I wrote this article because I saw a scene when I passed the customs at the airport:
A mother and a 2-year-old child were in line. In order to attract the child’s attention and prevent the child from running around, the mother took a mobile phone in front of the child and kept playing various videos…
Each video can’t be seen for 30 seconds, and the child is not interested. He starts to break free from his mother’s hand. At this time, his mother changes to another video. Before long, the child starts to say “hit, hit”. The mother responded, “Do you think you want to hit people, I still want to hit people!” ]
Children aged 0-6 years old, especially during the period of 0-3 years old, have short attention time and limited patience. On the way to and from school, when queuing for physical examination in the hospital, when queuing for checkout in the supermarket, when waiting for food in the restaurant, in order to prevent children from crying because they have no patience, parents often give their children an iPad or mobile phone directly.
Although many people know that it is not good to let children play with electronic products frequently. However, their excuse is often that only in this way can children not cry or make noise.
Whether parents consciously or unconsciously, their behavior affects their children’s learning experience at all times.
Some studies have found that parents’ cognition of the importance of daily parent-child interaction is positively related to their children’s primary school mathematics and reading and writing levels.
In other words, parents who consciously have meaningful and positive interaction with their children to improve their children’s cognitive and emotional experience will have better academic performance in primary school.
So, what exactly is positive and meaningful interaction?
Since the accumulated parent-child interaction is so important, today let’s share 7 zero-cost [micro-early education] embedded in daily life. Let parents put away their mobile phones and turn waiting time into treasure.
First, dining
What do parents do when they eat with their children? If you just prepare the food, put it in front of the child and urge him to finish it, it would be too boring!
To tell you quietly, the more number-talk children have with their parents in their early days, the better their mathematical thinking ability will be in the future.
In addition, if parents have anxiety when talking about math problems, it will also affect their children’s future math performance.
What does what mean? That is to say, if parents want to cultivate their children’s interest in mathematics, the simplest way is to consciously use numbers in actual dialogues and appear relaxed and happy when discussing numbers.
How to do it?
Recommendation 1: Tell the amount of food!
Quite simply, if you just bring the bowl full of food to the child every day, then now you only need to add one link: put the food in the bowl in front of the child and count the quantity naturally.
In the initial stage of children’s mathematical concepts, the first goal is [Listen to and says the names of number in many context], that is, to hear and say the names of numbers in different situations. In this way, children will learn the sequence of numbers, the mathematical concepts of one-to-one correspondence, and will understand that the last number spoken is the total number.
Take chestnuts:
Dad: Tingting, mother prepared strawberries, milk and buns for breakfast today. 1, 2, 3, give you 3 strawberries. 1, 2, 3, give me 3 strawberries. 1, 2, 3, give mom 3.
Eva: (ate all the strawberries in an instant) Dad, can I still want strawberries?
Dad: OK, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… (count and put in the children’s bowl) Five strawberries, is that enough?
Eva: Yeah!
Dad: I’ll have some buns too! (Count loudly and take it yourself) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… 19, 20! I want 20! (The final count depends on the child’s interest)
Increased challenge (4 +):
1. Ask Eva to help prepare food/tableware before the meal, such as [We still need 4 forks, can you go to the kitchen and get one for everyone? ]
2. Compare the amount of two foods. For example, 3 strawberries and 3 blueberries, understand that the same amount of items may look very different.
Reduce challenge (3 years-):
1. Establish the concept of 1: Give everyone 1/1 spoon/1 piece/1 bowl of food.
2. Establish many concepts: [I ate one and there are many more! ]
Recommendation 2: Create opportunities to discuss and cut shapes with children.
This is also very simple. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have time to play plasticine with your children at ordinary times. Then make full use of your dining time and play with your children with safe knives! There are many foods that can be cut, such as bread slices, sandwiches, egg cakes, etc.
Take chestnuts:
Mom: Mingming, let’s cut the sandwich in half and share it with everyone. Do you want triangular or rectangular?
H: triangle!
Mom: OK, then I’ll think about how to cut it. I can cut it diagonally (while talking). Cut it. I cut a sandwich into two triangles of the same size! Would you like to try them on? (Be prepared for all kinds of psychological changes that the child may cut. With expectation, discuss with the child the size, name and quantity of the shapes he cuts. )
If the child is interested in letters or numbers recently, it is not impossible to cut out a number or letter pattern.
Increased challenge (4 +):
1. Parents and children challenge each other to divide the slices of bread into a specified number. [Can you cut this sandwich into… pieces? ]
2. Encourage children to cut bread slices in different ways, such as 1 rectangle and 2 squares, 1 rectangle and 2 triangles, 2 triangles and 2 squares, etc., and spell out various patterns with the obtained shapes.
3. Provide children with cutting molds of different shapes and play more shapes with children (car models, circles, crescent moon, heart shapes, etc.).
Reduce challenge (3 years-):
1. Divide a slice of bread into 2 parts directly by hand.
2. Try to paint/draw various lines or shapes on bread slices with jam or chocolate sauce.
Second, queue up
Many parents choose not to take their children when they go to banks or supermarkets. One reason is that they do not know how to stabilize their patience and emotions.
