All you ever wanted to know about reading to and teaching you baby from birth through 3 years old. A very easy to view, learn and apply hands on comprehensive course compiled by Dr. Tiah Fahnrich, using illustrations of her son 3 months old thru 18 months old.
IN DEVELOPMENT. AVAILABLE JANURARY, 2022.
MODULE ONE OUTLINE:
Your Child’s Literacy and Language Development from Birth to Age 3
Creative Learning Opportunities for infants and toddlers to promote language and literacy development (345)
Nurturing opportunities
· Summary: Opportunities for children to experience nurturing is one of the most important roles for parents. In this lesson, you will learn how to design comfortable spaces where you and your child can be cozy and comfort each other.
· As a parent or caregiver, you naturally provide your child with nurturing opportunities inside and outside of your home. This occurs for children in many spaces and at many times throughout the day. Nurturing children is one of the most important roles of a parent, where you make them feel safe and secure. Babies need to be loved and nurtured from birth to create a trusting bond between them and the adults who care for them, and to help create trust and interest in the world at large, which enables them to grow and to learn. Creating a safe nurturing space in your home is not hard to do. It could be a simple corner that has a few of your child’s favorite toys or books, or even a small table and chairs that allow them to do arts and crafts or eat a snack. In our house, we have a small playroom next to our kitchen where Kaed’s toys and books are organized in a way that allows him the opportunity to play and explore, alone and with us. These quiet spaces may double as nurturing places, and are perfect for allowing your child room to have a moment to themselves as well. Look around your home, have you created a nurturing safe space for your child to play, have solo time, or be calm together. Here are some tips:
o Create areas where the you and your child can be cozy together and where you can hold and comfort them. This could be a favorite spot in your house to read a book, or play on the floor.
o Create comfortable areas where you can sit with your back supported—then infants and toddlers can sit close, lean into you, or plop down on your lap. Ex: comfy coach, a small bean bag chair, or pillows, anything to help you as the caregiver feel comfortable
o Create spaces where you can see eye-to-eye with your child. Sometimes, we forget that children want to be at eye level with you. So remember to sit, kneel, or reach down to connect with them.
o Provide a firm mat on the floor in front of a safety mirror hung low on the wall, so that infants and toddlers can enjoy looking in the mirror, patting the images they see, singing songs to their reflections, and making faces at the faces looking back at them.
o Create laminated pictures of your family so that your children can carry them around, which allows helps children become familiar with family members
o Provide peek-a-boo pictures of family members on a board with a piece of cloth over each one so your child can lift up the cloth and see the picture.
· ACTIVITY IDEAS
o TODDLER: 140- Yoga animal pose; 13;
o Mirror Face (infant) p. 11; Eyes, hands, and feet p. 46; Prone play p. 47;
Cognitive Opportunities
· Summary: With cognitive development, the environment, toys, and materials facilitate children’s development of language and literacy. In this lesson, you will learn how to create opportunities for children by providing materials that interest them and that are at or slightly above their developmental level.
· Completing several activities throughout the day is crucial for your child’s cognitive development. By completing various activities, the environment, toys, and materials assist children’s development and then learning takes off naturally. The supplies in the environment and the parent-child interactions will facilitate each child’s sense of wonder, pleasure, curiosity, and discovery in all areas of the room. It is through these experiences and interactions that leads to knowledge and a love of learning.
· As a parent, I try to provide toys that adapt to changes in your child’s development. For some parents, there are several online monthly subscription services that follow your child’s age and send toys or activities to engage and teach your child. For parents that want to try it themselves, there are several ways to use or make simple toys that can be used throughout a child’s early development. For example Kaed used a rattling toy can usually be chewed and examined and passed from hand to hand as an infant. But, now at 15 months, he now uses the rattle and tries to stack it on various items around the house. Most times, we both know its being used incorrectly, but that’s the beauty of toddlerhood. The breakthrough or moment when they use the item even more correctly (after much experimentation). So, in this case, the toy hasn’t changed, but the way Kaed plays with the toy has changed. Almost every toy is adaptable and can be used by children who are at different developmental stages.
· To help your child’s cognitive development, infants and toddlers gain confidence in their ability to initiate, be intentional, persist at tasks, and problem solve when they are given opportunities to discover what they can do with toys and materials. Have you noticed that your child does actions like: tasting, sucking, banging together, tapping, moving, dumping, building, and tasting again? These actions help them gain confidence and build the desire to problem solve, just by providing materials that interest them and that are at or slightly above their developmental level.
· When Kaed was started to crawl, I realized that he liked time alone to explore, even though I was close nearby. These long periods of exploration time, whether alone or assisted with a parent are important for infants and toddlers to investigate toys and materials.
