This page features activities for parents and infants...
When your baby is born, we encourage you to seize the opportunity and turn everyday activities into a learning endeavors. Singing simple songs and reading nursery rhymes are both easy ways that you can reinforce the sounds of language.
We realize that having free time is an issue that many households face today. Keeping this in mind, we've listed some ideas for Mom and Dad that you can incorporate within your routine care of your baby.
Remember, when speaking to your child -- whether sitting down or holding your baby -- make eye contact at their eye level. Studies have shown that this will help to maintain their attention.
Practice the hand to mouth theory with your baby. Sounds your child can see you make with your lips will more than likely absorb first. A word that is spoken with the tongue -- for instance, sad -- is not a word that your baby will be able to see you pronounce with lip movement. When you teach your baby a sound that is made with your lips, like the "p" sound for Papa, or the "b" sound for bottle, hold your baby's hand to your mouth. Not only will your baby see the sound come from your lips; s/he will feel how and where the sound is made.
As your baby is becoming more familiar with BABY COLLEGE®, replay small sections of the video over and over. When you practice the sounds in a portion of the video, make it exciting for your little one by using hand puppets. Puppets are proven baby pleasers. Move the puppet's mouth in sync with yours while articulating the sounds. Remember... repetition is the key!
Listening to language in stories, songs, nursery rhymes, and everyday conversations is an important tool in your baby's learning process. Through repetition babies can learn to understand larger words before they can say them. Use every-day objects to increase your baby's understanding. For example: Ask your baby "Where's the telephone?" Then gently use your baby's finger to point to the telephone while saying "Here's the telephone." Eventually your baby will be able to point to many objects when asked. By applying this technique to picture books as well as everyday objects you will give your baby a way to communicate months before s/he can talk.
It's fun to make up other scenarios with your baby in order to implement the vowel sounds. Hold your baby and pretend that you're a car, making "vroom-vroom" and "beep-beep" and "swish-swish" sounds. Get your baby better acquainted with your immediate surroundings and reinforce the samples in BABY COLLEGE® when or wherever it's convenient for yourself and your baby.
You can also use this exercise when you take your baby for a walk. Show your child the plants, the sky, animals or insects, other homes or automobiles. Make animal noises, airplane noises, or any other sounds that reinforce the consonants and vowels of language. Help your baby to be comfortable in their surroundings. What better way to do this than to familiarize them with the language of their new world.
Play your own version of this fun learning game... ie; be a choo-choo train, or a pony!
In your baby's later months of their first year, they are beginning to figure out what they can do with their mouth, hands, feet, fingers and toes. Using your hands, mouth, and soft harmless objects like cotton balls or bubbles, show your baby how to blow them from their palms using, for instance, the "p" sound again. This will help teach your baby how to form their mouth a certain way to make particular sounds.
On those exciting days for parents, when your baby is beginning to repeat the sounds that they've picked up through BABY COLLEGE® and your lessons, record that date in a record book and other accomplishments in language, motor skills, etc. This will be a fun thing for you and your child to look back on someday.
When you are taking care of your baby, you're doing a lot more than just feeding, bathing, or comforting -- as a parent, you're helping your child's brain to develop. Your home, the grocery store, the park, or a relatives home becomes a classroom for "baby studies." Pursue their learning adventure wherever you go. There's a whole world out there that your baby is just waiting to see and understand. Communicate whenever you have the opportunity, through words, through actions, using sounds, single words, or complete sentences. Use "parentese" -- the language parents use to speak to their infants -- when you really want to capture your baby's attention.
Indulge your young one's appetite to learn. A fortunate baby which has been given the opportunity to establish their language skills in the earliest stages of life will have a very important head start in their career.
