Child Development

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January 20, 2010

Language Development- Part 2

During the second year, your child will build a significant vocabulary, learn some rules of grammar, realize that all things have a name, and probably even begin to express himself using two word sentences and phrases in addition to better making marks that stand for something.

As Whitney learned about the characteristics of objects, she also began to realize that every object has a name. She began to learn many new words and quickly map labels to objects as she heard things being labeled and referred to with words. Her first words were frequently over generalized or too specific. For example, “Dada” would be used for all men. By 18 months, most children say about 50 words. Once they reach 50 words, a critical mass seems to be reached and a “naming explosion” occurs. Words seem to spurt forth. This is also the time when children start to ask the “wh” questions: What’s that? (“Whassat?), why, when, etc. Researchers have estimated that children can learn as many as nine new words a day. Your child will understand much more than they can say so it is important to talk with them about what they are experiencing and feeling.

You want to think to yourself: Narrate, narrate, narrate. Pretend like you are reading a book aloud to your child all day long – and you are telling them the story of their daily life. You might think it is mundane to tell them that you are putting their right arm in their sleeve or pouring the cereal in their bowl or holding their hand while you walk down the steps together, counting the steps as you go, but they will find you fascinating. And it should give your child a huge language boost.

Your child will be more effective in making his wants and ideas known to you as he adds the use of words to his communication with gestures. During the second half of the second year you will hear more two-word utterances, such as “more bacon.” (see video at http://bit.ly/5IEMy6)

Most of the time we hear about language development stages as if every child goes through the same stages at the same ages. It is also useful to keep in mind that there is a substantial degree of variability in the more intricate, nuanced nature of each individual’s language ability and expression. As parents we want to tune into and support the specific abilities and expressions of our child. Language development is a key area that can effect other areas of development and can predict both school and later life success. So remember the mantra: narrate, narrate, narrate and pick up on any attempts at communication your toddler makes. Keep those communication circles going back and forth, back and forth as long as you can.

January 11, 2010

Language Development- Part 1

Consider the difference between a newborn and the almost adult-like speech and grammatically complex conversations of a 3 yr old. The transformation in language development in that short 3 years is astonishing. My daughter Whitney went from a limited reportoire of wailing cries to a pointing and gesturing competent nonverbal communicator (see video At http://bit.ly/4I2R6P ) at one year and a pretty agile conversationalist in her twos where she could express her feelings, try to resolve a conflict with her siblings, negotiate and make her needs and wants known.

Finger Pointing is a early communication tool

These abilities to understand and use language are certainly critical developmental competencies that children must master during the first three years of life. And they don’t happen automatically. As mentioned in the last few blog posts, competences are built by the daily interactions with the multitude of people and objects with which babies interact in their everyday settings.

Early language development is stimulated by the linguistic input that an infant hears on a regular basis. The most proximal and influential of these sources are parents; siblings; other children and adults living in the immediate household; and even media stimuli (such as Baby Einstein or eebee’s Adventures DVDs) to which infants are exposed. Infants and toddlers are extraordinarily good at acquiring language; and, during this period, they are uniquely sensitive to the quantity and quality of the linguistic input heard.

Even in the first year, although it felt strange for me to be talking out loud at the grocery store describing all the different fruits, their colors and shapes when Whitney was just staring at me and not speaking back, it is definitely worth the strange looks—the more language the better. Even before birth, babies have been eavesdropping on their mother’s conversations and show a distinct preference for their mother’s voice and their mother’s language. At birth, babies are predisposed to attend to sound and language. Newborns respond to vocalizations and sound around them and recognize the voices of their mothers and fathers. In the first months of life, infants show a preference for “parentese” a type of vocalization that is high in pitch with a sing-song quality.

