Tag: Parenting
Through play, children learn the skills and knowledge needed for life; imaginative play encourages the toddler to use their mind and creative potential. Children can be taught to have the skills and knowledge to deal with life’s challenges and to solve problems creatively through being encouraged to be active in play that involves creativity, learning, investigation and discovery. There’s a saying “Give a person a fish and they eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they eat for a lifetime.”
Imaginative Play
Play that is imaginative and creative will help the toddler to use their mind to find solutions to problems. One of the most important parts of imaginative play is for the child to pretend to be someone else or in different situations.
This type of play helps promote a toddler’s learning through using role play to develop their imagination. They will also be developing their emotional and social skills, sharing skills, manipulative skills, language and communication skills through this type of play. Not only this but it helps a child build on his or her self confidence and feelings of security.
Kids Play and Imagination
Through imaginative play, a child might run around, pretending he or she is a horse or a dog, an aeroplane or a train. At 3-4 years, they often do this on their own. At other times, an adult could encourage imaginative play so the child might explore new situations and fantasy worlds. This will help the child to explore their feelings and the world around them in a safe, supervised environment.
Children at this age are at Piaget’s preoperational stage. During the years from 2 to 6 Piaget saw the evidence of symbol use in many aspects of child’s behaviour. Children this age beginning to pretend in their play for example at age 2 or 3 or 4 a broom may become a horse, or a block may become a train.
Imaginative play, through building towers out of bocks, talking to and feeding their dolls, making tea with the tea set and dressing in grown-up clothes is important and should never be classed as trivial… Neither should soft toys or dolls be rejected as inappropriate for any age of either sex.
Examples of Imaginative Play Activities
Ask the children to make a pirate ship out of large cardboard boxes. They might make telescopes or binoculars out of kitchen tubes and a flag for their boat out of newspaper. Hats could be made and painted for them to wear while they’re at sea in their imaginary boat. How does this kind of play help in a child’s learning? As the children play with each other, they will be using their communication and language skills.
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July 24, 2010
GreenKiddie launches an online eco-store powered by Amazon. The brand new section will recommend carefully selected natural, organic and eco-friendly products for babies & children as well as for the whole family. The products are split by categories from nursing and feeding equipment to “green” cribs and highchairs.
Promoting the eco-friendly and toxic-free products we love is a great way to continue being helpful source of information for parents who consider natural living and the best care for their children. We believe that providing a “green”, natural care for your baby or toddler is best for your child, and it’s also great for the environment.
The “green” eStore will mainly promote products which are oxic-free, completely safe for babies and children, and have already proved their eco-friendly efforts. There will be a special space for mums and mums-to-be, where everything as pregnancy music for relaxation, books on natural and stress-free birth, organic clothing and fabulous organic cosmetics and beauty products will be featured.
GreenKiddie’s online store is a one-stop space for green products, where parents could find everything they need to raise their children naturally and eco-friendly. The same way GreenKiddie is a trustful online media for parenting advice, the hope is for the eStore to become a number one choice for parents to purchase “green” and toxic-free products for their families.
The payment process is trustful and secure and it’s powered by Amazon.
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June 17, 2010
As a first-time mum I have personally experienced that motherhood is thrilling but can also be very hard work, especially when you have to juggle work, home and family. There are times when just talking to someone makes a big difference. Looking for likeminded mums on the Internet, I came across a very interesting web space – Mums Like You. As its name points, the website is for mums to stay connected, share stories and recommendations in a fun and safe environment. As its founder Iveta Tancheva explains, “Mums Like You aims to be an online community where like-minded mums support and help each other.”
Here Iveta Tancheva shares how she came up with the idea of Mums Like You
I decided to set up Mums Like You, early 2009 when I lost my job in the City and was at home looking after my baby daughter. The idea was initially to create a networking site which enables new and first time mums to stay connected and find friends.
When I did research on what is already out there and what mums want, two things quickly became clear – that a lot of mums live away from their families and friends as a result leading them to feel quite isolated at times, and that they increasingly rely on the Internet to find the support and information they need when on maternity. In addition my research confirmed my own experience as a first-time mum that word-of-mouth is an extremely important source of information. These findings were instrumental in extending the capabilities of Mums Like You to enable mothers to share valuable information and solve real-life problems online.
The Reviews section for example is becoming a place where mums share their opinions about products and services and find out what other mums think before making a purchase. Another example is the Marketplace area, which enables mums to list and sell baby kit they no longer need or advertise to find childcare help.”
How Mums Like You differs from the other parenting websites and social networks
Mums Like You offers a range of interactive tools unavailable on other sites. We believe there is enormous value in collective knowledge and experience of mums.
The site therefore aims to pull together everything they want to share; making sure it is easily accessible for the benefit of all mums. Unlike other sites, we rely entirely on our members for content and the website evolves the way our members want it to. The site is simple and easy to use, and enables mums to find the information they want quickly and efficiently. We are also presently working on a number of new tools designed to help mums during pregnancy and the first months after birth, which will be released in the coming months.
What was your biggest challenge during the development process and how can other start-ups learn from this?
The biggest challenge was spreading the word about the website and getting mums familiar with it. Marketing was, and continues to be, one of the most important and challenging aspects of the business. The good news is that with the advent of Twitter and other social media sites, it is now far easier to connect to our relevant audience. The downside, however, is that it’s very time consuming and takes a lot from the resources of a start-up business. I guess the key lesson for me was that I had to try out a few different advertising and PR activities before focusing on the ones that worked best for my venture.
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January 13, 2010
