Math is integral component of so many early skills. Anything that involves counting, sequencing, patterning, or exploring shapes, size, or volume is an early math skill. Without even knowing it, babies and toddlers use these skills constantly during play and exploration. Babies begin to hear in utero before their ears even form. Around 18 weeks...
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math; our future, our present, our world! These concepts are not just relevant in terms of the job market or the future of education, but it is what’s important and relevant right now and it is trickling down to babies. Babies need to have STEM skills? They most certainly do...
Technology is a way of being inventive, identifying problems, coming up with solutions and making things work. If you have ever watched a toddler at play, they are using technology the whole time, making shapes fit into a hole, cars drive on a track, and blocks stack high. We often just consider smartphones and...
Science is really just a way of thinking, observing, experimenting, and asking questions. Before babies are mobile, they are nothing if not little scientists, observing and taking in their world all day long. Babies are constantly watching and learning from what they see. Toddlers are intuitively questioning everything they see, attempting to make sense...
I’ll bet you never thought of a newborn baby learning science, technology, engineering and math, but babies are little scientists from the moment they are born. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I work in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) with babies who are only two or three pounds. From the moment babies open their...
Color Scavenger Hunts STEM Concepts: Science (physical science), Math (number sense and operations, patterns and classification, spatial relationships, mathematical reasoning) Materials: Different colors of construction paper What to do: Place the pieces of colored construction paper on the middle of the floor. Have your child wander around the house or outside collecting things to match with...
Around 24 months, your toddler begins to enter a new phase of play as they are able to use a more complex form of pretend or symbolic play. During this phase, their creativity and imagination is much more active, and toys and items become different things to play with. Maybe a cardboard box is transformed...
Toddlers need to learn to take turns. It is not an innate skill. At this age, toddlers are all about themselves and their own needs. It is hard to think of the needs of others and appreciate the fact that other children need a turn on the swings or a turn while playing a game....
When your baby was born, she had no idea that she was a separate person from you with thoughts and feelings and two arms and two legs. This is something she is learning over time. Self-awareness, or “sense of self” is an important skill that contributes to your child’s level of independence and...
A STEM Self Portrait STEM Concepts: Engineering (designing), Technology (use of objects), Science (human anatomy) Materials: Loose parts (such as buttons, yarn, string, sticks, beads, foam, etc.) empty frame, mirror, oval shaped piece of construction paper or felt. What to Do: Set a mirror in front of your child. Ask her “What different things on...