Babies are primed to analyze the language streams coming at them all day. Nature has given them the tools to absorb the jumble of language and break it into parts. They actually find the boundaries of sentences, where one ends and the other begins. They recognize the units or words within the sentences. Whenever I was with Whitney I would be sure to talk about whatever we were doing throughout the day – as I was feeding, dressing and diapering or bathing her. Hearing the sounds of the words wires her brain for language even though she doesn’t know exactly what the words mean. One of the first words that babies recognize is their own name and it turns out that this is a big deal for their language development. When you hear a new language coming at you, it helps to recognize one or two very frequent words. Then you can use your name as a wedge into the language stream, recognizing that new things come before and after your name. Babies benefit from this same strategy, so use your Baby’s name often!

On the expressive side of language development, infants experiment with making sounds and communicating. They begin by making some rudimentary “coo’s” and “ah’s”, and progress through various stages of babbling. First comes the back of the throat vowel sounds (eg “aaa”, “eee”, and so on); then around 7 months come the first consonant sounds (ba, ga, ma) as babies close their lips when sounding. Babbling is an important step on the way to controlling the voice box (larynx), tongue, lip position and volume. There is a lot of work to be done before that first word can pop out – - usually between 10 and 15 months of age. Before they use words though, they will also display their understanding of your words and communicate with non-verbal gestures and actions.

During the first year, babies discover that they have thoughts and needs of their own and learn how to share these with others. They figure out that they can use language and non-verbal communication to make things happen in their world! Baby Signs is a very popular trend where babies use gestures to indicate ideas like “milk,” “eat,” “more,” or “change me.” Research has shown that teaching signs helps give babies a way to communicate before the entire orchestra of oral sentences and words are able to be expressed, and paves the way for using other symbol systems to communicate- such as verbal or written language. When your baby starts pointing and gesturing probably around 10 months, you can start by introducing a small number of signs. The more you use the sign, the more likely it is your baby will learn it.

More on language development in next week’s post….

Child Development | Parenting | Products

December 22, 2009

Working with the 3Cs- Character, Competence, Concepts

All children are born with vast potential for valued character traits, diverse competences & intelligences, and the ability to understand complex concepts. Our understanding of these capabilities has been fundamentally altered over the last several decades because of the explosion in cognitive science research. No longer do we think that people are born with a single general and static intelligence that can be simply measured by IQ tests and remains the same throughout life. Instead research in neuroscience reveals that the brain is comprised of many separate modules that give rise to strengths or weaknesses across an array of competencies… And how we put these competencies to effective use can vary depending on the specific situation.

How do we get to know and cultivate the individual minds of our children? How do the 3 Cs of Character traits, Competences and Conceptual understandings reveal themselves at the different stages of our children’s lives so that we can best nurture them?

Anyone with 2 or more children knows that every child is different and engages with their world in unique ways. Some minds are wired to create symphonies; others are disposed to build bridges or computers; and still others are inclined to alleviate suffering and cure medical ailments. Although hard to imagine while they are babies, different kinds of minds and hearts are destined to lead different adult lives.

The first step is to be aware and identify the different aspects of a child’s growing mind. In the past, competences or skills such as language, logic and more recently social & emotional development received most of the attention. However, today there is much more awareness of how a child’s character traits (dispositions) provide the critical foundation for the realization of the broad range of competences and conceptual understanding. Research is giving us a much greater appreciation for these other aspects of a child – such as the disposition to make sense of experience, to theorize about causes and effects, to hypothesize explanations to account for observations, and to analyze and synthesize whatever information is available.

Carefully watching your child as they play and investigate the world around them will help you figure out what the chiild’s dispositions are. Children need to be put in situations where they can express their dispositions and see that their disposition was effective. All the dimensions of learning and development are intertwined and can positively or negatively affect each other. For example, the risk of early instruction in reading skills is that the amount of drill and practice required for success at an early age seems to undermine children’s disposition to be readers. It is clearly not useful for a child to learn skills if, in the process of acquiring them, the disposition to use them is lost. On the other hand, acquiring the disposition to be a reader without the requisite skills is also not desirable.

