[Xinyu] What is early education?
In fact, early education is not that high, nor is it an expensive early education class, but it provides children with various conditions to promote their development in family life, including physical, cognitive, social and emotional all-round development.
[Xinyu] Why is early education so important?
The brain relies on synapses between nerve cells to transmit information. When a child is born, it is like a small receiver, receiving external information through senses such as hearing, sight, smell and touch. More and more synapses are the basis for the development of baby's various abilities.
Brain science research has found that the baby's brain is extremely plastic. After they were born, their brains began to develop rapidly. By the age of two or three, the number of synapses in their brains is twice that of adults.
However, the number of synapses is not the better, because too many synapses will lead to the "loss" of information processing, making it impossible for children to accurately process the received information.
The baby's synapse reaches its peak at the age of 3-4, and then it will be pruned slowly according to the child's development until the child can process all kinds of information accurately and quickly.
Therefore, the environment that babies face in the early life is very important, which has a very important influence on their brain development and life growth.
[Xinyu] What kind of early education is good?
Infants and young children know the world through various senses. Whether they look with their eyes, touch with their hands or taste or bite with their mouths, they are all ways to explore.
Babies within 6 months mainly use their hands, mouth and tongue to explore everything they come into contact with, but many novice parents always ignore this point, fearing that it is unsanitary for their babies to put things in their mouths and that it is not a good habit for them to eat their hands.
In fact, this is the normal performance of the baby's intellectual development. If a child never puts his hand in his mouth after birth, that's what parents need to worry about.
The baby's sense of movement is also very important. Since the child learned to turn over, he began to master the way of moving his body, which is a leap for the baby. Integrating information and adjusting strategies in sports is not only to exercise the baby's physical function, but also conducive to their intellectual and social development.
Any experience and change in life is a process of children's learning, so it is an important goal to provide children with a rich exploration environment in life and make their senses develop in a balanced way.
Scientists have found through experiments that the natural environment is better than the man-made environment. Excessive input will cause the "congestion effect" of nerves, which will not only help the children's brain to develop well, but also make the brain work effectively.
Burton White, a professor at Harvard University, hosted a 13-year project at Harvard Kindergarten. He found that excellent and happy children spend most of their time doing what they want to do. The child seems to have nothing to do, but in fact he is observing and discovering all the time. Just these hours of thinking have unconsciously promoted the development of the child.
Psychologists who study brain science point out that parents don't need to use every minute to give their children "early education" because the brain consumes a lot of energy and needs time to rest and digest the received information.
In a certain period of time, the brain can only process certain information. Giving children a proper rest, whether in a daze or doing something that parents think is meaningless, can help children better understand all kinds of information.
Early education needs to conform to the characteristics of baby's development, so input the information of baby's brain in a way that baby can accept.
During the period of 0-3 years old, interaction with parents or main caregivers is the main channel for babies to input various information. But these interactions need to pay attention to the frequency and intensity, so that the baby has the opportunity to observe, do and even think. Moreover, our too much interruption will also destroy the child's concentration.
My second treasure sometimes walks around the house alone, and her grandfather keeps calling, "Youbao, come to grandpa." I told my father-in-law that if the child doesn't look for him, or if the child doesn't meet other conditions, don't stop her from walking around. Just follow the adults. If you see that something may happen to your child, don't make any noise or act rashly.
Some parents may think that "early education" is to teach children knowledge, but it is not. For babies before the age of three, the main task is to develop big sports and fine movements and promote the development of various senses.
[Contrast] Four methods to help parents become the most reliable "early education teachers" for their children.
For example, when a child eats his hand for a while and then takes it out, we can say, "Baby, this is your hand and this is your little hand".
Then we can hold our hands in front of the baby and do various actions, such as opening our five fingers, clenching our fists and then releasing or shaking our hands back and forth, telling the baby that it is a hand, and reading some nursery rhymes about hands to the baby.
For example, "I have a pair of small hands and ten fingers. I wash my face and rinse my mouth with my hands. I will also dress and comb my hair. "
This not only teaches the baby to know the hand, but also conveys the function of the hand and enriches the baby's vocabulary.
As mentioned earlier, good "early education" is to promote the balanced development of children's senses. In the baby's daily life, it is a good way of early education to mobilize his five senses at any time.
For example, Bauer, who is 0/4 months old, likes bananas very much. Every time I give her a banana, I will tirelessly tell her that "this is a banana, the banana skin is yellow, the banana meat is a little white, and the banana bends like the moon hanging in the sky", and I will put it under her nose to let her smell it and let her feel the taste of bananas. When she eats, I will also describe the taste and taste of bananas to her.
She also likes to play with banana peels, and I won't stop her. Sometimes she chews a banana peel in her mouth and spits it out. I will tell her, "Isn't banana peel delicious? A bit awkward. "
I also taught her to peel bananas, or let her break bananas herself, so as to exercise her superb sports skills. In addition, she can peel the filaments from banana peel, which also tests children's hand-eye coordination and fine movements.
Children are naturally fond of games, and they like all new and interesting things. If you can play games with your children anytime and anywhere with things from your daily life, it is also a very good way of early education.
For example, cut off the bottom of the used toothpaste box, wash it clean, unscrew the lid and blow it on the baby's face to tell the baby that the wind is coming! Or put it under the tap and watch the water flow out of its body and shake it up and down, which can help children understand the fluidity of water well.
For example, peel off a banana skin to make flowers, or tear it to play, exercise fine hand movements, or put the peeled banana skin on the top of your head as a hat, and the baby will have a good time.
The purpose of the game is to teach without teaching, so that children can naturally understand the world around them in happiness.
Vygotsky put forward the concept of "zone of proximal development", which refers to the distance between the level that children could have reached and the level that they could have reached under the guidance of more capable adults.
Although repetition is the best way for children to learn, after a certain degree, we need to take the initiative to help children expand their experience and master more skills.
For example, the toothpaste game mentioned above, when the child is familiar with this game, we can find a chopstick and string the toothpaste box together with the baby; Or let the baby learn to screw the lid and exercise the baby's hand-eye coordination ability.
Another example is the banana mentioned above. After the baby knows enough about bananas, we show the baby how to peel bananas, and then give them to the baby to peel themselves. Or let the baby give the peeled bananas to the mother; Or break the banana into two pieces and compare the sizes of the two pieces; You can also tear the banana peel into pieces and count the banana peel with your children.
These are constantly increasing the difficulty of cognition and helping the baby's various abilities to develop step by step.
[Contrast] Write at the back
No matter what kind of early education, we must not forget that our goal is to cultivate a balanced child.
Family is the main front of early education. As long as you master certain theories and skills, every parent can become the most reliable "early education teacher" for their children.