Playing to Learn
With busy school days comes what is for most parents their least favorite activity to do with their kids—homework.
Learning
The 3 Biggest Things I Want My Kids To Learn
As we push through day after day of raising young children, we sometimes forget that the end goal is to raise them into awesome adults. But how do you really do that? You can read all types of books, watch multiple parenting shows, and listen to the foremost experts and still feel like you’re lost
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Time to Play: Teaching Your Child to Read
As a mom of a beautiful and intelligent little girl, I was very motivated in teaching her to read. But as you probably know, most children don’t start actually “reading” until around 6 years, and I believe that every child is different and will learn at their own pace. It is very important that we
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10 Ways to Reinforce Preschool Learning
In an age when public and private preschools are nearly impossible to enroll in, it can be frustrating and down-right difficult to think of new and fun ways to reinforce learning and introduce important skills at home. Preschoolers are hungry to learn though and nearly everything in your home can be used to reinforce important life
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Parents v. Positive Reinforcement Toys
Lots of toys these days give some form of response that’s intended to be positive reinforcement for the play experience. For instance, the toy lights up or makes sounds when kids get the answer correct, or the toy makes an animal noise when they put the right piece in the puzzle. It’s been proven over
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School’s In Session: Time to Fail
With schools in many parts of the country in session for a couple of weeks and all kids back in school this week, learning is—or should be—on top of all parents’ minds. I spent the last month talking to parents and kids about going back to school, and one of the things they’re very concerned about is performance. In fact, almost too much. For some kids, especially those starting high school, the level of anxiety was particularly high. Why? Because they’re already concerned about their performance and how that’s going to affect their ability to get into college.
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TTPM.com: Let’s Build Language
Great toys encourage creative play, building skills in many areas-but let’s talk language. Certain features in a toy promote language learning and pretend play. What toys stimulate a story in a child’s mind, start him weaving a tale, engaging in dialogue and solving problems?
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Learn, Baby, Learn
Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology at Berkely in California, and she has a lot that’s important to say about learning. Last week, she wrote an insightful article for the New York Times.
What it boils down to is this: Children learn through play. No, it’s not stop-the-presses revelation, but it is important for parents, teachers and caregivers to recall. In essence, so much of our educational system is results oriented, and what Gopnik and her research show is that learning is a process. As children build mental capabilities through experimentation (aka play), they are putting in place the foundation of an ability to learn.
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