Each child brings a different blend of character traits (dispositions), competences (skills), and concepts (knowledge) to any experience. Our job is to first tune into our specific child and see if we can figure out who they are and what they are working on. We adults in their lives can make a big difference in what children take away from all of their experiences. We are not and cannot be perfect; but we can start wherever we are and take it one small step at a time. With desire and practice, we can become more aware of all the rich learning that is taking place. Over the next several posts, we will explore important areas of development and learning in our children.

Child Development | Parenting

December 14, 2009

Defining the 3 Cs: Character, Competence, Concepts

As discussed in the last post, children are meeting multiple learning and development objectives through their explorations and interactions with the real world around them—through their “play”. We also discussed the role of us adults or parents in embedding the “adult agenda” of important learning goals to enrich this play. The last few decades has witnessed an explosion of research into child development and across the cognitive sciences; and it provides us with a better picture of the vast and complex workings of your child’s mind and how to better organize our learning goals. In any given moment or context, experts tell us that there are 3 types of learning goals for us to be aware of:

- Competences & skills: Skills are small units of action or longer mental processes that occur over time. Physical, cognitive, language, social & emotional development can be seen in discrete skill sets that start small and grow more complex. For example, simple fine motor manipulation of objects in with the hand lead to control over a pencil or pen and elaborate drawing capabilities.

- Concepts & Knowledge: Children develop conceptual understandings about how the world works as they experience it. They begin to create theories about how a person will behave differently then their pet dog and how a dog or animals behave differently from objects. And then how objects such as blocks are different than objects such as balls. Through experiences with these things they develop expectations and ideas and can continually refine and deepen these conceptual understandings.

- Character Traits & Dispositions: Dispositions can be thought of as habits of mind or tendencies to respond to certain situations in certain ways. Curiosity, friendliness or unfriendliness, bossiness, generosity, meanness, and creativity are examples of dispositions, sets of dispositions or character traits, rather than of skills or items of knowledge.

In terms of broad goals, most educators and parents readily agree that children should learn whatever will ultimately enable them to become healthy, competent, productive, and contributing members of their communities. But when it comes to the specifics of what should be learned this month, this week, this day or during any particular experience, agreement is not so easily achieved. More on these goals and how to apply them in your child’s specific experiences in the next post.

Child Development | Parenting

December 9, 2009

Learning Through Play

Our babies love to explore and make sense of their world as I have described in my blogs over the last several weeks– from solids (like blocks and balls) to liquids (like water) to light (by exploring their shadows from the sun). We adults have labeled these investigations or mucking around as “play” since the children are really enjoying themselves; to the untrained eye, it certainly does not look like work. But play is a child’s work.

Who's that in the mirror

And children are highly motivated in their jobs – - to figure all this stuff out. There is an intrinsic human drive to explore and master one’s environment so we just need to harness that energy and effort. How our children do their work is very concrete; they need to get their hands, mouths and bodies on things to test them out and see what they are all about. An important fact that we have not yet discussed much is how these real concrete contexts and experiences are the vehicle for all their learning—Learning Through Play. All the stuff we think of as learning and intelligence gets exercised and develops through our babies’ hands-on explorations and experiences.

Take language development: babies don’t start out an experience saying “geez I would really like to build my vocabulary by 10 new words”. The language development is embedded into and a by-product of what they are doing and other goals. Babies want to figure something out and daddy keeps calling that thing they are fascinated with by the name “shadow”, so that vocabulary word is very meaningful to them and sticks with them. The shadow then leaps forward closer to them when they walk close to a “wall”; dad narrates the action so they learn the word “wall” because it created an exciting effect they were interested in. Vocabulary building and language development happens while our babies engage in something meaningful to them and that context provides the opportunity for all the vocabulary about the specific actions, objects, features and effects that activity affords. Flash cards provide no context so they are not as effective; nothing beats a real authentic experience and real interest for learning. This is true of the development of all competences as well as language—a babies social & emotional skills, their cognitive skills, physical skills and all.

