No one can predict what habits and interests will stick with a child. But if you never offer up the opportunities, the odds will always remain at zero.
Just as infants and toddlers need experience crawling or scooting to learn to walk and babbling and crying to learn to talk, they need to practice using their hands to control art supplies and practice using their minds to figure out how art supplies work
As Walter Drew and Marcia Nell say, “Memories of joyful and meaningful play experiences help bind families together emotionally, even long after children are grown.”
Determined to find low cost materials that interest my daughter and stimulate her development I started observing my daughter and looking around the house.
We parents hold the power to not only look for child-directed play in the small everyday moments in children’s lives, but also to value and support it.
Sometimes it's hard to pull away from the screen and connect with my daughter. It’s hard to slow down to her pace, rather than pack her into the car and drive off to the store. But just for the moment, I decide to slow down.
When our son could barely speak he communicated what he was thinking by signing. I still remember one particularly memorable story to this day because of what it revealed to me about how toddlers think and learn.