings and later academic success. It’s not the artistic merit of the picture that is important but the features a child chooses to include. Just like us, children have a mental representation (a schema) of what they think a
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Does your baby or toddler enjoy repetitive play with everyday objects? Is she less interested in ‘proper’ toys? This is functional play, the first of four types of play outlined by Sara Smilansky, a developmental psychologist who studied how play develops in young children. The rest of the series is here: Preschoolers are happy to
How often does your child play outdoors? Do they go out even when it’s raining? Do you believe that there’s no bad weather, only bad clothing? I once worked at a famous ‘open air’ nursery, where the children were free to come and go as they pleased, inside and out, in all weathers. Teachers were
Have you ever wondered what the benefit of listening to stories is for children, beyond the joy of simple entertainment? Reading stories to young children helps them make sense of the world. Without experiences of their own to draw on, stories act as signposts for the young mind, directing them along the right path and
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Parlour games are great for sharing the fun. So many of today’s toys and games are played alone, especially electronic ones. Parlour games involve family time, shared experiences, interaction that is frivolous and without agenda. If you ever feel like all you do is hurry your children along from A to B, then spend five
Colour is one of the first attributes children notice about anything. It’s something children pay attention to early on. The more colour names a child knows, the better equipped they will be in the nuances of description and visual expression. Artists tend to notice more about the world than most people because they look more
Does your child enjoy making up stories? Does she pretend to be you, using toys and other props to imitate adults? This is dramatic play, one of the four types of play. You can read about the others here: What is dramatic play? Children imitate what they see. They watch you washing the dishes then
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Long before your child utters her first words she has developed both a rich vocabulary and a sophisticated understanding of syntax. It’s all in there, waiting to come out. But there are other factors in play, such as the co-ordination required to form the sounds that make up our speech. Only the simplest sounds can
Language development Read More »