Learning, Play, and Your 1- to 2-Year-Old

What Your Toddler Is Learning Kids transition from babies to toddlers during the second year of life, as tentative first steps give way to confident walking. As your toddler starts exploring, be sure to childproof your home to prevent household accidents. Language. Kids this age also make major strides in understanding language and …

Learning, Play, and Your 1- to 3-Month-Old

What Your Baby Is Learning After learning to recognize your voice, your face, and your touch, and to associate them with comfort, your baby will start responding even more to you during these months — and will even give you a smile! Babies this age spend more time awake and alert and become …

Learning, Play, and Your 4- to 7-Month-Old

What Your Baby Is Learning By 4 months old, your baby has learned to recognize you and familiar caregivers, focus and pay attention to things, and actively engage your attention. Your infant will learn to sit during this time, and in the next few months will begin exploring by reaching out …

Learning, Play, and Your Newborn

What Is My Newborn Learning? Play is the chief way that infants learn how to move, communicate, socialize, and understand their surroundings. And during the first month of life, your baby will learn by interacting with you. The first thing your baby will learn is to associate the feel of …

Music and Your School-Age Child

Reasons to Love Music Whether dancing around the living room on a rainy day or singing along to the radio, school-age kids love listening to — and participating in — music. And there are loads of good reasons to encourage this enthusiasm. Research shows that kids who are actively involved …

Rainy Day Fun

When rain or snow puts a damper on playing outside and cabin fever is driving everyone bonkers, these quick play-and-pretend ideas will keep kids occupied and happy for hours: Put on a Show With Homemade Puppets We’ve all created puppets out of cotton socks, paper bags, markers, and a handful …

Reading Books to Babies

Jacob loves books. His mom knows this because when she sits down to read to him every night, he waves his arms excitedly. His favorite page of “Goodnight Moon” shows a cow jumping over the moon. He squeals and reaches for the book every time he sees it. When she …

Safe Exploring for Preschoolers

Ready to Explore Kids ages 3-5 have tons of energy and are eager to walk, run, dance, and play. It’s a great age for exploration too. Preschoolers learn a lot when given the chance to investigate their environments (with supervision, of course). There’s much for preschoolers to explore. Now that …

Safe Exploring for Toddlers

On the Move Toddlers — it’s hard to imagine a more fitting name for this stage of development. Between the ages of 1 and 3, toddlers are literally scooting away from babyhood in search of new adventures. They’re learning to talk, to walk and run, and to assert their independence. …

School-Age Readers

Listening and Learning From kindergarten through third grade, a child’s ability to read grows by leaps and bounds. Although teachers provide lots of help, parents continue to play a very important role in their child’s reading development. Kids who are first learning to read get more information from listening to …