· Have you noticed that your toddler often gravitate toward different and interesting materials? Why is that so, well because toddlers like surprises! Parents can create activities such as providing a container with a hole in the bottom or a slotted spoon in the water table, or even a solid block in with the stacking rings. Kaed loves when I put up contact paper with the sticky side up. For this activity, I usually tape it to a wall, especially because he is walking. But when he was an infant, for tummy time I pasted it on the floor. I gathered the most random materials I could find either around my house or at a crafts store. I would place large pom poms, large feathers buttons, and other random material nearby so that Kaed could experiment with placing and removing items on the paper. These materials create a sense of wonder in young children.
· Another cognitive activity you could do with your child is create “wow” moments with infants and toddlers. I love moments when Kaed was an infant and was seemed puzzled by a wobbly toy or even when as a 15 month old he looks surprised when he discovered the balls could be different size or weight. Share wow moments with your own child and use these surprised looks to build an emotional feeling of excitement about learning. When parents support children’s curiosity they support children’s desire and confidence to learn.
o ACTIVITY IDEAS
o Infant- Baby faces – p. 9 ; Peekaboo p. 17;
o Toddler: 59; 64; 80; 215
Delighting the Senses
· Summary: Infants and toddlers use all of their senses, to help learn about object permanence, cause and effect, and the attributes of objects and materials. In this lesson, you will learn how to provide your child with various materials of different textures to delight their curiosity.
· Infants and toddlers use all of their senses; to hear, see, feel, taste, and smell—in all areas of the room. Sometimes I watch Kaed and think, huh?! He’s tasting the wall! When children satisfy their senses, they are learning about developmental milestones such as object permanence, cause and effect, and numerous attributes of objects and materials. Infants’ and toddlers’ language development grows by leaps and bounds when they have delightful sensory experiences.
· A great activity that I prepare for Kaed is usually having him play with sand and water. I say “sand” but I really use a food processor to grind up a natural cereal like cheerios, therefore making fake sand. This was I am more comfortable when he puts it in his mouth.
· Sand provides a great opportunity to help children develop their small motor skills.
· I usually put the sand in a short sand or a container on a small table or the floor. I then encourage Kaed to encourages toddlers to feel the texture, pour sand through their fingers, and experiment with filling and emptying cups and other containers. I also put waterwheels, funnels, sifters, containers of different sizes, and plastic animals to encourage him to experiment. You could even create a sandbox beach inside for toddlers, with a small swimming pool full of sand, safe low beach chairs, large plastic sunglasses, beach towels, and magazines.
· Provide water in a variety of containers for toddlers (always watch carefully to prevent drowning). Provide small basins of water or short water tables for toddlers. Add different materials each day or week to encourage exploration. Refill the containers of water often to reduce the spread of infection. Water tables have drains on the bottom for ease of emptying. Squeeze bottles and paintbrushes encourage toddlers to use water outdoors to “paint” a fence.
· Provide infants with materials of different textures to touch to delight senses. Paper grocery or reusable bags can contain different objects in them to keep older infants and toddlers curious as they put their hands in the bags.
· How do you offer opportunities for your children to explore with their other senses in addition to touch? Always remember the five senses and make sure your child is exposed to all: to hear, see, feel, taste, and smell.
· Activity
o Infant- Did I do that? P. 18
o Toddler- 16; 39; 159; 163
Creative opportunities
· Summary- Infants and toddlers love to create! In this lesson, you will learn how to help your child make messes, invent sounds, discover, invent, collect, observe, and create.
· Infants and toddlers love to create—make messes, invent new sounds, make a toy move in a surprising way, or put two or more items together in an new manner. When watching your child, parents can see the joy and wonder expressed when toddlers make marks on paper with crayons or when they glue two pieces of sticks together. When your child is making messes, dumping, mushing, exploring, discovering, inventing, collecting, imagining, observing, and playing with materials, they are creating.
· Even in infancy, when a baby reaches out to touch his parent’s face, parent’s eyes open wide in delight, because it creates an emotional connection. A young toddler, who is just beginning to walk, creates a feeling as adults marvel at this new development. Toddlers throw toys into a box and create crashing noises. They place one block beside another and begin to create a row. One day they may stack a block on top of another and create a tower. Kaed is now interested in stacking several toys on top of each other and gets amused and claps when he has accomplished it.
· I recently began giving Kaed nontoxic paint to help him discover colors and creating artwork. When infants and toddlers create in this kind of way, they learn that they can produce, build, generate new ideas, and construct—all aspects of being a creative person. They also develop a healthy sense of mastery; a positive self-concept; and a feeling of being capable of achieving goals and competent.
· Creative and sensory oriented materials engage children. Open-ended materials allow the child to use them in a variety of ways. Parents can make materials available and young children experiment on their own or with guidance, rather than trying to make a standard product. The process of feeling, pouring, dumping, lifting, examining, turning over, and testing is what is important for very young children—not the end product.
