eebee moments – how to take advantage of those everyday learning opportunities

Every day and every waking moment, babies work at figuring out how the world works. Everyday moments such as babbling, rolling, stacking and taking turns are a baby’s first real-life learning adventures. Experiences such as these lay the foundation for all future learning. These are eebee moments, the basis of the learning that lasts.

eebee moment : A child wearing mommy’s shoes

• What the baby is doing: understanding mine, yours, me, and you; expressing social awareness through sense of humor; and building self-esteem
• The importance of this moment: experts say that the understanding of self and other is the foundation of social intelligence. A strong sense of self coupled with acute social awareness (the ability to see the world through another’s eyes, or in this case, shoes) are critical skills for success both at school and in life.
• Joining the eebee moment: describe what your baby is doing; point out how the clothing is big, how he/she looks taller (in the shoes), how he/she can’t be seen under a big hat, etc. Try on a piece of your baby’s clothing—sure to get a big laugh. Extend the play by setting a new goal, such as walking to a new place or buttoning both of you into the same piece of adult clothing. Talk about “me,” “mommy,” and “daddy” and “you,” “my,” and “your.”

eebee moment : Filling a container and dumping it out

• What the baby is doing: exploring relationships, predicting outcomes, exploring patterns
• The importance of this moment: experts say that development of strong spatial and sequential ordering skills (how both objects and ideas fit together and relate to one another) is essential for understanding patterns that make up such symbol systems as letters, numbers and shapes, as well as for developing strong organizational skills.
• Joining the eebee moment: while your baby is working on the logic skills in this play scenario, it’s a great time for building language skills too. Rather than asking questions that the pre-verbal child cannot answer, just narrate your baby’s actions: “You dropped the red block into the bowl…there goes the green ball…and boom! There’s the pink cup. It fell onto the red egg!” Without interrupting your baby’s activity, if there is a natural place to participate, take a turn and drop one of the objects into the container; use sound effects, be silly, and describe what is happening. Your child most likely will enjoy your participation, anticipate your next move, and may even offer you things to drop in, making this exploration into a social exchange.

eebee moment : Pouring solids (sand, grains etc.)

• What the baby is doing: exploring cause and effect, discovering properties of materials, and understanding that solids can act like liquids
• The importance of this moment: experts say that sustained investigation of a material results in a deeper understanding and more useable knowledge about the real “stuff” in the baby’s world. These types of explorations also can lay the groundwork for future fields of interest.
• Joining the eebee moment: filling, emptying and transferring stuff can lead to highly practical skills. How much of this? How little of that? Which bag, box, or toy truck should I use? Is this heavy? Light? Will it squeeze down? How does it move? Encourage the exploration by introducing tools, such as different size bowls, cups, and funnels, that teach babies that the sand etc. doesn’t stay inside them; also try introducing tall things and short things, using their size difference to teach babies that it takes more to fill the tall one! Talk about what’s happening. If the grains of sand or rice end up on the floor, appreciate the fact that, for infants, if they pour it back into the big bucket, “my sand” and “my water” will blend into that source and they will not be able to immediately “see” or understand what happened. Acknowledge what happened (“the sand made a little hill on the floor”) and then set the limits (“sand stays in the container”). (For water, provide a bucket to fill; for solid material, clear a space onto which the baby can pour.)

eebee moment : Drumming and banging on objects

• What the baby is doing: exploring physical properties, creating patterns, appreciating an audience and using objects as tools
• The importance of this moment: experts say that using a tool to accomplish a goal represents an important problem-solving milestone. Using an object for something other than its intended use (a bowl as a drum, for example) also sets the stage for future creative and flexible thinking.
• Joining the eebee moment: babies love to “make music.” Banging, knocking and clapping things together give them a lot of information about the materials. To extend this moment, use another “tool” and drum along, hit the object at different points, point out differences in sound, put out other objects (such as bowls) of different sizes and materials (such as wood, plastic, etc.) and compare the sounds. Try making simple rhythms for your baby to listen to and imitate. Remember, it’s not a test; it’s a discovery. Talk about what is happening!

eebee moment : Pulling and tearing paper

• What the baby is doing: seeing that the whole is made up of parts, exploring “division” concepts, and understanding that his/her actions can change something
• The importance of this moment: experts say that academic math skills are not the result of memorizing numbers and counting to 10. Rather, it’s the intuitive understanding of the underlying mathematical ideas that come through play, ideas such as more, less, next, many, few, bigger, smaller, etc., that lead to deeper conceptual understanding.
• Joining the eebee moment: Describe what your baby is doing: making smaller pieces from a larger one, dividing the big piece into little pieces, etc. As you narrate the process, use quantitative words such as “more” and “another.” When it appears that your child is finished with the tearing game, try crumpling a piece of paper and then stretching it out to model another transformation. Give your baby the paper (open or crumpled) to play with. Does he/she make it “smaller” or “bigger” or explore it in a different way?

For additional information, please contact Tamara Jacobs, 770/971-0677, tamarajacobs@elsix.com