Play and Grow Smart-er Tips

Nancy Pyne-Hapke, author of "Play and Grow Smart, A Guide Supporting Brain Development, Birth through Five," has been giving tips to aid your child's optimum skill development through proactive neuroscience-based activities. These ideas come from scholarly sources to personal interviews, from the internet to periodicals to books.
“CREATIVITY” involves imagination, ingenuity, invention/originality, creative thinking, dramatic/visual/musical arts.THE CRITICAL WINDOWS during which the circuits of the brain are being most heavily wired for Creativity is 1 – 4 years with lifelong expression. The more opportunity children have to experience healthy, positive and nurturing Creativity experiences during this critical period, the more efficiently their brains will work over the long run.
A FEW DEVELOPMENTAL LEARNING TOOLS (toys and other objects) for CREATIVITY: • blocks • dolls and stuffed animals • books • sandbox • water • costumes and props • play figures • child-sized dishes and tools • art materials • construction sets • music and instruments
Forms of creativity: ART (visual), LANGUAGE (written or spoken), MUSIC/MOVEMENT (bodily movement), FANTASY (pretending).Some general Creativity: LANGUAGE tidbits:
•• FROM ABOUT 4, make homemade books and read the books often – a “numbers” book, a “words” book, a “letters” book, a “shapes” book.
•• USE THE MAGIC of make-believe – invent stories with Preschooler in them.
•• LET HER INVENT stories with herself in them and stories with you in them.
•• PLAY LISTENING and guessing games with sounds of different animals.
•• ANOTHER GUESSING GAME is to find something he can see, describe it for him, and let him tell you what you described.
Next week – “Creativity: LANGUAGE, Pt. 4”
?s – email msmarm@roadrunner.com