If your child attends infant day care in Bethesda MD, they’ll receive some of the best pre-school age nurturing and care in the country. And that’s because of the combination of the use of the state-approved Creative Curriculum®, and in no small part due to the tireless efforts of the highly professional and trained staff. But the job of encouraging creativity in your child shouldn’t stop at the child care center. It should follow the child home, with parents and home child care givers following through.
Looking Beyond the Day Care Window
There’s a common misconception that the domain of child care does not extend beyond the four walls of a day care center. Some parents and guardians may believe (wrongly!) that the six or eight hours a child spends, in child care in Bethesda MD, is all that’s required to stimulate creative expression in their child. In fact, that’s a myth! To bring about the best in your infant or toddler, you must continue the work at home, that professional child care experts begin at the centers.
Here are a few creative activities that parents, siblings, guardians, and extended family members can engage with young children:
- Creativity through music: Expose your child to music – both with and without words – at home. Encourage them to participate in sing-alongs whenever possible.
- Let their fingers express: Finger painting, doodling, and scribbling are fun ways to let kids entertain themselves. But they’re also proven techniques to stimulate creativity in budding minds.
- Explore your universe: Take young children to safe places – nearby parks, nature trails, your backyard – and let them explore their settings. Collect twigs and pebbles. Build mud houses. Watch ants and insects.
- Expressive expressions: Read a poem or a story along with the child, and then encourage them to act out a part of that story/poem. Let them choose which character they like the most, and have them express why so.
- Associate books with real life: Go through picture books with your child, and then take them along to visit stores, the mall or elsewhere safe. Then, help them associate events and items from the books to what they see in real life – Pedestrian crossing, traffic lights, fire engine, ambulance, musical instruments, ice cream cone
Here’s the best thing about taking creativity home with you, from the infant care center: First, you don’t need any special tools or equipment to stimulate creativity in your child’s mind. And secondly, everyone has fun with these activities, while also stimulating creativity in the child.
Important Learning Moments
Young children spend less time in infant day care in Bethesda MD, than they do at home or other non-child-care environments. That only means there are more important learning moments outside the child care setting than within. Extending some of the creative activities from inside the day care center, and bringing them into the home, reinforces the benefit of those efforts. The more time children spend engaged in creative activities – both in and out of professional child care settings, the more likely it is that they’ll develop a strong creative and imaginative streak as they grow.
