Child Development
Human beings are incredible at using their bodies for a variety of tasks. Just watching different sports is a fantastic way to celebrate the human body: gymnasts as they leap and twirl, surfers as they balance on a surfboard, golfers as they swing with precision, swimmers as they race through water, and members of track […]
Proprioception, the sense of your body awareness, is sometimes referred to as the sixth sense. It’s not one that is talked about often, yet, it’s incredibly important! The sense of proprioception tells a person how close their body is to objects, how to move their body and the strength they need to apply. A child […]
Think of the midline as an imaginary line going down the center of your body. When a child can cross their midline’s, both sides of their brain are communicating to coordinate smooth, controlled movement. With this skill, both sides of the child’s brain are in communication so that movements can be coordinated and smooth. It’s […]
Human beings are incredible at using their bodies for a variety of tasks. Just watching different sports is a fantastic way to celebrate the human body: gymnasts as they leap and twirl, surfers as they balance on a surfboard, golfers as they swing with precision, swimmers as they race through water, and members of track […]
Proprioception, the sense of your body awareness, is sometimes referred to as the sixth sense. It’s not one that is talked about often, yet, it’s incredibly important! The sense of proprioception tells a person how close their body is to objects, how to move their body and the strength they need to apply. A child […]
Think of the midline as an imaginary line going down the center of your body. When a child can cross their midline’s, both sides of their brain are communicating to coordinate smooth, controlled movement. With this skill, both sides of the child’s brain are in communication so that movements can be coordinated and smooth. It’s […]
Children make connections to understand how the world works and our various systems in transportation, food, nature, and more. Adults can facilitate this learning by asking open-ended questions and inviting children to think beyond the immediate toys and materials right in front of them. Making daily connections and discoveries across disciplines is one of the […]
One of the great abilities of human beings is the ability to utilize complex cognitive abilities to think through different steps for completing a task. People use this ability every day! Just to eat, we plan out our meals as we search for recipes, write down the ingredients, plan our route to the grocery store, […]
Children love pretend play! Whether hammering with a little plastic hammer, mashing a mud pie, or talking on a pretend telephone, many caregivers have seen children engage in rich pretend play, or sometimes called imaginative or dramatic play. In early childhood, caregivers may notice that children’s pretend play functions as a demonstration of their knowledge […]
Children make connections to understand how the world works and our various systems in transportation, food, nature, and more. Adults can facilitate this learning by asking open-ended questions and inviting children to think beyond the immediate toys and materials right in front of them. Making daily connections and discoveries across disciplines is one of the […]
One of the great abilities of human beings is the ability to utilize complex cognitive abilities to think through different steps for completing a task. People use this ability every day! Just to eat, we plan out our meals as we search for recipes, write down the ingredients, plan our route to the grocery store, […]
Children love pretend play! Whether hammering with a little plastic hammer, mashing a mud pie, or talking on a pretend telephone, many caregivers have seen children engage in rich pretend play, or sometimes called imaginative or dramatic play. In early childhood, caregivers may notice that children’s pretend play functions as a demonstration of their knowledge […]
First, to talk about the importance of having conversations with young children, let’s begin by discussing the value of what developmental researchers have described as “Serve-and-Return” interactions. This is terminology coined by scientists and developmental experts at the Harvard Center for the Developing Child, a research center dedicated to generating, translating, and disseminating scientific knowledge […]
The rich capacity in humans to communicate through speech, sign language, emotions, and movement is an incredible thing to witness. Many caregivers and parents may wonder what kind of language to expose children to. The most important key to building children’s language and vocabulary is to give them language to describe the things that are […]
Auditory Processing is a pre-verbal skill. It is how the brain recognizes and understands sound information. There are four main parts of Auditory Processing 1: Auditory Awareness: This includes the ability to detect and sound and locate where the sound is coming from. 2: Auditory Discrimination: This includes the ability to tell the differences in […]
First, to talk about the importance of having conversations with young children, let’s begin by discussing the value of what developmental researchers have described as “Serve-and-Return” interactions. This is terminology coined by scientists and developmental experts at the Harvard Center for the Developing Child, a research center dedicated to generating, translating, and disseminating scientific knowledge […]
The rich capacity in humans to communicate through speech, sign language, emotions, and movement is an incredible thing to witness. Many caregivers and parents may wonder what kind of language to expose children to. The most important key to building children’s language and vocabulary is to give them language to describe the things that are […]
Auditory Processing is a pre-verbal skill. It is how the brain recognizes and understands sound information. There are four main parts of Auditory Processing 1: Auditory Awareness: This includes the ability to detect and sound and locate where the sound is coming from. 2: Auditory Discrimination: This includes the ability to tell the differences in […]
When children understand directional language, it not only helps them follow directions or explain things themselves, but it helps them navigate the world. Humans use spatial awareness to read maps, build things, and understand the way the world moves. Let’s go on a short trip to think about how we use spatial learning in everyday […]
Whether we are counting push ups during an exercise routine, cash to pay for an ice cream, or minutes on the clock–counting is a very useful skill for everyday life. When teaching math or literacy skills to young children, one of the most important things that we can do is help children to understand the […]
There are many things that we measure as part of everyday life. We calculate distance, height, weight, volume, and time as we cook, build, race, travel, grow, and more. Measurement is a mathematical concept that is useful when it is connected to real life, and that is what makes learning meaningful for children. From birth […]
When children understand directional language, it not only helps them follow directions or explain things themselves, but it helps them navigate the world. Humans use spatial awareness to read maps, build things, and understand the way the world moves. Let’s go on a short trip to think about how we use spatial learning in everyday […]
Whether we are counting push ups during an exercise routine, cash to pay for an ice cream, or minutes on the clock–counting is a very useful skill for everyday life. When teaching math or literacy skills to young children, one of the most important things that we can do is help children to understand the […]
There are many things that we measure as part of everyday life. We calculate distance, height, weight, volume, and time as we cook, build, race, travel, grow, and more. Measurement is a mathematical concept that is useful when it is connected to real life, and that is what makes learning meaningful for children. From birth […]
Learning through play
Children are never "just playing"
How do children learn through play?
Empowerment
Empowering children is a social-emotional topic that is applicable in so many areas of children’s lives. For example, let’s think about the journey children take to learn how to walk: The child experiments with standing as they reach for the edge of a table, they take steps as a caregiver holds their hands and walks […]
Empathy
Emotions are an important part of the human experience. Emotions are both mental and physical, as we experience the internal flutter of butterflies in our stomach, or feel our cheeks externally flush with embarrassment, or see our sibling’s eyebrows furrow with consternation. Empathy is the ability to understand and respond to the feelings of others– […]
Routines
Many experienced caregivers are very familiar with the need to establish routines with children. From the time that children wake up until they lay their little heads on their pillows at night, the day is full of routines. Indeed, children need routines to feel safe and secure, as it helps them to know what comes […]
Social-Emotional Development