When reading with your child, involve them in the story. Have fun with your words and how you use your voice. When your child makes comments, follow up and encourage them to tell you more. Help your child make connections between what they see in the book and what’s around them. When you make story-telling fun, you are helping your child develop a lifelong love of language.
Read MoreWhatever the weather, invite your child to find things to build with. They can build with rocks, sand, and even snow. Ask what your child wants to build. Help your child come up with a plan and to use words to describe the plan. So much science and math happens when children build!.
Children learn best through everyday experiences. Building is an example of setting a goal and taking steps to achieve it. Those are essential learning skills.
Take a break to make some music. Pots and pans or other safe items can become drums. Then find some drumsticks. Talk with your child about the sounds each one creates. See if you can copy the beat your child makes. Then you play a beat and see if your child can copy it. As you make music this way, your child is learning to pay careful attention to different sounds and using self-control to create or follow the beat -- important skills for learning and life.
Read MoreFind a few cups and hide a small object underneath one of them. Mix up the cups and then ask your child to find the object. With lots of chances to play, your child will get the hang of this “shell game.” As you take turns hiding the item and guessing, you’re building your child’s focus and memory skills
Read MoreShow your child what pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters look like. Encourage your child to notice what’s the same and what’s different. This helps your child learn to focus, pay attention to details, and to make connects between things.
Read MoreTake time to brush your teeth with your child. Encourage your child to do what you do. With your support, your child will learn to take more and more of the steps on his own. Your child learns by watching you – and you’re sharing healthy habits by spending this time together.
Read MoreWhen you’re doing the laundry, involve your child. Explore together the different shapes you and your child can create as you fold. You are helping your child learn focus and self-control as he works towards the goal of folding shapes. Having experiences with shape and size in everyday life supports your child’s learning, now and in the future.
Read MoreRunning errands with your child may take a little longer, but many great brain building opportunities happen while. As you take your child through stores, point to familiar products.
Talk about colors and numbers and follow your child’s interests to help connect what he knows with what’s on the shelf.
Your child’s brain is making connections between what he points at and sees, and the words you are using. All of this helps to boost his communication skills.
Children learn through repetition and back and forth conversations. Repeated storytelling and singing helps them understand the meaning behind words and sets them up for talking. When you share stories and songs, your child is learning the basics and joy of communication.
Read MoreLooking for a fun way to help your child develop important skills? Mix up different pairs of shoes and encourage your child to match the pairs.
Matching helps children use their memory to remember what they're looking for - and practice following directions.
Do you have paper, markers, or pencils? Invite your child to create something. It can be marks on a page or a picture.
Let your child take the lead and come up with his own ideas. Ask questions to keep the learning going.
Drawing is a great way for children to express what they know about the world – and when you ask questions, they can share even more about the things that interest them.
Rainbows aren’t just in the sky. The colors of the rainbow are all around us. Together, see if you can find red, orange, yellow and green foods. Children learn best when they act like scientists and find answers to questions. As they’re learning about colors, your child is also playing an important part in family meals.
Read MoreExplore fun ways to get from one place to another by asking your child if they would like to hop, skip, or run. Let your child share what catches their eye and interests them.
Giving children real choices helps them practice making decisions which boosts their confidence and prepares them to make decisions later in life.
Invite your child to play with safe, everyday items like plastic cups. How does your child explore them? What is your child trying to do with them? Notice her goals and celebrate her successes.
Having goals and achieving them helps your child become engaged and motivated to keep learning. Your encouragement supports her to keep learning and growing.
Look out the window with your child, making sure that they’re safe. Follow their eyes and talk about what they’re seeing and hearing. Then respond to your child’s sounds and movements.
By naming what you’re looking at and responding back to your child, you’re showing them what a conversation is. You’re also helping them to learn to pay attention and introducing them to new words and what they mean.
Read MoreWhen changing your child, have fun with words and sounds together. Try making funny noises and ask your child to imitate you, then take turns going back and forth, adding new sounds and having fun together.
When your child repeats the sounds you make, she is learning to focus and to listen carefully. You are having a conversation with sounds and helping build the connections in your child’s brain for language.
Music is a great way to share your culture and promote learning. When you are with your child, see if your child can stop when you stop the beat. Then try making the music go fast and slow. In these moments children are practicing paying attention and using self-control while they learn more about their family and culture.
When reading with your child, involve them in the story. Have fun with your words and how you use your voice. When your child makes comments, follow up and encourage them to tell you more. Help your child make connections between what they see in the book and what’s around them. When you make story-telling fun, you are helping your child develop a lifelong love of language.
Read MoreUse this Vroom tip while you're watching the fireworks during the fourth of July. When you're outside with your child make a telescope with your hands. Go back and forth about what you both see. This simple game is not only fun, it gives your child a chance to practice skills like paying attention and communicating while also learning new words.
Read MoreDo you have extra cardboard, magazines, or junk mail around the house? Ask your child what to make. A drawing, a hat, maybe even an airplane. It’s important to let children make their own creations, the way they want to make them.
Ask questions. Help your child think like a scientist. To come up with ideas for how things work and then test them out. Encourage your child to think creatively. Children learn best when they are asking questions and finding answers about things that are meaningful to them.
