Playing Is Educational

Early childhood education is a general term that describes a diverse range of programs. Some refer to any type of daycare, as education. However, evidence overwhelmingly shows that early daycare may actually be a detriment rather than a benefit to young children. Longer stays at home with a single caregiver are argued to be more intellectually stimulating to young children. As well, the child who stays at home is more likely to benefit from breastfeeding for longer, which many say is of great advantage to the child.

Most experts agree that early education works best in low pressure, social, and friendly environments. It is also more effective when preschool is only a small part of a four or five year old’s day. Preschool that bleeds into long hours at daycare may not carry the same benefit for children, because it means more time away from parents. Not all programs are equally beneficial, and can vary depending upon funding, teacher to child ratio, and teacher experience.

Some of the long-term benefits of early childhood education in quality preschools include: greater parental involvement, fewer referrals to special education or remedial services, higher grades, better social skills, and greater ability to focus. As well, some studies show that children attending pre-school are more likely to graduate and pursue higher education, and be well integrated socially as an adult. It is also said that children with an early childhood education are less likely to commit illegal acts, and tend to earn more money.

A child’s early learning is enhanced by early childhood activities that promote imagination, from independent play to interactive play.  There are a wide variety of early childhood toys available to enhance their imaginative play. 

On a daily basis, your child see you prepare and cook meals.  There are many toys available for your child’s food play activities that will provide hours of educational play.  Pretend play food is available that ranges from fruits and vegetables to multicultural meals, such as, sushi from Japan, pasta pronto from Italy, and fiesta flavors from Mexico.

Have your child prepare you a pretend meal.  They can prepare a picnic lunch basket, have a pizza party, or set the table with plastic play dishes and have a fine dining experience.

What is your favorite pretend food play experience?

This human brain cross-section model is a valuable tool for teaching students about the complexities of the human brain’s anatomy. 

The cross-section model comes apart for hands-on classroom demonstrations.  One half  of the brain model is labeled with the parts of the organ while the other has letters for testing purposes.

Parts of the human brain and their functions:

Cerebrum / Cortex - Largest part of the human brain associated with higher thought and action, that is divided into the following sections:

• Frontal Lobe - associated with attention, motivation, reasoning, problem solving, planning, decision making, parts of speech, movement, and emotions
• Parietal Lobe - associated with movement, orientation, recognition, and perception of stimuli
• Occipital Lobe - associated with visual processing and recognition of the printed word
• Temporal Lobe - associated with memory, perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech

Other sections are also illustrated on the human brain model.

Dramatic play should be a primary part of every child’s early childhood activities.  This pretend play encourages a child to explore and expand his imagination by allowing him to invent and create his own scenarios.

As a child explores various ways to play, he will increase his problem solving skills, langauge skills, vocabulary skills, and story telling skills. 

Dramatic play also promotes a child’s willingness to cooperate and share with others, which will increase his communication skills and other social skills.

Dramatic play is only limited to a child’s imagination, and little children have very big imaginations.

Children learn through play.  As the toddler grows into the young child his interest widens.  More and more, educational kids games will interest him.  Puzzles and simple crafts will catch his attention and he will spend longer hours working on them.  Even at this age, the child will still need parent supervision but clearly, he is on his way to discovering independence.

Educational games for kids are bonding moments, with the parent, sibling or friend.  They are obviously using their minds when putting together a puzzle but there are benefits that are not immediately apparent. The game appears to be simple, yet experts say that they nevertheless require conceptual and social skills. Dealing with a playmate, for example, can be stressful at this stage.  Suffice it to say that even the simplest of games can be a learning experience.

The key to teaching counting to your child is to make counting entertaining. 

Start teaching your child about numbers and counting in their early childhood activities.  They can begin learning how to count in their everyday play, long before they even realize that they are being taught.  You must be interactive when you play with your child.    These techniques can even work long before your child can talk.  

Here are some everyday play activities that you can do to help teach counting skills.  

Playing with Blocks - Childrens Educational Toys:

When you are playing blocks, count them as your stack them together.  You child will be entertained, because they will 9 times out of 10, knock the stack down.  Smile and say, “oh no”, and then stack them together again as you are count them.

Ask your child to hand you some blocks and as they do - count them.

