Find out Why Educational Play is so Important for your Child
Reports are coming out all over the globe on the benefits of educational play and how it affects our children. Not only is it fun, but many activities improve kid's brain function. We always hear about the importance of developing fine motor skills in our children, but we're not sure what exactly that means! Fine motor skills involve fine-tuning the small muscles in the body that concentrate on functions such as writing, picking objects up, and fastening clothing. Learning dexterity and control is the key to helping this very important skill develop. We have listed the most important activities a child can do to develop the brain and all it's wondrous functions!
Art & Drawing
What might look like scribbles and marks to parents, are children's actual attempts to capture their visual world on paper. Huge benefits are experienced by children when allowed to do unstructured art and freehand. Along with fine motor skills, your little one's memory, patience, and emotional expression are being developed. Giving your child an open canvas is allowing him to paint, color, and draw with no borders, thus, expanding his imagination and creativity. Once your child has completed his major art piece, sit down and ask him about the colors and shapes drawn or colored without asking to identify what the picture is as a whole. It can confuse and disappoint if he is not drawing something in particular. Once the age is right, he will readily share with you what is on the paper without you even having to ask.
Music & Instruments
Children love music! Their brain loves it just as much because of the complex tunes and notes. So many benefits are obtained from music that it is recommended for parents to create a music hour for babies in vitro. Music stimulates the development of the whole system and enhances your child's ability to think, learn, reason, create, memorize, and boost future academic success. Parents can form their own music class with the most basic of objects like beans in a sealed can for shaking, spoons and pots for banging, and empty paper rolls for horns. The toy industry has responded to parents wanting to incorporate musical instruments into their child's play by making pianos, drums, xylophones, and guitars at the most basic level and perfect kid sizes.
Puzzles
My daughter has an aunt who buys her puzzles as gifts for every birthday and Christmas. After six years, she has a closet full of puzzles and loves every one of them! From the most basic large pieces with handles, wooden farms, outer space, and this year’s 200 piece puzzles that are extremely complex, there’s a to suit ever child's interests. First hand, the benefits of puzzles are truly vast. They help with hand-eye coordination, memory development, problem-solving skills, building spatial perception, and improving literacy skills. Only assist your child when asked and allow her to play with the same puzzle over and over again. Each time she improves, your child gets to see the benefits of being faster and better. This can confuse adults as we think children want to see new scenery and do a different theme, but allow her to make the decision to move on.
Puppet Shows
For pretend play that really delights your child, puppets are the way to go! Puppet shows can be therapeutic as well as educational. Interacting with a puppet can release stresses like shyness, fear of speech, and support expression of feelings. Education can be on many more levels than just academics. With puppet shows, children can learn social awareness, giving and taking, as well as, leading and following. Parents joining the show and allowing the child to become a dominant role for once can give your child the freedom to express how he is feeling.
Shape Sorting & Stacking
Once your baby learns how to grasp an object, shape sorting and stacking can be played at the most basic of levels. Don't be surprised or disappointed if at first she simply fills the cube with the shapes and dumps them out. This is the normal transgression and with some gentle guidance by mom and dad, she will be sorting like a pro! This activity is the perfect beginning for developing the ever-important fine motor skills we've been speaking about. The act of stacking shapes, sorting them in groups, and finally fitting them into their correct holes is just the beginning of learning the concept of size, color, and different shapes. As your little one gets more advanced, games and toys are available to take her to the next level.
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