How can parents boost their child’s development?
The kindergarten undertakes a number of activities aimed at supporting the comprehensive development of the child. It should be emphasized, however, that this is a very long-term process and cooperation between parents and teachers is necessary. What, then, can parents do to help their children function better in society? What activities can they take at home? Below are just a few tips for parents:
I ways to support speech development:
- reading books and stories together with the child;
- encouraging them to imitate sounds from the environment;
- talking to the child, telling about the surrounding reality;
- games consisting in matching illustrations to the spoken word in order to make sense of it;
- speech therapy games, e.g. blowing feathers on a table, blowing into a drinking tube, blowing a whistle, blowing up cheeks;
6) uttering correct words, do not use distortions or specific childish speech;
II ways to support motor development:
- playing together outdoors, on the playground;
- organizing obstacle courses;
- performing stretching exercises together with the child;
- walking, mountain climbing;
- bicycle trips;
- music and movement games at home;
III supporting social and emotional development:
- role-playing games;
- wondering together what emotions accompany the characters of the books they read (why is someone sad/happy/nervous?);
- not hiding one’s own emotions, talking about what emotions accompany us as adults;
- encouraging to make new friends with other children, e.g. on playgrounds, trips;
- playing with the dice of emotions – you can stick pictures of different emotions on the big dice and throw it; the task of the child may be to show the same emotion or say when it may appear and why;
6) giving children household chores and ensuring that they fulfill them;
IV supporting cognitive development:
- arranging picture stories and describing what is in the pictures;
- learning song lyrics, rhymes;
- solving riddles and puzzles together;
- finding differences and similarities in pictures;
- performing experiments at home;
- sorting objects, toys according to colors, shapes or sizes.
Most of the activities described above are undertaken by parents on a daily basis. However, it is worth being aware that sometimes little is needed to support the development of a child. All these activities have one more, most important advantage. They allow you to spend time together and gain new experiences.
So get to work!!!