Learning and playing - 1 to 2 years
To a child, play is learning; it's also very hard work. While she is playing, she is learning and growing up. Play helps learning in many ways: It can improve manual dexterity. Building a tower of blocks or, when she is older, doing a simple jigsaw, teaches a child that she can make her hands work for her as tools and it prepares her for using her hands in delicate and refined ways.
© DK
Playing with other children can help to teach a child how important it is to get on with others. Having playmates to the house teaches her to overcome shyness and introduces her to sharing; it presents her with problems to sort out without help from adults, and teaches her to control outbursts of antisocial behaviour. Through a special friend your child may learn to love people and understand feelings that she can't easily put into words. At the same time she will be learning about the feelings of others.
Through play a child learns to communicate. Playing with other children demands a more complicated use of language. Talking while playing may be one of the sternest tests for your child because the more imaginative the play, the more complex the ideas, and these have to be expressed in words that her friends can understand.
Play undoubtedly helps physical co-ordination. In fact it helps both physical and intellectual development. The freedom to swing, climb, skip, run and jump helps to perfect muscular co-ordination and physical skills. It also improves hearing and vision.
Provide the right games for learning and playing
As your child makes no distinction between learning and playing, you can help her to learn a great deal, simply by the material you provide for her to play with and the kind of toys you introduce her to.
From a very early age, all four of my children loved playing with water, whether it was outside in a small paddling pool, or just standing on a chair at the kitchen sink with a bowl of water and an assortment of plastic dishes, cups, jugs, containers and funnels nearby.
Other games you can play
Water games were always good for an hour's concentration and all the time my children were learning lessons: that water feels wet, that it will pour, that you can fill things with it, that you can empty them, that you can blow bubbles in it; that things will float on it, things will sink through it; that vegetable dyes will dissolve in it and colour it and that other liquids won't; that when the tap drips it forms drops, and that cupped hands aren't watertight. And this wasn't the only game:
Materials like play dough, plasticine or pastry was interesting, too, because it could be moulded by their hands. They soon discovered that it would keep its shape if left to dry out, or, if they wanted to, they could roll it into a ball and start all over again.
Sand, whether in the sand-pit or sand tray, was also interesting because it was midway between a liquid and a solid. It felt like a solid but it poured like a liquid. If the sand was wet it would keep the shape of the bucket, and the children could make sand pies; if it was dry then the sand pies crumbled.
Helping the learning process
One of the most important concepts that a child grasps during her second year is that of classification - of sameness and difference. Toys can help the formation of this idea. Farmyard toys, with a variety of horses, cows and chickens, allow your child to sort out the animals that look the same, especially if you help by showing her the differences and naming the animals repeatedly as you put them into little groups. The same procedure can be applied to many other objects - fruit, cars, shapes or tins.
Children like being part of the domestic routine and learn a lot about what goes on in the house and what people have to do if they are allowed to participate. A young child can be given a little bowl with some flour to mix each time you bake; she can help with carrying and, when it comes to cleaning up, give her dustpan and brush; if it's not too big, give her your real one.
For years, an essential part of our playroom was the dressing-up box, into which were put all sorts of old clothes, uniforms, hats and shoes. Most children get immense pleasure from imitating other people. This is a very important learning step for a child because she begins to recognize that she has to share the world with other people and get along with them. Dressing up to look like them is one of her ways of coming to terms with this.
Children of both sexes like dolls. Boys should have their dolls too: they are their imaginary friends, their imaginary families and they help create an imaginary world into which they can escape. While your child is playing with dolls, she is learning about, and possibly mimicking, human emotions. She will mother the doll, talk to it very firmly, tell it off, then put it to bed and kiss it goodnight. Through this your child is working out the things that happen to her, and is learning to understand them fully and relate them to other people.
Creative games
Long before she'll be able to formally write or draw your child will love scribbling and using colours. A box of coloured chalks, a blackboard and an easel will be attractive because she'll be able to “draw” then rub out the scribbles and start again. Attach a sheet of paper to the easel and give your child a set of fingerpaints and let her make her own design of splodges, hand prints and smears on the paper.
Most children are musical and like to be sung to from the day they are born. Many children have mastered the tune of their favourite song or nursery rhyme long before they can talk. As soon as your child is old enough, buy her a simple musical instrument like a xylophone or a keyboard. Join in with marching and clapping and singing. She'll enjoy it even more if you have your own instrument too.
Help your child if learning frustrates him
The best way to help your child with learning is to join in with her learning activities, especially if you make suggestions about how to do something new with a toy and then demonstrate how to do it. However, you must do it tactfully and without interfering, and allow her to decide whether she wants to follow your advice or not. Many of your child's games won't be able to be played without a partner. You should offer to be “It” whenever you can, but only join in for as long as she wants you to; don't overdo it. Leave the initiative to her; she may want you to fill the bucket of sand and ask for your help, but the last thing she'll want is for you to turn the bucket upside down to make the sand pie.
Your child's concentration span is increasing, but she may still have problems concentrating on something that is difficult. You can help her to concentrate by making the task easier or by giving her a helping hand. If you show her how the task or the job can be completed, you can give your child a goal to work towards. She needs your loving support and encouragement and if you give it readily she will probably find the determination to go on longer than she would without you. Doing this will give your child a great sense of achievement.
New Babycare
Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley
Text copyright © 2009 Miriam Stoppard
Posted 30.06.2010
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