Brains In The Family

Best Toddler Classes: Storytelling Class

The following is the final part of a blog series about the best classes for your toddler's development.

Activity: Storytelling Groups

Where to find it: Check with your local library or bookstore for regular storytelling times.

What They'll Learn: Attend a regular storytelling group to teach your child a love of reading at an early age. Storytelling professionals are trained to engage children with voices and sound effects, and to encourage them to interact with the book and each other. Further encourage a love of reading by allowing your child to choose a few books to take home after each reading group. She'll look forward story time and soon be reading on her own!

Best Toddler Classes: Music Classes

The following is the fifth of a six-part series of blog posts about the best classes for your toddler's development.

Activity: Music Lessons and Classes

Where to find it: Gymboree locations offer group sessions, or check your local listings for certified music instructors for one-on-one attention.

What She'll Learn: Help your child develop a love of music and sounds early by enrolling in a toddler music class. Whether your little one attends alone or with a family member, she's sure to pick up the rhythm soon and continue her exploration of music in the future.  Learning music and playing instruments is great for kids' cognitive development, and children exposed to a multi-year music program have been shown to display higher cognitive performance in reading and language skills. You may wish to move your child into private lessons down the road (which aid in intellectual development and help develop patience and discipline), and group music classes are a great starting point.

Source: Parents

Why girls drop math: Beliefs about Math

Girls Treat Math Like a Talent, Boys Like a Skill

By Art Markman, Ph.D, Psychology Today

In the last week, marching band practice started, and there have been orientations at my kids' schools, so it must be time for them to go back. That got me thinking about a big problem in math and science education. In elementary school, boys and girls are about even in their performance in math and science. By middle school, girls start to lag behind, and few women go on to pursue math in college. What is going on?

One factor that leads girls to drop math is that boys and girls seem to differ in their beliefs about math. Psychologist Carol Dweck argues that people can have two different stances toward academic topics. Entity theorists treat academic topics as if they were talents. You either have them or you don't. So, you could be good at math or bad at math. If you're good at math, then you'll learn it. If you're bad at math, then at some point, you'll reach a type of math that goes beyond your abilities.

Incremental theorists treat math as a skill to be acquired. Stick with math, and eventually you'll get even the really hard stuff.

Dweck and her colleagues find that people who treat math (or any other academic subject) as a skill will stick with it longer and try harder when it gets difficult than when they treat it as a talent.

The way this affects boys and girls is that Dweck has collected evidence that boys and girls get different feedback about math from early on in their schooling. Eventually, everyone hits a topic in math that they struggle with. When talking to girls, teachers are likely to emphasize that math is hard. Talking about math as being difficult makes it sound like something that either you can do or you can't.

Boys tend to get feedback that treats math as a skill to be acquired. When they hit a hard topic, they are told to try harder and they'll eventually get it.

Because girls are more likely than boys to get feedback that treats math as a talent, they are more likely to end up with an entity theory of math. The truly hard stuff in math comes in middle school, when kids are first exposed to algebra and geometry and later trigonometry and calculus. Eventually, one of these topics is going to derail everyone, at least for a while. Because of their beliefs about math, then, girls are more likely than boys to conclude that they have reached the limits of their talent and give up.

Best Toddler Classes: Tumbling class

The following is the second of a six-part series of blog posts about the best classes for your toddler's development.

Activity: Tumbling Classes

Where to find it: Most YMCA locations offer tumbling classes for kids, or check with your local fitness center.

What She'll Learn: Toddler tumbling classes are a great way to help your child develop strength and flexibility, as well as concentration skills. Your little one will jump, run, roll, crawl, swing, and have a great time! She'll also learn to overcome fear and try things that may seem a little scary at first. Tumbling and gymnastics is also a very social sport, and your child is likely to make new friends along the way. She'll also develop positive associations with exercise.

Source: Parents

Art For The Mind Video Channel: Observing, interpreting, and creating art strengthens your mind

Best Toddler Classes: Basic sports class

The following is the first of a six-part series of blog posts about the best classes for your toddler's development.
Activity: Basic Sports Classes

Where to find it: Gymboree or YMCA locations, or check with your local fitness or community center.

What Your Toddler Will Learn: Ideal for children ages 3 to 5 years, these introductory classes teach kids about sports and encourage a healthy, active lifestyle. Your child will learn the skills necessary for soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, hockey, and more while practicing teamwork, cooperation, and sharing with the other children. You may be able to take the class as a parent-child team at first before letting him branch out on his own to learn independence and make new friends.

Source: Parents

Give Kids Space To Develop Passions

 Back off helicopter moms and dads.

A new study has found children and young adults are more likely to pursue sports, music or other pastimes when given an opportunity to nurture their own passion.

Université de Montréal researcher Geneviève Mageau performed a three-part study assessing if parental control would predict whether a child develops a harmonious or obsessive passion for a hobby.

Published in the latest Journal of Personality, the study was a collaboration with scientists from the Université de Montréal, the Université du Québec à Montreal and McGill University.

“We found that controlling adults can foster obsessive passion in their children by teaching them that social approval can only be obtained through excellence,” says Dr. Mageau.

“An activity then becomes highly important for self-protective reasons that don’t necessarily correspond with a child’s true desires.”

Give your mind an artistic workout

Art For The Mind, August Macke from Michael Cerreto on Vimeo.

Opera Singer Renee Fleming Provides A Performance Lesson

Lesson: Focus On Technique

Renee Fleming’s vocal talent is acclaimed worldwide as “the gold standard of soprano sound.”  An international artist for more than a decade, she is recognized for her compelling artistry, beautiful sound, and interpretive talents.  Fleming is one of the most sought-after performers onstage and in recordings, and has been nominated for eight Grammys and won the award twice.

As a world-class performer, Fleming can teach all performers an important lesson about doing the hard work needed to develop advanced technique.  Click on the following link to read about Fleming's important lesson to all performers: Learn More

Great Weekend Craft for Young Kids' Minds

As the winter snow arrives on the East coast and other parts of the U.S. this weekend, here is a fun activity you can do indoors with your young kids to make a set of binoculars.  When your kids come in from playing in the snow, instead of getting right on the computer or video game system, have them do something that better works their mind.  Hands-on crafts teach kids to better focus, follow directions, remember steps, and work with three dimensional objects.  In other words, crafts give their minds a workout that is more thorough and fun all at the same time.  Click on the following link to get instructions to make a set of binoculars at home: Binoculars