The following activities will enhance brain development in programs for babies and preschoolers:
A Balance of Repetition and Variation
Learning is enhanced when a known thing changes patterns or routines. For example, using the same rhyme every session, but perhaps having a different puppet recite it.
Or use the same book in multiple sessions, but present it differently. For example, you may read it the first session, tell it the second session, act it out in a third session, do it as a flannel board in the fourth session, do it using puppets, etc. Every story in your presentation does not have to be repeated, just the one title
Ritual
This is another type of repetition that helps define the program. The best example is to always use the same songs at the beginning and end of your program.
Movement
Physical activity can actually create physiological changes in the brain. It correlates with increased attention levels which can often lead to greater memory performance. Make sure you have both large and small motor activities throughout your program so that there is something for children who are too shy to get up and move their whole body as well as those who have no inhibitions whatsoever.
Music
Music teaches children vocabulary words painlessly; it can incorporate patterns of speech and voice inflection. It also improves children’s ability to concentrate, which enables them to make the most of their intelligence. Even just having music playing in the background will inspire creativity and a pleasing response from children. You don’t have to be able to carry a tune to get a positive reaction!
For more information on brain development and children, try:
Mother Goose on the Loose: a handbook and CD-ROM kit with scripts, rhymes, songs, flannel board patterns for promoting early childhood development by Betsy Diamont-Cohen (2006).
School Readiness: Birth to Age Three How-to Guide
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