What do we as adults and parents want our children to be learning while they go about actively exploring their world & “playing”? Language development, certainly important, is considered one of a broader category of competences. Experts have identified three important categories of learning and development that we should know about and try to gently embed into our child’s explorations and experiences. These are the 3 Cs: Character, Competences, and Concepts and I will explore each in my next post.

Child Development | Parenting

November 30, 2009

Drawers, Doors, Pots, Pans & Household Objects

Why do our little ones want to get their hands on any loose object in the house? Why are they so fascinated with opening every drawer or door and dumping out whatever they can? Who hasn’t seen the delight of a baby getting a hold of mama’s purse, emptying the entire thing and rummaging through each item. Another classic is the grabbing of the glasses from Grandma’s nose. These Everyday objects are what populate our babies’ world so naturally they want to seize and explore. And of course, the value of, or interest in an object skyrockets when mom, dad or other important person has it; they want what you have. They are fascinated by the variety of objects and relationships between objects such as the spatial relationship of the container (purse) and the contained (lipstick case).

Exploring the House

Infants bring to their mouth objects that they can grasp– the edge of their blanket, the end of a rattle, a shoelace. In so doing, they gain information both about the shape of the object and the capacity of their mouth. The mouth is like a third hand and the object to mouth relation is an important foundation for reading the spatial world. Infants will search for objects they drop. This helps them figure out the relation of objects to supporting surfaces. Whitney like most babies never seemed to tire of dropping objects from her high chair (http://bit.ly/7qAJyB). They also experiment with relations such as when object is out of reach or only hidden behind a fold in the blanket. And of course infants love to make the whole visual world disappear by covering their eyes with their blanket, then peeking out again. These games teach them the concept of covering, which is not really the same as disappearing.

Toddlers have improved dexterity and therefore have more possible ways to handle objects and understand the relationships between them. The child can place and release one block on top of another, in effect saying, “I can make that block (the one on the floor) grow.” They also like to swipe the top block off, in effect saying, “I know this tall object looks like a whole, but see, it is really separate parts.” They not only explore separate and whole, but also inside and out. ONEs love to put small objects into cups and containers, then dump them out. They are exploring the paradox between gone/not-gone, inside/outside, attached/not attached. (See Whitney at http://bit.ly/6iF4LS)

Watch carefully for early examples of sorting objects. The one year old shows his/her thinking more by the order in which he touches objects than by physically sorting them here and there. He might touch four of the little cars and none of the little cats. This behavior indicates that he has organized in his mind that the cars are all members of the same category. But he can put two cube blocks together in a stack, and later in a row. These pairings are not categories, but simply physical adjacencies that make something he likes.

TWOs invent new ways to play with relations such as inside and outside. A cube can go in a cup, but also the cup can go over (cover) the block on the table. The child has discovered the inverse of cube inside cup, i.e. cup outside cube. As children play and talk about containers, they are “unpacking” the complexities of spatial relations. Watch to decide if your child is more interested in placing an object in to leave it contained, placing it in to make it disappear, placing it to take it out, making the container become the contained (e.g. nesting cups) or even opening and closing the container without interest in contents. Then gently summarize in words what you see, such as, “You closed the lid.” Then do something slightly more complicated and put your action to words, “I put the lid on the bottom.”

When children explore small objects, we can see the way they think. We know they are thinking about physical similarity when they sort a group of objects into categories, such as all the red ones here and the yellow ones over there. We know they are thinking about vacant space when they deliberately make a gap between two blocks and call it a “door.” The more we slow down, let them grab hold of those everyday objects, the more our children will figure out what all these objects are and how they’re put to use.

eebee’s adventures has a bunch of great everyday object play ideas for you and your child in its All in a Day’s Play DVD currently available in stores like giggle or at www.eebee.com.

