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Welcome to the My First Five Years Blog. Here you will find all sorts of information, ideas and activities that will help you to support your child.

Firework Feelings – a way to talk that’s good for their wellbeing

Talking about your experiences and memories is not only good for your child’s cognitive development – but has also been shown to be good for their mental health and emotional wellbeing into their teenaged years. Here’s how to use shared memories, like seeing fireworks, to help them develop these skills.

A long-running study^[1]of 115 mothers and their toddlers, which began 14 years ago, found that children who talked about experiences in more detail had greater social and emotional skills than those who didn't.

3 min read Read Now

Cognitive,
creativity,
Cognitive development

Learning how to think

Critical thinking might not be something you associate with your baby or toddler. But like many essential skills the foundations of analysing information and forming a judgement are laid in early childhood.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines critical thinking as:

4 min read Read Now

Language,
Cognitive development,
Seasonal,
summer,
communication

What does tennis have to do with your child's development?

Well, strictly speaking, not very much actually. But there is one phrase that’s important for both a successful game of tennis and developing children’s social, cognitive and communication skills – ‘serve and return’.

Just like in tennis, when we talk about serve and return interactions in child development we are talking about two people passing something back and forth – and paying attention to make sure it keeps moving for as long as possible.

3 min read Read Now

S7.2,
Cognitive development,
research

New research – words, sounds and learning

We know one of the ways babies and young children (and all of us) learn about the world is by grouping people, things and places. Even young babies begin to organise what they know into categories. They might have a category of toys that make a noise, or one for dogs – the categories your baby develops will depend on the things they see regularly. In this week’s deep dive into a research article, we explore a paper from Lancaster University which investigated if words or other sounds help babies with categorisation.

Research into child development often involves answering questions that arise from previous research, or repeating research to see if the results are the same.

3 min read Read Now

Fine Motor,
Gross Motor,
Language,
Cognitive development,
activities

Let them play with it! Why handling objects is important

We love how great it feels when your child masters a skill, especially when you know you have helped them get there. You know we’re passionate about child development, and one of the many amazing things about young children and their learning is how much everything connects together!

You’ll see that lots of our activity ideas use the things you have around you and everyday situations. It’s great if you’re trying not to spend a fortune on toys, but also from the point of view of supporting your child’s development – and like everything MFFY we have the research to back up what we say!

3 min read Read Now

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Trending

Latest Cognitive Development Posts

Firework Feelings – a way to talk that’s good for their wellbeing

Learning how to think

Critical thinking might not be something you associate with your baby or toddler. But like many essential skills the foundations of analysing information and forming a judgement are laid in early childhood.

What does tennis have to do with your child's development?

Well, strictly speaking, not very much actually. But there is one phrase that’s important for both a successful game of tennis and developing children’s social, cognitive and communication skills – ‘serve and return’.

New research – words, sounds and learning

Let them play with it! Why handling objects is important

We love how great it feels when your child masters a skill, especially when you know you have helped them get there. You know we’re passionate about child development, and one of the many amazing things about young children and their learning is how much everything connects together!

Today Date Triggered Content

Trending

All in one place: using the potty or toilet

Autumn play kit

50 books to read before you're five

Dark nights play kit

Winter playkit

Sensory play kit

All in one place - supporting your child's emotions and behaviour

Noisy playkit

Latest Cognitive Development Posts

Firework Feelings – a way to talk that’s good for their wellbeing

Learning how to think

Critical thinking might not be something you associate with your baby or toddler. But like many essential skills the foundations of analysing information and forming a judgement are laid in early childhood.

What does tennis have to do with your child's development?

Well, strictly speaking, not very much actually. But there is one phrase that’s important for both a successful game of tennis and developing children’s social, cognitive and communication skills – ‘serve and return’.

New research – words, sounds and learning

Let them play with it! Why handling objects is important

We love how great it feels when your child masters a skill, especially when you know you have helped them get there. You know we’re passionate about child development, and one of the many amazing things about young children and their learning is how much everything connects together!