Right from birth children use their five senses to explore and try to make sense of the world around them. This is why babies (and toddlers) like to touch whatever they can, place everything in their mouth and explore making different (sometimes loud) noises with their mouth.
Sensory play and experiences builds neural pathways in the young brain strengthening cognitive skills (Gainsley, 2011). This means your baby is learning, right from birth as they listen to your voice, soak in your cuddles and view the environment around them. You can capitalize on a child's natural instinct to learn through their sense by showing them high contrast images, singing to them, letting them smell different foods, and giving them massages or tickles. You can also expose them to different textures and feelings such as soft, rough, crinkly, warm, cold, smooth, jagged, wet, or dry.
When learning, combining the sense of touch with the senses of vision, hearing, taste and smell has been shown to build and reinforce cognitive skills (Bjorklund, 2004). This means that when your child is ready to start learning their academic skills, such as letters, numbers and colors, they can engrain them more deeply if they explore them with more than one of their sense. Earlybird has a variety of multisensory learning ideas to help your child learn their foundational skills.
Join Earlybird to engage your children in rich sensory experiences and multisensory learning.