Child Development | Parenting | Products

November 16, 2009

Light & Shadow Play

Now that it is Fall and the sun is much lower in the sky, the shadows that our little ones cast are very long and noticeable—a wonderful time for light and shadow play!

Light & Shadow play as "baby science"

As a toddler, Whitney was fascinated by her shadow, the big black dark thing she could not seem to shake or run away from. It was always there. Whitney would try to run right and then run left but that shadow thing was still there. Then she did discover that if she stood next to dad and his shadow that hers would seem to disappear as it was engulfed by dad’s bigger shadow. She also noticed that on the driveway it was long but when she walked near a wall it would magically transform into a tall person-like thing. (see www.RaisingWhit.com or http://bit.ly/44WMnA) This is classic light and shadow exploration and it is really important as it is our babies’ concrete way into the behavior of “fields” such as light that are not solid discrete objects but instead are continuous rays (like light) or a spectrum from source to end point. Causality underpins all of physical science, yet we are not born knowing how it works. We have to figure it out. Does a ball rolling in front of a light cause the shadow to move or does the moving shadow cause the ball to roll? Light and shadow are the perfect medium for children to explore unique causality and properties and personality of “fields”– baby physics in the electromagnetic spectrum.

The youngest babies notice when focused light shines on an object it becomes animated with life and calls out to observed, touched, and moved. When a shadow looms up on a wall it will give your child pause. Light entices the child to explore, and shadows play tricks that heighten curiosity. Even young children expect solid objects to maintain their basic size when moved, but shadows exhibit a different logic of expanding, contracting, and disappearing altogether.

Toddlers frequently start out believing that shadows act like objects. A spot of light might look like something running across the floor. Children first treat light spots and shadows as if they are objects themselves and can be moved or stopped by touching. Even when children know that they cannot move the spots by direct contact, they still have to learn what sort of things are light and shadow. A two-year old child might try to cover a shadow with a cloth to hide the shadow. A young two might place his hands directly under a flashlight, not realizing that the light is everywhere between the flashlight and the floor and he can still “catch” the light farther away from the flashlight. It takes a while to learn that the light spot or the shadow can occur at any point between the light source and the floor, as long as there is a physical surface at that point to reflect the beam of light.

Our little ones eventually learn that light is not a hard and graspable object. Light radiates from a point and travels through all points out from that source, unless blocked by a surface. When children learn how light and shadows work they are beginning to experience and understand the properties of fields. A field is everywhere at once, yet can be shaped by objects in the field. (e.g. the light shines everywhere but can be blocked by a wall, reducing its field). Fields are different from straight lines of force or a linear action/reaction, such as a ball rolling down a ramp. Believe it or not by experiencing it, babies are beginning to figure this out.

Our role in all this light exploration is to carefully observe what our little ones are still trying to figure out and muck around with them. Where is the source of light? Where do I have to stand to make my shadow really big? Once you spot what your child is thinking about, don’t tell him the answers. Wonder out loud with him. “Hmm, now how can you make your shadow taller?” or “I wonder where the spot will go if you shine the flashlight into the mirror rather than on the wall?” Don’t expect a clean experimental test, but do trust that your questions will generate play with more purpose.

eebee’s adventures has a bunch of great light & shadow play ideas for you and your child in its Figuring Things Out DVD currently available in stores like giggle or at www.eebee.com.

Child Development | Parenting | Products

November 9, 2009

Paper Play

A material we don’t think of as a toy or something for babies to play with is paper, but actually we could not be more mistaken. Babies love to explore paper. As mentioned in my first post (8/26), babies will often spend more time with the wrapping paper and the box then the present inside. They love to see the many things paper can do: flap, bend, crease, wad, tear, crackle, crunch, flutter! They love all the sounds they can make with it. Who hasn’t seen their baby grab onto some paper and give it a test ride:

- it's baby math

As an infant, Whitney couldn’t wait to get her hands on some white fluffy paper. She was intent on trying out all sorts of paper transformations (see video at RaisingWhit.com / http://bit.ly/237Kf3). She discovered that paper can easily tear unlike wood, plastic and most other objects; that paper once torn it cannot meld back together; that paper can float in the air and does not fall like a block; it can bend but not bounce like a ball; that it can fold over but does not keep its shape and fops back. She was learning the class of transformations that define “paper.”

