November 12, 2021 / Blog
INFANT ACTIVITIES FOR HEALTHY DEVELOPMENT
The Importance of an Infant Curriculum
Infants begin to learn about themselves and the world around them at birth. They start to look closely at people, mimicking smiles, and cooing at sounds. Babies continue to grow and develop, reaching new milestones at a rapid rate.
Parents and childcare providers can use these natural curiosities to provide opportunities for infants to learn and grow. They can stimulate babies’ development with meaningful infant activities each and every day. These meaningful infant activities should start at birth and continue throughout childhood.
Meaningful Infant Activities for Growth and Development
- Strengthen the relationship between the child and the caregiver
- Provide opportunities for developmentally appropriate playtime
- Help babies make positive connections with peers
- Nurture brain development with language rich vocabulary
How to Start Making Meaningful Interactions with Infants
There are many developmental activities that childcare providers can do to encourage learning with infants. We know that singing songs and reading books to babies is beneficial to vocabulary development and developing strong relationships with caregivers. Making music with instruments, watching a puppet show, and exploring movement are also on our babies’ “must do” list. Playing peek-a-boo is also a favorite of many infants.
Caregivers and infants alike benefit with the use of meaningful learning activities on a daily basis. Many infant classrooms provide several playful learning opportunities for babies throughout their day. Depending on their little ones’ sleep schedule, these activities may work best first thing in the morning and after nap times.
The Importance of an Infant Curriculum
Although there are many infant resources available for childcare providers, using a comprehensive infant curriculum has added benefits for both providers and infants. Choosing a carefully designed infant curriculum with easy-to-follow lesson plans, built-in assessments, and family communication ensures that babies are provided with a well-rounded variety of daily activities. These activities will help babies develop critical language, cognitive, physical, social and emotional skills. A curriculum that is easy for caregivers to follow and implement will increase the number of meaningful classroom interactions.
The Frog Street Infant curriculum provides detailed activities at each age and stage for little ones ages 0-18 months. This curriculum was designed around the latest scientific brain research and emphasizes all developmental domains.
The Frog Street Infant curriculum includes activity cards, photo cards, board books, posters, puppets, musical instruments, an easy-grip ball, 3 music CDs and much more. Go here for a complete list of what our Infant curriculum includes.
Are You a Parent of an Infant?
When looking for the best matched classroom for your child, make sure to ask the childcare facility what infant curriculum they are using. Talk to the teachers about what a typical day might look like for a baby. Your baby is never too young to play and learn!
Remember, a schedule of eating and sleeping is different from daily lesson plans and activities that encourage learning and developmental growth. A good childcare facility should provide parents with both.
Here are some questions you might ask when touring a possible childcare classroom for your infant:
• How are caregivers developing positive connections with each baby?
• What activities are being done to enrich learning throughout the day? Can you describe one of these activities that might be done with my child?
• How are you ensuring all areas of learning are being addressed?
• How will I be notified of my child’s developmental progress?
Are you a Childcare Facility looking to purchase Frog Street Infant Curriculum?
The Frog Street Infant Curriculum is aligned to Head Start School Readiness Goals for Infants and offers complete support to equip caregivers to optimize the growth and development of the children in their care. It includes activities to support growth and development in all learning domains and features Conscious Discipline®.
Read more about the Frog Street Infant Curriculum.
