Tag: school readiness

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Art in Child Care

Child painting mural

The child care setting can be a great place for children to use and explore different types of art materials. By providing children with many different materials appropriate to their ages and abilities, child care providers can encourage children to use their imaginations and be creative. Children can work on motor skills by stimulation using different types of materials (paper punches, clay, and crayons) and demonstrate an understanding of certain concepts, such as big and small. Through art children are …

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Using Sensory Activities to Teach Wonder, Investigation, and Discovery

Girl playing in mud puddle

Beginning in infancy, children in child care build their knowledge of the world around them through scientific exploration. “Wonder, investigation and discovery” are three words to describe science in young children. Child care providers can encourage and aid developing science knowledge in many simple ways.

In order to promote sensory awareness in children, child care providers may have to overcome the tendency to think about the world instead of experiencing it. We need to become toddlers again and discover wonder …

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Teaching Science through Exploring Smells, Sounds, and Tastes

Sound containers

Young children learn so much by exploring the world using all of their senses. Child care providers can encourage children to explore the world using sensory information. Sensory exploration is also a good way to practice skills of scientific exploration, such as asking questions, testing hypotheses, and evaluating answers. Here are a few activities that encourage children to use senses other than vision to explore the world around them.

Simple Ideas for Exploring Smells, Sounds and Tastes

One of the …

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Importance of Play in Child Care

Boy playing with toy cars

Children are born naturally curious. By exploring and using their senses of sight, touch, sound, smell and taste, children learn about themselves and their environment. They are constantly discovering new things or ideas – how something feels, tastes or smells; or how something works, moves or reacts. Young children are attempting to discover the unknown by touching everything. Babies and toddlers often explore something new by putting the object in their mouths.

Play is far more than just a way …

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Helping Young Children Learn the Sounds of Letters

Alphabet blocks

Understanding the basic sounds of individual letters is an important basic skill in learning to read. Child care providers sometimes call this “learning the alphabet.” It also is called phonological awareness, which is the ability to pay attention to, identify, and use sounds of speech. Phonological awareness helps children break words into sounds and to blend sounds into words.

For example, children need to tell the difference between “d” and “t,” or “b” and “p.” Some letters can have a …

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Ways to Strengthen Children's Creativity in Child Care

Watercolor paints for children

Every child is born with creative potential, but this potential may be stifled if child care providers and parents are not careful to nurture and stimulate creativity. Creativity shows one’s uniqueness. It is the individual saying: “I can be; I can do.” Isn’t this what we want for our children? Creativity is the ability to see things in a new and unusual light, to see problems that no one else may even realize exist, and then come up with new, …

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Helping Young Children Learn to Pronounce Words

Part of learning to read is learning to recognize and pronounce words. Older preschoolers and kindergartners start recognizing simple, familiar words, such as their name. They soon learn to recognize other common words, such as “dog,” “bird” and “cat.” This is often called “sight reading,” whereby children come to recognize words by remembering the pattern of the letters.

Children can also learn to pronounce new words by trying to sound them out. They can figure out how to pronounce words …

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Talking with Babies in Child Care

Woman and baby smiling at each other

Child care providers sometime feel shy about talking with babies, because they think the babies don’t understand what you are saying. But brain research tells us that talking with babies is important. Talking with babies helps them to learn a great deal about language and communication, even before they are old enough to understand the meaning of the words you say.

One of the easiest ways to talk with babies in child care is to build conversation with babies into …

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How to Read Aloud with Children in Child Care

Navy officer reading to children

There’s magic in children’s books. Well-selected and well-read children’s books add to the child care curriculum by opening children to a world of fun and wonder. Books can help children learn about the world and themselves, expand their imaginations, connect with their child care provider, and build important skills that will help children read alone later on.

Reading with others is a learned skill. Child care providers can help children enjoy books by reading in ways that capture and build …

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Ways to Get Children in Your Child Care Program Ready For Reading

Children reading books

Literacy and language develop together in children. Reading and writing develop along with speaking and listening. And it all begins at birth with a child’s first cooing. There are many ways child care providers can boost children’s language skills at different ages. Here are several ways to help expand the language and literacy skills of children in your child care program.

Newborn to 3 Months

  • Hold babies often. Physical contact helps them feel secure.
  • Talk to babies about what you
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