the baby

For the final part of this 3-part series, I will give you a list of effective strategies that will be perfect for homeschooling your baby in his/her early years… not really the formal homeschooling yet, but these activities will ensure that you maximize your child’s capabilities in her rapid growth years.

The most important points so far (see references at the bottom):

Read frequently to young children, fostering expressive language and comprehension and promoting vocabulary acquisition. Books with either black and white or colorful pictures of familiar objects stimulate infants.
Play with rhymes, simple word games, and songs like “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” or your very own “original” songs.

Family snapshots are favorites of older infants who love to have family members pointed out, named, and talked about.
Outings, even simple walks in the grass, open up possibilities for learning new words and concepts. Talk about the rough bark, soft grass, tickly ant, hungry birds, and splashy puddles. Take advantage of every opportunity to enlarge the child’s world because each new adventure brims with language possibilities.
Talk to your baby throughout the day. Verbalize tasks that you generally do even without her direct involvement. You can try saying, “Mommy is brushing her teeth up and down, up down” and see how she reacts to the activity.
Verbalize gestures made by your baby. When your toddler waves at you, chime in with “Bye-bye!” or when she points at something, ask, “Do you want the doll?”

Use real words. By using real words instead of baby talk, you’re helping her to expand her vocabulary.
Guide her in a social setting. During playtime with other kids, you can encourage your child to say thank you if she receives something, or say sorry if she hurt someone.

Give her feedback in a positive manner. When your child sees you leaving and says “Mommy bye-bye” say, “Yes, Mommy is going to the store.”

Follow your children’s cues and engage in episodes of joint attention. Follow her lead by paying attention to what catches her interest, and then talk about it. When you see her staring too long at a TV commercial, you can say, “It’s a cute dancing bear.”
Engage her more by being interactive. They would also learn better with her interaction with you than they would if left on their own while watching TV or videos. These videos cannot respond to these children like you can, and interaction is crucial in learning language.

Go on field trips.A lot of them. Just make sure to watch them closely and see what piques their interests. You can even play a name game while outdoors, for example in a zoo—you can name all the animals and talk about their characteristics. Don’t worry about information overload; the most important thing is you practice their language development and build their vocabulary.

This is just a summary of where to start with in terms of interactive and engaging activities to do with your child, to help facilitate language development, enhance her cognitive and socio-emotional skills, and increase her mastery motivation.

This is what homeschooling is supposed to be: fun, engaging, exciting, and the learning never stops…

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I am not entirely sure that I remember any of my own interactions with my parents when I was still an infant, but I can somehow associate my love for learning and language and stimulating cognitive activities as an adult because of all the fun things I did as a child.

My mother used to tell me that she read me books non-stop, and I was never bored of it. Perhaps I just liked hearing her voice, or that I liked the colorful pictures in the book, but one thing is for sure, all of it paid off in the end. I end up liking books a lot, I always wanted to learn and research new things, and I got a very good grasp of the English language early on.

Just remember, your infant daughter or son will be totally dependent on you for all things—not only about their physical or emotional needs, but most importantly their development as a well-rounded child. It is a great responsibility to have, but it will pay off at the end if you continue to be patient and persistent.

I am curious about a few things though, and I would very much like to hear from you readers… you can shoot me an email for your answer or just comment below:

How do you think you can make your daily interactions more engaging and interactive, and how do you think it will affect your child’s development?

Sources:

http://www.parents.com

http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_home.aspx?ArticleID=119

https://www.theounce.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/LanguageofBabies.pdf