Helping Infant Brains Develop

Soothing Speak

What does it mean when your baby cries?  What can we do to raise healthy, happy children? What do we already know about early childhood that will help us make good decisions?
  The interaction between parent and child is the key component in child development.  Each child is a unique individual born with certain inherited traits, and how a parent responds and nurtures the baby will promote healthy development for a lifetime.
  Babies’ cries are their first attempts at communication.  They may be telling families that they are hungry, cold, wet, or lonely.  Parents will learn to interpret these cries and learn what their baby needs. When parents respond in a loving, nurturing way, babies learn to trust that they will be taken care of.  As their physical needs are being met, babies are also developing mentally, socially and emotionally.

Develop Bright Minds

Promote Word Growth

Talking, singing, reading, and playing with infants help to promote language and communication skills.  As your baby grows, repeat some of the babbling sounds you hear like “baba, gaga.”  This will encourage more verbal responses from babies.   
  Move on to simple sentences like “Mama’s here.  Daddy’s coming.”  Talk to your baby as you go through the steps of feeding, bathing, dressing or changing a diaper.      When taking baby out, describe what you see around you.  “See the truck.  See the big white truck. It carries things. It is blowing its horn.  The horn goes toot-toot.”  This will help brain development as your child is creating an image of trucks and what they do.
 

Telling Stories Without a Book

Sing traditional lullabies such as Rock-a-bye Baby.  Or make up your own songs such as “Mama loves her baby Sarah,” filling in the blank with the child’s name.  Create rhymes such as “Baby Girl, Little Pearl, or Baby Boy, Pride and Joy” and put them to music. Your baby will be delighted with the attention and interaction. 

Help Brains Grow
 
Reading with young children is so important to learning and brain development.  A cozy lap to sit

Interact Around the House

on makes learning safe and fun.  Feel free to add comments of your own.  For example, when reading Bill Martin Jr.’s, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” ask what sound a brown bear would make.  Follow through with sounds for the other animals.
 
Make learning playful and fun.  Be sure to turn off the TV. It can be harmful to your child’s development because children need immediate feedback.  The TV cannot tell your child “Yes, that’s a cat.” or “That’s a dog not a cat.”  It cannot give other information about cats and dogs.  It cannot provide the human interaction babies need.

Photos: Making Cookies http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Taste testing_the_cookie_dough_with_Grandm.jpg
Author: Gaijin Biker(Big Ben) Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaijinbiker/144528062
Fran Darling, fdarling fotos 
Sketch:  Mark Nowicki

More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest

Use Pebbles and Pasta for Graphing Fun

Graphing helps children look at numbers in different ways. Starting children with graphs when they are young helps them count items quickly, organize, compare, and discuss information. Using different items makes graphing fun. 

Materials:  Four varieties of pasta, beans, or stones, paper, crayons, pencil, and a small bag

What to Do:

   Explain to your children there are different kinds of graphs and you are going to be using a bar graph. These graphs help people actually see comparisons between numbers of items.

   On one sheet of paper make a graph that has the same size boxes of four columns with ten rows in each column. In each bottom box, draw a simple illustration of the chosen pasta, bean or stone. Explain that each row going across and each column going down in a graph is called an axis.

  Place no more than ten pieces of each type of pasta, bean, or stone in a bag.  Help your children sort the items based on characteristics like color, shape, size, or texture and count each group.

 Children can place each item in a box above the correct picture. Talk about what the graph looks like. Does one kind have more? Which kind the least amount? Are there any that are equal?  Your children can then color a box as a piece of pasta is removed. Older children can color the correct number of boxes after counting each group. Be sure to have a conversation about what the graph is showing.  On another paper children can dictate sentences about the graph using words such as more, less, and equal. Tape the papers together and tape them to the refrigerator to share with other members of the family.

 

How Does This Help My Children?

  Your children are seeing numbers in a different way. A graph is a great tool to explain math concepts like more, less, and equal. Children are counting and working with one to one correspondence as the item is counted and then placed on the box of the graph. Graphing is a good way to see different groupings as well. By using correct math terms you are teaching math vocabulary that is necessary for school success.

What Else Can I Do?

 Try flipping the graph so that the boxes extend horizontally. Does it show the same information?  Is it just as easy to see which item has more, less or is equal?  Add a different shape of pasta and be sure to add another column for that shape. How does that change the information? A few good books to read with your children that explore graphing and different kinds of graphs are:” The Great Graph Contest” by Loreen Leedy, “Lemonade for Sale: Bar Graphs” by Stuart J. Murphy and “Graphing Favorite Things” by Jennifer Marrewa.

More Fun: For more math fun see the authors’ books “Learning Through the Seasons” available at bookstores, museums, and our website. Also check out more activities for fun on the WNMU Learning Through the Seasons Podcasts and Grandparents Teach Too YouTube videos

Picture: Mark Nowicki  Photo: Fran Darling

Read, Write and Inspire Your Children

What could be better than reading with your children? Writing stories with your children, of course! Both are excellent activities for reading development but writing stories develops organizational and thinking skills while learning use of language and vocabulary. Sound difficult? Here is a wonderful online tool that can help. Storybird provides all the elements to engage and inspire you and your children, alike.

Materials Needed:

Go to http://storybird.com/ Click Explore to read hundreds of stories written by others just like you. Click Parents for many ideas and ways to share stories. Interaction is big part of Storybird. Making comments and suggestions engages writers and develops social skills at the same time.

What To Do:

Click Create to sign up for your free account. Start your story by viewing an extensive gallery of illustrations to inspire you to “unlock” the stories inside you. You and your children collaborate to develop story ideas that bloom through imagination. Type in your text online and drag the pictures into scenery boards that become the pages of your book. You can easily edit text and rearrange boards at any time. You work is saved as you go along and remains unpublished until you submit your final copy…but it can still be changed anytime after.

Your stories are saved securely online account to share on Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter. Snuggle up with them all on your iPad internet browser,

marking your favorites. All this is free, but you can also purchase hard copies of your books. Print stories on your own printer from downloadable pdf files or order published soft or hard cover books…perfect for sending to friends and relatives for presents. Write your own personal histories and save them in beautiful, professionally illustrated books.

How Does This Help My Children?

Read and write with your children for twice the learning! And because you are writing with online tools, you join a global community of writers, readers, and artists of all ages.

For more great educational activities visit Grandparents Teach, Too web page and listen to WNMU Radio 90 Learning Through the Seasons podcasts.

 

Photos: Storybird website