Acts of remembrance with young children
The country will pause to mark Remembrance Day this Sunday, so we’re looking at ways to remember with young children.
Which factors can affect social and emotional child development?
The first few years of a child's life are when they are developing their early skills across many areas. During this stage, a child will be discovering all about themselves and others, and growing their social and emotional skills. During a child’s early social and emotional development, there are many factors that can have an effect, both positively and negatively. In this summary, we’ll be detailing these factors, that usually fall into two categories – environmental and within the child. We’ll also be detailing wider ideas that are good to know, like why children’s mental health is important, emotional changes as they transition in life, and how to help if you think a child is at risk.
Why creativity is important in early child development
When we think about creativity, we often think about creative arts such as dance, sculpture, painting and drawing, but it is also possible to be creative in scientific ways. Creative-scientific explorations can involve problem-solving, testing an idea to see if it works or is true, investigating, discovering and inventing. Creativity was traditionally thought to be limited to a special set of ‘creative’ people, but we can all be creative given the opportunity.
Sensory development by age - what to really expect
From the day your baby is born, they begin to learn about the world around them through their senses. Sensory play provides an essential foundation for children’s overall development. It is very important that children have the opportunity to explore their environments by using all their senses, as this helps to contribute to healthy brain development through the growth of neurological connections. These are the building blocks of the brain. Our app has lots of ideas to help you support your child’s sensory development from birth. In this article, we explain more about why sensory development is important and you’ll find ideas to get you started with supporting your child’s sensory development.
Our best tactile sensory activity recommendations
Why tactile sensory activities are important
‘Sensory play’ is something that a lot of children enjoy engaging in from a young age. Most people forget, however, that it makes for great learning opportunities for children of all age ranges.
Our five favourite speech and language activities for early years
Language is one of the six development streams at My First Five Years. Language is a skill that crosses over with and supports learning across all six of the My First Five Years streams.
Our five best everyday objects you can use to help develop fine motor skills
Fine Motor Skills are the skills that develop following on from the progression of gross motor movements. Fine motor skills involve intricate, more defined actions that require manual dexterity such as picking things up between a finger and thumb, wriggling toes and even the manipulation of lips and tongue.
A guide to gross motor skill improvement throughout your child’s early years
‘Gross Motor Skills’ makes up one of the six key streams of development here at My First Five Years. It's a skill that underpins and intertwines with many other aspects of early learning. There is plenty of activities that your child can take part in that will help to develop, with many able to be adapted to any child's level of development and interest too!
What is gross motor delay? Common causes explained
It is common for children to develop skills at varying rates. Even siblings can hit milestones at different stages of development from one another.
Relationship-based childcare, explained for parents
A relationship-based approach to childcare is one that is founded on a strong relationship between the child, childcare provider, and their family in order to support the best possible development outcome for the child.
