Topic | What's going on for baby? | How can parents and whānau help? |
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Developing motor skills | Our young tamaiti is growing bigger and stronger and becoming more co-ordinated. Their large motor skills and abilities will continue to improve as they use their big muscles for running, jumping, throwing and climbing. They will also be developing their fine motor skills when building, drawing, playing with small toys and doing other activities that require manipulation. These activities use all the small muscles, especially those in their hands and fingers. As their fine motor skills progress and they become more proficient, they’ll be ready to learn to use scissors and to do threading activities. As always with more motor ability, including both large body strength and finer manipulative skills, children are likely to use their growing skills and confidence to explore anything and everything. That means those who care for them may be presented with more challenges to keep them safe. |
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Developing social skills | At this stage our tamaiti is becoming more interested in playing with other children. Younger children will play in parallel, watching what each other is doing. Now they’ll begin to interact more and play with each other. They’re also likely to enjoy pretend play with friends and whānau. They are beginning to understand simple rules and will often be able to keep them. At the same time, ‘mine’ becomes a favourite word as they become more self-aware. |
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Language and communication skills | During this stage our tamaiti will be communicating more. They will continue to understand a lot more than they can say, but their expressive language (what they can say) will be increasing. As well as using their voice, they will be getting their message across with gestures, body language and facial expressions. They will be using more single words, and they will also combine words more often. This could increase to about 4 words in a short sentence. For example, ‘Go park car now’. Often they will miss out the smaller words which are not essential to get the meaning across, such as ‘to’, ‘in’ or ‘the’. Having interested people to communicate with, and things to explore and communicate about, is necessary for their on-going language development. They will ask lots of questions because their enquiring minds want to know about many things. Their questions will usually start with ‘what’, ‘where’ or ‘why’. |
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Learning about emotions | Young children may feel stress as a result of fear and other unpleasant emotional experiences. When this happens too often, it can have a negative effect on their brain development. A child’s stress can also result in a range of behaviours that upset or irritate their parents. At this age children may begin to experience fears that haven’t been evident before. Parents may struggle with this new stage, not understanding why their child is suddenly afraid of something that didn’t use to trouble them. Fears can be prompted by a child’s developing memory skills, which mean they are now more able to recall past events or experiences. Their increasing intellectual awareness and ability to understand more of what is said, both to them directly and around them, can also lead to fear. A child may also experience fear of the ‘unknown’ as they don’t yet understand many of the things in their world. |
Support the child through the situation that frightens them, then talk about it afterwards, explaining the scary thing in simple terms. |
Maths learning | Between the ages of 2 and 3 children develop their memory for the ways things are done and the order in which they happen. This is known as the process, and it is an important aspect of early maths learning. It’s also a fundamental aspect of participating in most everyday events. Put in another way, when a child understands the order in which things happen, they can anticipate what is likely to happen next. When they can anticipate, they are more able to participate. They are starting to understand concepts such as big and small, same and different, and the meaning of one and two. They can use this understanding to match objects, and are likely to enjoy games and other activities that involve putting similar things together. This skill is also necessary for basic maths learning. |
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Self Care | With their growing skills and abilities, young children between the ages of 2–3 years want to do more and more by and for themselves. They are likely to want to dress and feed themselves, and to show they are ready to learn to use a potty or the toilet. |
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