What’s Lulu doing?
These yogurt containers are great for stacking. A wide neck and narrow bottom mean they easily fit into one another. They are quite large but still easy for small hands to manage, and the sound and feeling of one sliding inside another is obviously very satisfying.
This video is really fascinating because it shows so many different kinds of development. Stacking looks easy but involves a lot of sophisticated hand-eye coordination. Lulu has to correctly perceive the changing position of her hands on the cups in three dimensions, and use this visual feedback to guide her hands. Some of these movements are large—lifting and moving the cup—and some require fine control—grasping the edge of the cup and tilting it to the correct orientation.
How is this helping her development?
Lulu has reached quite an advanced stage of motor skills because she can hold one cup with one hand while using the other hand to fit another cup inside it. Her motivation is strong. When she stacks a lidded cup and can't fit another on top of it, she doesn't give up or simply bang them together. She takes it off and restacks until she's done. This shows great problem solving skills. Lulu sees there's a problem and works out how to get round it (by putting the lidded cup on last). Lulu also shows her persistence—she's determined to reach a goal, and doesn't give up even when the cups fall over or one cup doesn't fit.
So what’s next?
The video is a great example of how different skills develop in unison. Lulu isn't just playing with cups, she's learning about relative size, precise movements and forward planning. The next stage would be to give Lulu some blocks to stack. Remind her of how she stacked the cups and then watch as she uses that information to build a tower. Let her work it out on her own but be sure to give her lots of encouragement and praise.
Send us a video of your children using building blocks and we may use it to illustrate how children progress from stacking to construction.
What's Logan doing?
Logan shows fantastic sequence learning, with actions to match! He's so engaged with what he's doing, he clearly thinks it's important, he likes the reward and he stays focused, holding his attention on the game for a long time. It's so important at this age that learning is fun and Logan evidently loves doing this. So what's he actually learning? He's taking the first steps—at quite a pace—on the long road of language learning. The pairing between letter names and sounds is not always obvious and has to be learned. Logan gets high marks for this.
What’s the next step?
If Dad wants to try some variations on this game, he could try doing the alphabet backwards, or in random order. Because he knows the letter sounds, Logan is ready to start learning letter shapes. There are so many ways to go from there; Logan has a lot of options. He's learning key language sounds, so one next step is to learn the rest of the 44 basic sounds we have in English. Once he’s mastered these he will learn how these sounds blend to make words. For example, blending /a/ and /n/ make /an/. Normally, children only learn these individual sounds once they start reading and have to put together letter combinations that make odd sounds (t and h make th). However, blending letter sounds really helps children’s reading skills.
The Fridge Phonics Magnet Set is very popular because it teaches children to recognize the letter shapes and associate them with their sounds.
Why do children love to sing?
Babies love to listen to singing and they love to sing themselves. They are born sensitive to different notes and sounds—and actually prefer listening to Mommy singing than talking. Baby Tad's singing is similar in tempo and pitch to a parent's singing.
Music is certainly about sound and emotion, but it's also about speech and language. Speech has a rhythm and we can see in this video that it's possible to learn a song without knowing what all the words mean! The structure of the melody helps hold the order of the sounds in memory. Listening to music helps children develop their memory and listening skills. This toddler has learned a sequence of sounds, but more importantly learned how some sounds blend together to make words and that the intonation conveys as much meaning as the words themselves.
How does singing help their development?
Music is a great way to get babies started on all kinds of skills. First up, they love performing for their friends and family. This helps develop self-esteem and gives them the confidence to learn. Second, music—whether it's singing, playing or just dancing along—helps develop social and communication skills because it can be a shared activity. Third, music can underpin abstract thought. Counting to the rhythm of music can help children learn number and pattern concepts; rhyming songs teach children about the rhythm and structure of language; and, of course, dancing to music helps infants develop movement and balance skills.
What’s next?
When children make music, whether it’s singing or playing musical instruments, they develop a number of different areas in the brain including sensory, motor, memory and language systems. In fact, it is thought that stepping up a child's exposure to music can promote physical development.
Learn and Groove musical toys help your child develop a sense of rhythm from an early age using rhymes and songs.
What is this little girl doing?
I didn't think this girl was going to stop. Way to go! This is a great performance. The little girl in this clip is showing excellent concentration and attention, an understanding of pattern and repetition, as well as great reading.
Like the alphabet, children find it quite easy to recite number sequences they learn from songs, but being able to read numerals on a page is much more difficult. It's all too easy to lose position on the page and just recite sounds from memory.
How is she doing it?
This little girl has learned the principle of the decimal system to her advantage. She has recognized the pattern that the units cycle through zero to nine for every increment in the tens. This is a first step in understanding multiplication.
What's particularly impressive is the way she just keeps on going. It takes some time to finish, and she doesn't give up. Even when she's uncertain or loses her place, looking to Mom for guidance, she manages to find her place on the list again and keep going.
The payoff at the end is truly rewarding—the expression on her face as she reaches 100, knowing she's got it right, and basking in Mom's praise is heart-warming.
What’s next?
Where to go from here? Learning number sequences is the first step in building on a child's intuitive understanding of numbers. Being able to read numerals is base for learning about simple abstract mathematical operations like addition and subtraction. This then progresses to using numbers in everyday situations like counting and sharing out sweets or learning the difference between less than and more than. This type of counting indicates that children are learning about the relationship between numbers.
This is a fascinating time in a child’s development. I’d love to see more videos of children putting their number skills to good use.
What is she learning?
Learning place names on a map is something adults can find difficult. It seems amazing that a two-year-old can do so well. But actually, it shows how a few key rules can make early learning really effective. Let's start with what the little girl in the video is learning.
She has to learn to associate a sound (the name of a state) with a shape, color and position (the state on the map). Some of the states are difficult because they have similar shapes and names. California, Texas and Florida are easy—the Dakotas much more difficult. The two-year-old’s advantage in learning these associations is that she doesn't have any preconceptions about states and their locations—she would never confuse Washington state with Washington, D.C.
How is she doing it?
The real key to success here is that Dad is as keen to learn the states as his daughter. Dad has the advantage that he can read the state names, but he is unlikely to learn them much quicker. What's important is that Dad's interest helps his daughter's motivation. A parent's enthusiasm for learning is as important as their child's. Enthusiasm is infectious. It also makes learning fun. It's a game more than a learning experience.
Having the map on the kitchen wall helps learning become part of an everyday routine. It's not a chore to retrieve learning materials, and then store them away afterwards. It's a normal, almost effortless part of daily life.
What’s next?
Knowing the state names and locations is useful because it builds a solid framework for learning about about geography, history and politics. The next stage would be to discover more information about the different states and then about our planet in general.
The Explorer Globe takes learning place names one step further and teaches children (and adults) facts about geography. I can imagine children and their fathers competitively playing the Eureka game together and learning facts about the different states.
