Child Development: Learning Ideas for Your Family
As parents, you are your child’s first teachers and finding ways to encourage your child to explore their interests is an important part of that special role. Here we share our tips on learning ideas for your family.
LISTEN & OBSERVE
Even if your child hasn’t started talking yet, watch and listen closely. You’ll be able to pick up clues about the things that spark their interest and imagination.
These interests are doorways into exploring and making sense of their world during your child’s early years.
You can also pay close attention to any patterns that are starting to form. Look at the types of activities your child is engaging with most either at home or at daycare.
The information your child’s Educators share with you each day can be a rich source of ideas. This helps you find ways to extend on what they’re learning and investigating with their Educators and peers during their time at daycare.
And you can of course always speak with your child’s Educator to gain feedback and ideas.
LITERACY
The foundations for learning to read and write start to build from a very young age.
Helping your child to develop their skills with words and language early in life will help them immensely with their overall development.
Your day-to-day activities at home and out in the world provide many opportunities for this. By making it fun and engaging your child’s imagination, you can help them develop a lifelong love for words, language and learning. Some ideas include:
- Talk about the objects around you and playing ‘I Spy’
- Use rhymes and singing to tell stories
- Point out letters and words when reading to your child
- Invite your child to scribble or draw on birthday cards for loved ones
CREATIVITY
As we outlined on the previous page, unstructured play that allows your child to explore their imagination and use their creativity is a critical part of their learning and development.
The key here is to follow their lead and provide them time and space to play in whatever way sparks their curiosity and interest.
This can be either alone, with you or with other children. All of those settings are important and will help your child develop different aspects of their creativity and their self understanding.
Activities for developing creativity:
- Playing or making music using instruments or household objects
- Singing, dancing and ‘dramatic’ performances
- Painting, drawing, building
- Imaginative play / role playing
NUMERACY
The ability to understand numbers and apply mathematical concepts is an important area of learning for your child.
The most important thing to keep in mind when considering how you can weave these concepts into your everyday activities is for it to be fun, relaxed and playful.
We all learn best when we’re enjoying ourselves and your child will more easily grasp concepts they experience in a relaxed and fun setting.
Some simple ways to do this include:
- Stories and songs that include numbers or counting
- Playing games that involve counting or number recognition
- Counting objects when on a walk or around the house
- Looking out for certain shapes in the environment or when reading books
- Measuring or counting ingredients when cooking together
We hope these tips will help you support your young child’s learning!