section 5
Learning through play
10-12 months
meeting
29
Let’s review:
Once the meeting starts, welcome everyone and ask the participants: • Who can help us remember what we talked about in our last meeting? • Who was able to do the activity at home that we asked you to do at the end of the meeting? How did it go? • Does anyone have questions or concerns after doing the activity?
What are we going to learn? How to stimulate a baby through playing.
LETS TALK ABOUT IT! We are going to look at some pictures, so we can talk about what we all know about this topic. What things appear interesting to babies that you have experienced or seen? Share an experience of how your baby has reacted to a stimulation activity or play.
Why do you think it is important for babies to look at interesting things? What are some games or things that you can do with a baby to provoke a reaction from them?
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Activity:
“Let’s play again” We’ll learn some stimulation activities that you can develop with babies between 10-12 months old. WHAT WE’LL DO: Before starting the meeting hide the index cards that have the instructions for the various stimulation games (see below) around the room. • Start the meeting by dividing the participants into two groups. Each group should look around the room for the hidden index cards, the group that finds the most cards is the winner. • Distribute the cards amongst the group and have the participants read them, and then practice playing the games with the babies present.
What we’ll need: • Index cards • Balls • Cardboard box and pieces of cardboard • Chairs • Newspaper or magazine clippings • Towels • Different flavored candies and cookies
Suggested Games for the Index cards: • The box of balls: On a cardboard box cut various size holes the size of the balls. Play with the child, showing them how they can put the ball through the holes in the box and then through all the other openings. • Sliding objects: Place a large piece of cardboard on an incline to roll balls and other objects down. • My first album: Make an album with cutout pictures of a variety of objects from magazines and newspapers. Show the child each page, explaining what each picture represents and if possible show them the real object as well. Encourage them to repeat the name and celebrate every effort they make even if they can’t do it perfectly yet. Use objects that would be recognizable and easy to pronounce. For example, water, mommy, daddy, cat etc. • Happy walk: Attach a sheet around the child’s waist and carry them over to a flat surface where they can walk. Talk to them and encourage them to walk carefully. Take the end of the sheet and show them how to pull the sheet and pretend to fall forward – this is sure to get a laugh from your little one! • The little ant: For this game, use your index and middle fingers, and turn them into little ants. The “Ants” look for water on different parts of the baby’s body that when found get tickled after asking them… “Is there water on Carlos’s feet…” Repeat this with other parts of the body.
Facilitator’s Manual
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Other Suggestions: Another option is to set up 4 or 5 stations in the room, at each station you can practice different ways to play and stimulate a babies’ learning, with the following ideas: • Mirror and towel: Show the baby their image in the mirror and play “hide and seek” with the towel, covering the mirror and then covering their face. Then you can show the baby their eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, and hair – repeat the name of each part when you show it to them. • Drawings: Look at a book or magazine that has drawings with the baby and name the pictures: cat, chicken, bear, etc. • Throwing toys into a bucket: Show the baby how to toss toys so they fall into a bucket. Empty out the bucket and start again. • Drums: Put various kitchen pots face down and give the baby a wooden spoon to make lots of music! • Hide the toy: Make a hole in the bottom of a box so that a few smalls toys will fit through. Show the baby how to put toys through a hole on top of the box and find them on the bottom. Remind participants that in order to play with their babies they don’t need to spend lots of money on expensive toys in order to have objects in the house that stimulate them and make their babies happy. Tell parents that they can improvise some toys with things they already have at home and others can be made from cheap accessible materials. You can have a “Festival of Toys,” in one or various meetings that are dedicated exclusively to learning how to make toys for each age. (See attached CD of Toys)
Summing Up:
What did we learn today? Now, we’ll review what we discussed today. • How do you feel after this meeting? Why? • What are the two most important things you’ve learned today? • What will you do differently based on what you learned during the meeting? • What did you like the most? Are there things you didn’t like? • Do you have any remaining concerns or questions about what we talked about? To finish, what would you recommend to improve today’s meeting when we do it again with another group. (Explain that answering this question will help the meeting be even better in the future for parents with small children.)
To do at home:
Tell families to make an album of cutout pictures to stimulate the baby’s language learning, they can add a new page each week.
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Basic information for the facilitator: Learning more about learning through play: 1- Babies that have recently learned to crawl may find it difficult to move forward and might
instead crawl backwards. Babies that recently started to walk might find it impossible to return to a seated position. With a little more experience the baby will acquire the security of letting go of your hands and if they feel like they are slipping they will put their hands down to catch themselves. If given the opportunity babies will try and stand up alone whenever possible. Many of these adventures will provoke falls that hurt a babies’ confidence and can make them hit their head, but with time babies will learn to put their hands down when they fall. Trying to stand and then starting to walk, depends completely on the security and motivation of the baby and the strength and coordination of their muscles. Some babies will stand and walk before their first birthday, the majority of babies won’t walk until close to two years. However, the process of learning starts much earlier as babies observe and imitate adults. It’s important that babies observe how adults use their hands. As babies’ abilities with their hands grow they can learn to do useful things like feeding themselves, washing their hands, and taking off their clothes. At this age early language development is crucial, even though a baby can’t say any words very clearly before their first birthday. Babies can understand language much sooner than they can speak it. First they should listen to others speaking and understand what is said to them.
2-
It’s important to motivate babies to use their hands to experiment and touch many objects. All these new experiences are fun and full of opportunities to learn. Babies can grab hold of more complex objects when they begin to use their fingers and thumbs as separate units. Near the end of a baby’s first year the activity of throwing objects should be replaced with the idea of deliberately throwing or placing objects. Placing objects into a container, such as colored balls, shells and other small objects, to then take out again can be an activity that babies really enjoy. The best way to develop babies’ language skills is to talk with them a lot and allow them to hear many conversations. Talking to them directly is very important. A great way to do this is to read them books and tell them stories. Also singing to a baby is helpful because it helps them to appreciate the significance of words. Parents (or responsible adults) should learn to recognize the sounds that babies make and should not correct their words at this age. During this period babies try to imitate words and need the opportunity to develop talking in a warm and accepting environment.
Facilitator’s Manual