section 6
Early stimulation
1 year
37 meeting
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 support children so they can acquire new physical skills.
LET’S TALK ABOUT IT! We are going to look at some pictures, so we can talk about what we all know about this topic.
What are some things that a one-year-old has done that have surprised you?
What do you think stimulation means? What activity do you do with your child to help them learn something?
What activities have you found to be most effective with small children? Why?
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Activity:
“Stimulation makes a difference” We will learn stimulation activities that can be done with one-year-old.
What we’ll need: • • • • • •
Chairs Bench Flour dough Cardboard boxes Sand Spoons
WHAT WE’LL DO: • A few days before the meeting ask some mothers if they would be willing to volunteer to lead some of the activities with the oneyear-olds. Give them a handout with the list of suggested activities (see below) . • Also ask families in the area to invite other oneyear-old children from the community to the meeting. • Before the children arrive prepare a space where the children can play safely. With everyone’s help remove objects that could be potentially dangerous. Use benches and chairs to block an area where the children can play safely under the careful watch of the adults. • When the children arrive place the mothers together with their children in the prepared space. All the other participants should stand around to observe the activities. • To wrap up the demonstration, ask participants what they thought of each activity and how the activities can help a child develop their skills and abilities.
Instructions for activities: • Place a baby in front of a chair and encourage him/her to walk alone while pushing the chair. • Take the child by the hands and move them to the rhythm of the music. • Build a sand box by filling a large box with sand. Place spoons of different sizes in the box for children to play with the sand. • Tie a string to a toy and show the baby how to pull it, dragging it from one place to another. • Give the child a bucket of water and cups of different sizes. Show how you can fill and empty the cups with water. • Play with the child by imitating each others’ sounds and gestures with your mouth and hands.
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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 replying this question will help the meeting be even better in the future for parents with small children.)
To do at home:
Ask parents to practice one of these activities daily with their one-year-old children, or share these ideas with other mothers who have children of this age.
Basic information for the facilitator: Learning more about early childhood stimulation: In the first year of life it is very important to begin to stimulate babies’ different abilities and skills in order to use their bodies to move around and communicate. This allows the brain to acquire more intelligence and the child can begin constructing their learning structure, which will serve them throughout their life. The more we stimulate children during their first years of life, the greater capacity and efficiency they will have in the future.
1- Body Movement. From the moment children begin to crawl and then walk they discover the liberty of moving from one place to another, to go wherever their curiosity leads them. It is recommended that you allow children to walk and crawl, while you are watching them to make sure they don’t get hurt. The more the baby moves, the easier their brain can adapt and be more efficient in their movements. Throughout their first year, children can be encouraged to jump, run, and move their body to music.
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2- Figurative and written expression. At one year of age, children start to want to take their
first steps towards drawing and writing - scribbling. They should be encouraged to use both hands, since they still don’t know which hand will dominate for writing later on. Give them two objects to scribble with, such as thick crayons and finger paint. Pens, pencils, paintbrushes and markers are not recommended because they can stain or hurt themselves. For a child, there is no difference between a piece of paper and a wall; the more they enjoy scribbling, the more they’ll find an opportunity to do so. It is recommended that they be allowed to scribble when they want to, since forcing them will only provoke future rejection towards drawing and writing.
3- Oral Expression. During the first year of life, children make sounds to practice how to
use their oral expression to communicate. In this stage, it is very important for them to increase their vocabulary and start to pronounce words correctly, so they can later use them with clarity and efficiency. Every chance you have during the day, give them the name of the things in your surroundings, for example, when you are bathing them, give them names of their body parts, at feeding time, or when it’s time to sleep, give them the names of people who are close by. Words should be pronounced correctly; sometimes because they are so little, we talk to them or repeat words as if we were babies, and this only helps them not to know how to really say things. The names of different objects shouldn’t be changed for a nickname. Something that can help to increase vocabulary is when a child asks for something, he or she should ask for it by name. It is not recommended that you give them what they want if they only point or make a sound; tell them the name of the object and try to encourage them to repeat the word. Use local short songs to help them memorize different words.
4- Self-confidence. During the first year of life, children start living their lives independently from their mother; that is, if they are stimulated and supported to do so. Children acquire confidence in themselves by learning to choose and act on their own. For this reason, from this first year we should allow them to start practicing how to eat, bathe, and dress themselves, while making sure to watch over them and take care that they don’t hurt themselves. Parents should never scream or scold children because they didn’t do things right, since they are only practicing something new which will gradually become perfected over time. On the contrary, children should always be encouraged, by telling them how well they’re doing, and so, they will always want to continue learning new things.
Facilitator’s Manual