Sort out the blocks by color, shape, design, or size.  Count how many of each you have.        

As your child advances, alternate who stack the blocks together.  You can place the first block and count 1, then have your child stack the next block and count 2, etc…

You may even find things like flash cards, dominoes, or a wooden bead abacuses with beads that are different colors and shapes, very useful to teach your child their counting skills.

Around Your Home, Store, or Restaurant Games - Arithmetic Games

As you dress your child, count their fingers, toes, arms, legs, eyes, etc…  Count the buttons or snaps on their clothes.

As they eat their favorite foods - grapes, pepperoni, french fries - you can count how many they ate.   

Count the stairs as you walk up and down them.

When you are at the store, count the number of products that you put into the cart.  Tell your child that you need three boxes of cereal and count them as they load them into the cart.

Singing and Counting

Children love singing and dancing around.  Use songs to help your child learn about counting and arithmetic skills.  Start out by singing songs like: “5 Little Monkeys Jumping in the Bed” and then move into other musical tunes.  There are many CD’s or DVD’s that are focused on math skills like counting, addition, and subtraction.  Listen to them at least once a day.

As mentioned earlier, the key to teaching counting to your child is to make counting entertaining.  This can be achieved by using these early childhood activities and arithmetic games.  Remember to count out loud to them when they are young, and to do these activities thoughout the day to reinforce these mathematics and counting skills.

Everyday we hear about obesity in the news and the health issues that it causes.  Let’s help our children learn about nutrition with fun and meaningful activities that introduce health and wellness concepts. 

Start out by using the new food pyramid for personalized nutrition needs based on your child’s age, gender, and physical activity.  Then, choose foods according to the USDA’s MyPyramid to practice good hygiene and healthy food choices.

Encourage your children to use fun songs (sipping cider through a straw to “Apples and Bananas”) or other hands-on activites like board games, word searches, photographic food cards, and matching activities to help them learn about and appreciate the variety of fabulous foods that we enjoy every day, while exploring nutrition. 

Weather affects everyone, everyday!  ( Droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc…)

A good way to help children understand how weather affects us everyday is to have them make observations about sunlight, rainfall, wind speed, wind direction, and temperature.  Chart their observations, and explain other weather terms like: evaporation, isobars, jet streams, and wind chill factors.

Launch scientific investigations of severe weather phenomena using recent disaster events.  Discuss interesting weather facts and set up group research projects and lab activities to simulate volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and lightning.

Understanding and following the weather can be fun and educational.

A young child can increase his or her speech skills by singing songs, chants, and rhymes! 

To make singing fun and entertaining for children, introduce them to rhythm instruments.  Encourage them to be interactive when they sing by playing along with a musical instrument.  Children can make the sound of ocean waves using shakers, pretend to be a train using sand blocks, create a rainstorm with rhythm sticks, and pretend to perform circus tricks with jingle bells.

(What is your favorite song, chant, or rhyme?)

Here are some sample songs:

The ABC Song:  A,B,C,D,E,F,G,- H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P, - Q,R,S,- T,U,V,- W,X,Y,Z  now I know my ABC’s, next time won’t you sing with me?

The Itisy Bisty Spider:  Itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout.  Down came the rain and washed the spider out.  Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.  And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again!  (Repeat) 

Shoo Fly:  Shoo, fly, don’t bother me - Shoo, fly, don’t bother me - Shoo, fly, don’t bother me - For I belong to somebody.  I feel, I feel, I feel like a morning star.  I feel, I feel, I feel like a morning star. 

Row-Row-Row Your Boat:  Row, row, row your boat.  Gently down the stream.  Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily.  Life is but a dream.  (Repeat)

As we get deeper into winter, I know that I am longing for spring.

Until that time, I would like to encourage you to use indoor creative sand play activities using indoor sandboxes or sand & water tables. 

For us parents or teachers that want a mess-free experience, use a sealed sandbox where the sand is completely enclosed.  Your child can use magnetic wands to push magnetized creatures and vehicles through the sand and make trails. 

A sand and water table will allow your child to have a sensory experience with a large variety of educational play activities.  They can use plastic sand toys and molds to turn playtime into learning time.

Either way, your child will enjoy hours of creative play indoors. 

Don’t worry, spring will be here soon and we will all able to enjoy the beach and the sand again!