My Baby’s a Scientist!
Ever wonder why your baby insists on repeatedly dropping his spoon on the floor while perched above in his high chair? It’s simple: he’s developing his understanding of cause and effect. Research shows that infants and young children “learn from statistics, experiments and from the action of others in much the same way that scientists do.” Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted research to better understand how children learn. She found that young children learned from their play and, like a scientist, from their interactions with their surroundings, observations of other’s actions, and development and testing of their own hypotheses to form their knowledge of the world.
(Playful Bee is launching our new DIY Preschool from Birth program! Click here to enroll.)
How can you help nurture your little Einstein’s curiosity and appetite to learn? Gopnik recommends that you ditch direct instruction (at least for now) in favor of supporting your child’s scientific thinking. Do this by encouraging him to play, identify, and observe resulting anomalies and by asking him to provide explanations. The next time that your little one drops a spoon on the floor, relish in the fact that he is not trying to make a mess to spite you. Rather, he is hard at play on his scientific journey!
To learn more about how you can support your child’s early learning and development, sign up for Playful Bee’s DIY Preschool from Birth program! Click here to enroll.
Yvette Hwee
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