Development

Smart Learning Games

By Hollace Schmidt, No Source
 
See Also
Fun activities to help your baby learn the basics - Parenting.com
How to help your kids have the right kind of fun -- age by age - Parenting.com
Fun ways to help your baby's brain blossom - Parenting.com
Learning is child's play - Parenting.com
Ways to boost your child's math, science, and reading skills when school's out for summer - Parenting.com
Find out what kind of learner your child is, plus possible careers and homework helpers that will meet his specific needs - Parenting.com
Our report on infant intelligence reveals your tot already may be one smart cookie. (And why you should let him play with tupperware.) - Parenting.com

Creative pursuits

From Learning, the Arts and Me Nursery at the Third Street Music School Settlement, New York City

Wonder colors

Cover a table with an old tablecloth and tape down a piece of waxed paper. Then:

• Pour diluted blue, red, and yellow food coloring into bowls.

• Drip a red dot onto the waxed paper with an eyedropper (for a toddler, try a plastic spoon). Have him use another dropper to squeeze a yellow dot right next to the red.

• Watch the colors swirl together: orange!

• Ask: What might happen to red and blue? Yellow and blue?

The hidden lessons: He's learning to associate colors with their names. The eyedropper or spoon will also fine-tune his fingers for writing.

Dance fever

• Turn on some music.

• Have your child make up a simple movement.

• Repeat her move and add another one.

• Tell her to repeat the first and second movements and add a third.

• Keep going until you both break into giggles.

The hidden lessons: Improvising with you shows her how much fun cooperation can be and sharpens her ability to remember a sequence (a math basic). This is also a great way to introduce her to new kinds of music.


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