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Panicking about your pandemic baby’s development? Here are 24 ways to build school readiness skills!
- Learning Resources Posted On Jan 14, 2022 | Reading
According to a recent study from Colombia University, babies born early in the pandemic have slight delays in motor and social skills compared to those born right before the pandemic. The researchers surveyed parents of 255 babies born at two New York City hospitals between March and December 2020.
The survey, completed when the babies were six months old, asked about:
- Communication skills ("does your baby make high pitched squeals?")
- Gross motor skills ("does your baby roll from his back to tummy?")
- Fine motor skills ("does your baby reach for a toy with both hands?")
- Problem-solving skills ("does your baby look for a toy that he drops?")
- Social skills ("does your baby smile and coo in the mirror?")
The researchers found lower scores in gross motor, fine motor, and social skills compared to 6-month olds born at the same hospitals before the pandemic. Surprisingly, the pandemic babies' communication skills were slightly higher!
So, what’s the parent of a pandemic baby to do? This study may have filled you with worry about your own child’s developmental milestones. As your little one approaches toddlerhood, what can you do to help them close the gaps in these critical skills? Try these engaging learning activities and playful learning toys that will help your budding toddler stay on track so they are ready to rock preschool and kindergarten!
Gross motor skills - Gross motor skills are abilities that let us do tasks that involve large muscles in our torso, legs, and arms.
Free Activities:
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Fine motor skills - Fine motor skills are the ability to make movements using the small muscles in our hands and wrists.
Free Activities:
Products:
Problem-solving skills - Skills that help manage their emotions, think creatively and persist until they find a solution.
Free Activities:
Products:
Social skills - the skills we use to communicate and interact with each other, both verbally and non-verbally, through gestures, body language and our personal appearance.
Free Activities:
- All About Me Houses Printables
- Cozy Calm Down Corner
- Little Faces, Big Feelings!
- Opposites with Big Feelings Pineapple
Products:
- Learn-A-Lot Avocados
- Big Feelings Pineapple
- All About Me Neighborhood Counters
- Pretend & Play School Set
Babies are not the only ones affected by this pandemic; children of all ages face development blocks. While challenges still lie ahead, Learning Resources wants all parents to know they have a trusted partner with great tools readily available to them. Whether children respond best to physical toys to learn social skills, letters, numbers, and more, or if moms are seeking free online resources such as printouts, educational videos, or skill-building activities, Learning Resources is prepared to keep the love of learning in children’s hearts long after the pandemic is over.
Valentine's Pattern Block Activity
Valentine's Pattern Block Activity is a fun and engaging way to incorporate math and problem-solving skills into the holiday. These activity mats feature different Valentine's Day-themed pictures, such as hearts, flowers, and cupids. To complete the activity, students can use pattern blocks to create the pictures on the mats.
This activity is a great way to teach kids about shapes, counting, sorting, reasoning, symmetry, and even fractions. Students will use pattern blocks to create the pictures on the mat, which will help them understand and recognize different shapes and combine them to create a complete picture. Additionally, students will need to count the number of pattern blocks required for each image; this will help to improve their counting abilities.
The activity also includes reasoning, symmetry, and fractions. Students must use their problem-solving skills to determine which pattern blocks to use and where to place them to create the desired picture. They will also practice symmetry by matching the pattern blocks to create a symmetrical picture. And finally, with pattern blocks, students can explore fractions and how they relate to the different shapes.
Valentine's Pattern Block Activity is a great way to incorporate math and problem-solving skills into the holiday while keeping the activity fun and festive. These simple Valentine's pattern Block Mats are an awesome math challenge for kids. Just print them out and start building; it's that easy!
Shop Pattern Blocks
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Valentine's Day Mathlink Cube Activities
Mathlink Cubes are perfect for creating fun and engaging Valentine's Day themed math activities. Additionally, Mathlink Cubes can be used to create patterns and sequences, such as making a pattern of hearts and counting the number of cubes used. These activities will help students practice their math skills in a fun and festive way.
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Mathlink Cubes are great for kids for several reasons:
- Hands-on learning: Mathlink Cubes are a hands-on learning tool that children can physically manipulate and explore mathematical concepts. This can help to make math more engaging and interactive for students.
- Multi-use: Mathlink Cubes can be used for various mathematical concepts, including counting, addition, subtraction, measurement, geometry, and more. This makes them a versatile and valuable tool for teachers and parents to have in their toolkits.
- Develops fine motor skills: Using the Mathlink Cubes requires children to use their fine motor skills, which can help to improve dexterity and hand-eye coordination.
- Concrete to abstract: Mathlink Cubes provide a concrete representation of mathematical concepts, which can help children to understand and internalize these concepts. Then the children can apply what they learned in the tangible form to more abstract problems.
- Fun and engaging: Mathlink Cubes come in different colors, making math activities fun and engaging for children. The fun and colorful aspect of the cubes makes children more excited to learn and practice math.
- Differentiation: Mathlink Cubes can be used to provide different levels of challenge for students, making it easy for teachers to differentiate instruction and provide support for students who need it.
Overall, Mathlink Cubes are an excellent tool for kids to learn and practice math in a fun and interactive way.
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What Should My Five-Year-Old Be Learning?
Your little love is about to become a big kid! They’re likely heading off to kindergarten soon, and you won’t believe the progress they’ll make this year. From social-emotional growth to academic learning and more advanced coordination, your kids will soon be skipping, hopping, writing, and even reading a few words! While kids develop at their own pace, below is a list of new skills many five-year-olds will acquire over this exciting year:
Social-Emotional Skills
As your kindergartner continues to assert their independence, they’ll become better and more enthusiastic helpers. Let them pitch in wherever you can, even if it means a bit more work for you after the fact. Over the next year, your handy helper will get even better at:
- Following directions (they might even be excited to do so!)
- Helping with chores like setting the table, sweeping the floor, or washing (non-breakable) dishes
- Knowing the difference between fantasy and reality
- Doing things themselves, like getting dressed (YES!), eating, and using the bathroom.
- Sitting still and listening for 15 minutes
Language Skills
At this age, your child may become quite the chatterbox. Their speech is likely to be clear, their vocabularies are extensive, and their descriptions are becoming more vivid. They’ll also probably learn to:
- Match the beginning and ending sounds of words to the appropriate letters
- Use correct grammar most of the time (with some funny mistakes)
- Use the correct tenses – past, present, future
- Use the correct pronouns – he, his, they, theirs, etc
- Answer and talk on the phone
Cognitive Skills
This year, many five-year-olds will enter kindergarten, where their social, emotional, and academic skills will blossom beyond belief. Some of the things your little one might master this year include:
- Drawing and cutting out simple shapes
- Using relational words like under, over, and next to
- Writing upper and lowercase letters, words, name
- Adding and subtracting numbers under five (practice with cookies – it’s highly effective!)
- Reading several sight words
Physical Skills
While fine motor skills take longer to develop, your five-year-old’s gross motor skills will grow by leaps and bounds (literally) this year! Below are a few of the strides your child may make over the next year or so:
- Balancing on one foot for a few seconds with their eyes closed
- Hopping on one foot, skipping, and even jumping rope
- Using a fork, butter knife, and spoon correctly
- Zipping their zipper (hooray!)
- Tying their shoes
Your big kid will learn so much in school, and you can reinforce that learning at home! Play games together, count the cars you pass on the street, find the letter “O” in the stop sign, and read, read, and then read some more. But be sure to make plenty of time for play, movement, and snuggles. You can also track your child’s milestones by age with the CDC’s mobile milestone app!
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