As a toddler, Whitney began to develop more complex concepts about paper. In general paper play orients children to the power of using a single plane (flat surfaces) and what happens when that plane is folded into the third dimension. It gains structure that transforms the surface into an object with functions– Wow, I made a ball that I can throw! The plane of the paper can hide things; it can be transformed to three- dimensional structures; it can be combined to create new shapes. Paper invites the exploration of these relations by transforming one form into another. Rules for combining paper segments have almost a mathematic quality and indeed can be viewed as a precursor to an understanding of combination: e.g. symmetrical halves make a continuous whole, folding-in makes a half while folding-out makes a whole, and so forth. By allowing your child to explore these concepts in an open-ended medium, you support your child’s ability to understand early math/fractions in a real and enduring way.

Our role in all this paper exploration is to realize the many opportunities there are to invite this type of play. Before you throw out the newspaper or the mail, let your child give it a whirl. Set up some space for the play and figure out what is of most interest. Think of some action that we can do that increases or complicates slightly what our child is doing. As an infant, if our child curves the paper, we curve and then crease the paper. If our child flaps the paper while holding onto it, we flap the paper and let it go. As they get older and start folding paper to create things, we can start a fold that they can finish; or we can model lining up the edges of the paper in order to fold it in half.

To see a host of paper play ideas, eebee’s adventures has a great paper adventure in its Exploring Real Stuff DVD currently available in stores like giggle or at www.eebee.com.

Child Development | Parenting | Products

October 28, 2009

Screen-Based Media

The recent announcement by Disney that they would provide refunds to customers who had purchased Baby Einstein products from 2006 on has fanned the flames of the controversy surrounding “baby TV.” Should we let our babies watch TV at all? Is all baby TV the same or are there actually distinct alternatives? What are the socially responsible ways to use TV? Since the Kaiser foundation has reported that more the 90% of US households use TV with their babies, I certainly hope we parents are finding sensible ways to use the medium. My personal view is that screen based media is an important part of our world; it is a powerful tool and there are positive ways for our babies to observe, play with, explore and interact with some types of children’s media. My own personal experience with my children is that used in moderation, of course, TV can be used in positive ways. That is why Stephen Gass and I co-created what we believe to be a healthy alternative for baby tv viewing – - eebee’s adventures – - which has been called the “un-Baby Einstein” by the Chicago Tribune. eebee DVDs are not only about the minutes of viewing time but the hours and hours of play and exploration before, during and after the viewing. eebee is a catalyst for real world play and exploration. That is why eebee’s Adventures are the only DVDs carried by a discerning store such as giggle.

Here is an excerpt from the eebee blog that was posted yesterday:

Imagine you’re smiling, laughing, talking, singing or playing a simple game with your baby-and your parenting skills are questioned simply because your playful interactions are a result of something you were watching on TV?

Recent headlines on the topic of “baby TV,” most of which damned Baby Einstein specifically, and, by association, all baby media, and by further association all parents who ever used or even thought of using a baby video with their child, would lead you to believe that all screen time is harmful or simply a waste of time. Others, including many academic and child development voices, argue that baby TV is not a black and white proposition. New research suggests that appropriately designed content can result in learning as well as in increases in real world interactions. It also challenges the somewhat simplistic assumption that if we just turned off the TV all would be right in the world of parenting and child growth and development.

