The reason for Parent Child

Babies are playing, and developing language, from birth.  Initially, they watch and listen.  Babies watch your mouth as you talk, along with facial expressions and body language.  They listen to your sounds and sentences. Once babies can explore, you continue playing, talking, labeling objects, and describing actions.  As babies transition into towards toddlerhood, the listening and watching shifts to imitation of actions and sounds. Though you may not realize it, clapping, waving, and moving are actually pre-language skills. Soon, babies will advance from nonverbal communication to cooing, babbling, and finally real words.  All of the time spent narrating your actions, and theirs, is the explicit teaching of foundational language skills. Once in the throws of toddlerhood and preschool, you can incorporate open-ended toys into play. These types of toys are driven by children’s actions, not batteries. Some examples would include construction sets, blocks, kitchens, dollhouses, stuffed animals, action figures, puppets, cars, and trains. These toys allow you to create vivid play schemes, like restaurants, hospitals, castles, or superheroes, in which rich vocabulary and concepts can be introduced (www.playingwithwords.365).  With George’s Gym Parent/Child Program, our activities are designed to meet your baby or toddler at their developmental level.  Based on an early childhood developmental model, we are able to enhance their natural reflexes and instincts by teaching new skills, that will feel like play!  In addition, we provide parents with tools and activities to incorporate into playtime, enhancing development at home, outside of our classroom.