Village: Hickory Dickory Tickle & Bounce Week 1

FOUNDATIONS OF LEARNING

BAREFOOT IS BEST: Your baby learns much about the world through touch. The skin on the bottoms of the feet is especially sensitive, allowing lots of sensory input for baby.

DID YOU KNOW? The tune for Baa Baa Black Sheep is also the tune for the Alphabet Song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a set of piano variations on the same melody, which comes from a traditional French song entitled Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman.

STEADY BEAT: Internalizing a steady beat is important to your baby’s developing physical coordination. Later on this internalized steady beat will help her learn to use scissors, bounce a ball, and walk with self-confidence.

SIGN LANGUAGE: Introducing signing to hearing babies has be benefit of allowing adult and baby to communicate before baby’s vocal chords are developed enough to speak. This silent communication raises self-esteem, eliminates the frustration of not being able to communicate and engages baby as an active participant in the learning environment.

MOTOR SKILL DEVELOPMENT: The more opportunities your baby has to learn to move his body in different ways, the easier it will be for him to learn new motor movements. Motor skill development may be increased through building on previous motor experiences.

BOARD BOOK PEEK-A-BOO: Young toddlers enjoy the hinge action of sturdy board books. You might see a toddler turning a page back and forth over and over again. She is creating her own “peek-a-boo” experience, watching a picture appear and disappear over and over again. Sturdy cardboard pages also help the child learn to use the thumb and forefinger to turn the pages, the skill for mastering paper pages later.