Brain games for babies, toddlers & twos - Jackie Silberg

A toddler's brain is twice as active as that of a college student, presenting an opportunity for learning which occurs only once in a lifetime. This guide aims to show you how to harness this potential, with 150 fun-filled games devised to stimulate brain-development during the critical period from nought to three years. Each game is accompanied by information on related brain research and description of how the activity promotes brain power in your child. The games for babies include exercises designed to promote hand-eye co-ordination, movement and expression, and encourage strength and mobility, grasping and reaching for objects, and listening skills. From six months onwards activities encourage crawling, awareness of object permanance, language learning, listening skills and awareness of cause and effect, then promote independent walking, help with understanding basic instructions and aiding concentration. As your child becomes a toddler the games aim to increase vocabulary, encourage musical ability, improve balance and co-ordination and develop thought processes, encouraging imagination, social interaction, self awareness and sentence structure.From two years onwards, you can help build language, music and rhythm skills, develop the ability to sort and match, encourage balance and complex movement and improve the memory, moving on to encourage role play, understanding rules and the consequences of actions, and making comparisons between objects.