Back in 1999, the American Academy of Pediatricians issued a statement recommending no TV for children under the age of 2. Their concern was based on the lack of research about babies and TV and a fear that TV viewing would take away from critical real-world social and physical interactions. This was followed by some studies that attempted to draw connections between early TV viewing and later learning problems. Many of these studies have been refuted. The most recent research indicates what parents already know: CONTENT MATTERS. The real issues are ones of moderation-making sure that you limit the amount of screen time; content-looking for programming that a baby is capable of not only attending to but understanding; and context-using TV like any other developmental experience for your child…talk about it, describe it, play along and use it as a scaffold for interaction. Damning the medium itself does not help us to understand how, when and why it might be an effective tool. We live in a highly media and screen-centric world. Our goal is to better understand the effective and responsible role of media in all of our lives…and we know now that what’s on the screen and how it’s presented can and does make a difference. That’s what we need to focus on.

Click to read the rest of this baby tv post (www.eebee.com).

Child Development | Parenting | Products

October 23, 2009

Ball Play & Exploration

Another classic open-ended material that Whitney loves to explore is balls – - or really anything that rolls. We have all seen our babies fascinated by touching a ball and it taking off to the other side of the room—just batting at them creates dramatic effects (see video at RaisingWhit.com or http://bit.ly/26sGce). Once Whitney could better control her hand movement and ability to grasp and manipulate a ball, she explored bouncing it and making noises with it (http://bit.ly/1b3him). Once toddling she began to toss it and pronounce “ball” (http://bit.ly/1SuU1t) and eventually she started kicking and throwing.

Again while our babies are mastering the world of balls there is lots happening in their learning and development:

During infancy, babies love just batting balls like they bat at blocks except now there is a big difference in what effects their actions have. Unlike a cube that slides when pushed, a ball rolls. It moves in a continuous motion for a greater distance, often seeming to be magically alive! The dynamics of moving balls, once learned, will help your child make better predictions of effects and learn the physics of form. The ball also provides unparalleled opportunities for forming a social bond between two people who sit at a distance but feel connected by rolling a ball back and forth. The distance confirms their separateness; the exchange of rolling confirms their togetherness. And their turn taking is a precursor to the rules of dialogue and game playing and the concepts of inter-connectedness and fairness.

As toddlers get more sophisticated with their ball explorations they discover that any object can be dropped, but only balls can bounce and roll. The focus for your toddler will most likely be the motion of the ball. A ball gradually rolls to a stop, at first lively, then motionless. The child eventually learns that some motions are autonomous (a pet hamster) and other motions are indirect (caused by an external action such as a push or toss). They learn that balls on ramps do not need to be pushed, only released, yet are not alive, and don’t go around obstacles. By playing with balls and ramps, children learn the subtle differences between the living and the physical worlds.

By two years old, your child will eventually learn the structure of action, that more tilt of a ramp means faster ball speed down (a direct functional relation- MORE tilt yields MORE speed) or inverse relation- more tilt means less distance needed up the ramp to get the ball moving quickly. Your child will also learn to read space as a symbol of what has not yet happened, but will. A long drop from a high position means the ball will bounce high.

So take advantage of all this rich exploration ball play affords. Watch for cues from your child that invite you to play. See what ball-action delights your child– the roll across the floor, the drop off the edge of a table, the movement only one way down an incline—and repeat that action yourself. Your response can be slightly slower and more deliberate to emphasize the cause and the effect. After the play proceeds a few rounds, make a slight variation to see if your child picks up on new variations you can introduce, such as tilting the ramp less to make the ball roll more slowly or making a gap between planks to make the ball drop through. Balls and ramps provide children with a natural laboratory for science and physics – cause and effect, conditional causes, and how to increase or diminish an effect. Be their scientific assistant that helps create and reflect upon the causes and results of their experimentation. To see a host of ideas, eebee’s adventures has a great ball play adventure in its Exploring Real Stuff DVD currently available in stores like giggle or at www.eebee.com.

Child Development | Parenting | Products

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