In fact, supermarkets, banks and other environments have rich materials to play with. In the process of playing, children will not only have the opportunity to learn more abundant vocabulary, but also can establish closer and positive parent-child relationships with their parents, and will become more cooperative when they go out to do business with their parents.
Game 1: [I can! ]
Through games, give children more language input such as locality words, verbs and nouns.
Take chestnuts:
Mom: Not yet. Do you want to play a game?
Eva: what Game?
Mom: A game called [I can]. I say an action, you have to listen carefully. If you can do it, then say [I can], and you win! Let’s try. Are you ready?
Eva: Nod
Mom: Can you… put your hands on your head?
Eva: I can! (with action)
Mom: Yes, I listened very carefully. High five! Another one? This time it’s not that easy. Oh, listen carefully, can you… put your hands above your shoulders? (Help children understand the difference between above and above)
Extension: If the child is interested, he can continue to play, such as hiding his head in his clothes, putting your hand in my sleeve, catching my credit card with the back of his hand, etc.
Increased challenge (4 +):
1. Let the child think about the action and you do it.
2. Do a wrong action while you say it, so that the child can pay attention to what you say clearly and will not be disturbed by your wrong action.
3. Add an item, such as a credit card, such as a ballpoint pen, challenge to put the item on the shoulder, arm or two fingers, etc. You can also play hide-and-seek with these items.
Reduce challenge (3 years-):
Do while speaking, demonstrate what you say, help the child establish the connection between pronunciation and semantics, and imitate the action. If the child does not respond to your action, gently and patiently assist him in doing it, and praise him for listening carefully and watching carefully.
Game 2: How many fingers?
Baby and Eva took turns to give each other questions [X fingers! ], the other party immediately held out a corresponding number of fingers.
Take a chestnut
Dad: Let’s play a game. Call a few fingers. For example, I’ll come first (2 fingers in my left hand, 3 fingers in my right hand and hands together). How many fingers are these?
Eva: Five fingers!
Dad: Great! One, two, three, four, five, five!
Extension: If the child is interested, continue the game. Another way to play is for the father to call a number directly, such as [3 fingers! ] Children to do the action, see if the child can not count directly stretch out within 5 fingers. After that, the two sides can exchange roles and let the child dominate the game.
Increased challenge (4 +):
1. Shout numbers within 10 and let the children do it.
2. Shout a number, and then you give a few fingers to let the child make up the others, such as [5 fingers! ] Then stretch out 2, let the child cite 3, make up 5. Gradually increase the difficulty can play within 20.
Reduce challenge (3 years-):
Limit the number to 1 ~ 5 and add more demonstrations and interactions, such as shouting [two fingers! ] stretch out two fingers at the same time, and then say, [What can two fingers do? Can pinch, pinch a small nose, pinch a small belly], [1 finger can do? You can bend, dot, poke, draw a circle] and so on, and use your imagination to create a pleasant emotional experience for your children.
Game 3: I write you guess
Gently write a number or letter on the child’s back, let the child guess it was what! Because the fingers itch to write on the back, the children will laugh very happily, and the boredom in the queue will disappear immediately!
Game 4: Guess I’m thinking about what!
Set a category, such as animals/fruits/something on the opposite table, etc., and describe it for children to guess! In the process, children can also be encouraged to ask questions to narrow the range of answers.
Take chestnuts:
My mother took her to the restaurant for dinner, waiting for the food to be served:
Mom: Let’s play a game. Guess I’m thinking about what! I will think of something on the table now. You can ask me questions and guess according to my answers … I have already thought it over! Are you ready?
Eva: (nodding)
Mom: This is a silver thing.
Eva: Fork!
Mom: Close, but it’s not a fork. Try again. You can ask questions!
Eva: Is it in the shape of what?
Mom: Half oval, half rectangle!
Eva: I see, it’s a spoon!
Mom: Great, you think very seriously! It’s a spoon. Look, it’s silver, half round and half rectangular.
Increased challenge (4 +):
1. Encourage children to think and describe, parents guess. Show children the questions they can ask.
Reduce challenge (3 years-):
1. Let the child put his hand into the parents’ bag, touch the contents of the bag and guess what.
Game 5: Digital Hunter
Carefully observe and find the numbers in the environment (cashier number, license plate number, keyboard number, bank card number, bar code, magazine page number, etc.) with children, and briefly introduce the function of numbers.
Extension:
1. After each person finds a number, compare the sizes of the two numbers.
2. Change categories and look for shapes, colors, letters, logos, etc. in the environment.
3. Let the children hide a few numbers in a magazine or their own paintings, and their parents will find them out!
Reduce challenge (3 years-):
1. The same game of finding numbers is limited to 1 ~ 5 at the beginning, or the baby only needs to point out the numbers and the adult reads them out.
2. Follow the child’s attention and explain the people and things around him. For example, this is what, which is used for what, what this person is doing, and there is a small animal on the poster posted on the wall.
Long-term such interaction will not only promote children’s language and cognitive development (vocabulary, attention control ability), but also benefit children’s mental health development, filling children’s hearts and becoming willing to communicate with others.
Although the game seems simple, it involves a wide range of goals, such as the cultivation of rule awareness: [children can understand what as rules through dialogue and actions], and the ability to use various senses to obtain information, etc.
The next time you wait with your child, you don’t have to feel agitated. Take every 15 minutes and play with your child.