· Another creative material you can use is play dough and clay, then stay close and watch the wonderful exploration that occurs. As they delight their senses, you child is learning about the composition of materials and how to shape and reshape them, number, quantity, and mass. All of these activities provide perfect opportunities for parents to support the language development of their infants and toddlers.
· To use playdough, Create a corner where children play with play dough on the floor or on a short table. Place separate piles of play dough on the table or provide one large ball of play dough in the middle of the table. If the materials are available for lengthy periods of time and almost every day, infants and toddlers will relax as they trust that the materials will be available and have time to test their theories about how the material works.
· Toddlers love to make something happen rather than making something. Be open to all of the possibilities for what children do with the materials. Materials should always be offered as a choice, and children should not ever be forced to touch or play with them.
· Activity Idea
o ; 12; 25 118
Music, song, and creative movement opportunities
· Summary: Infants and toddlers love to hear songs because the love the warm feelings that are conveyed. In this lesson, you will learn how to have your child sing, listen to music, make rhythms, and move their bodies.
· As a parents, singing songs throughout the day is an important language and literacy activity. Songs sung throughout the day comfort children or help them transition from one activity to another, such as from indoor play to outdoor play. These familiar activities are opportunities for young children to enjoy music and learn concepts in fun, responsive, sensitive ways. Trust me, you don’t have to have the best singing voice in the world to sing to infants and toddlers. Infants and toddlers love to hear songs and it doesn’t matter to them how you sound —they love the warm feelings that are conveyed.
· Why is it important to play music around your child, it provides opportunities for pure joy; it gets them opportunities to move, practice crawling, pull to stand, jump, run, experience rhythms, and feel comfortable with their bodies in space; it increase self-awareness and worth; it helps children make transitions and make routines and learning fun; it also encourage children to listen and follow directions; and it aids, comforts, and soothes children to help them fall asleep
· Activity Ideas
o 28; 120; 164; 176
o Infant- Instrument fun p. 31; p. 206;
Numeracy, space, and shape opportunities
· Summary: All of the materials in an infant or toddler’s home should offer opportunities for learning about math concepts. In this lesson you will learn how to nurture your child’s mathematical understanding through their play environments and everyday interactions with family members
· All materials in an infant-toddler room or home offer opportunities for learning about numerals. This includes the face that symbols represent numbers, like the numeral 2; also about numbers for example the concept of amount—that there are a total of two blocks on the table; as well as other math concepts. As your infant holds one block in one hand and another block in another and looks back and forth from one to the other, they are learning about numbers. “More” becomes evident as your baby feels what two are like compared to one.
· Parents can nurture infants’ and toddlers’ understanding of math concepts by setting up a rich menu of math opportunities for young children. Parents then support children’s interest and exploration through math interactions therefore promoting children’s ability to process information—how to think. As an infant, we constantly sang a toesies song to Kaed when he was laying on his back. “one little two little three little toesies, four little five little, six little toesies, seven little eight little, nine little toesies, ten little toesies bum bum, ten little toesies bum bum.
· To support math concepts, parents don’t give toddlers worksheets and they are not drilled in their numbers and shapes. Learning about math concepts happens in a play environment and is found everywhere your child goes and in many interactions that occur daily with others. Parents take advantage of playful moments and the environment to help young children learn. Most materials and interactions have the possibility of promoting many concepts—for example, concepts of shape or counting measuring, or even time.
o 6;22; 25; 97;225
o Infant- p. 176 counting your fingers and toes
Outdoor Opportunities
· Summary: Outdoor time brings opportunities for infants and toddlers to poke and dig in the sand and dirt, push and pull wagons, touch everything in sight, and feel the soft breezes on their faces. In this lesson, you will learn how to provide interesting and exciting experiences, allowing them to explore the outdoor world with all their senses.
· Outdoor time with your infants and toddlers creates important time for them to poke and dig in the sand and dirt, push and pull wagons, touch everything in sight, and feel the soft breezes on their faces. They smell the scent of flowers and trees, learn new outside vocabulary, and gain challenging and physical experiences such as walking in sand and climbing over safe obstacles.
· When outdoors, place infants on a soft blanket to allow them to have tummy time. You can even bring their favorite manipulatives outside. Even reading picture books, or repeating outdoor sounds that you hear such as cars, planes, or birds help infants learn about the outdoors.
· For young toddlers, provide equipment that is safe for cruising and allows them to pull themselves up on or walk around. Kaed is obsessed with balls currently, and he loves to throw them or stack other toys outdoors as well as inside. We sometimes fill small plastic pools with mini balls or safe manipulatives.
· You can also provide a sand areas large enough for toddlers and expect them to sit right in the middle of the area. Paintbrushes and water go together for an outdoor art experience. Set up other art materials such as crayons, paints, and a variety of paper on the ground or a low table. Blankets on the ground or over a card table for puzzles, stories, and manipulatives provide a spot for a quiet break.
· Activity
o 27; 43; 48