33 Replies

VIP Member

@darius - really glad you asked this question. I am personally not a fan of flash cards or classes before your baby is above 18months. I prefer natural learning environments and exploratory learning. Here are some things to do to inculcate the love of Math and programming in your baby. I have based my suggestions on what age your baby is: 1. Baby nursery decor (Newborn) Instead of going for a cutesy Disney themed decor, go for decor that represents science, technology, astronomy etc. This will be your babies first exposure and her sanctuary where she builds her first dreams, goals, ambitions. Your surrounding will definitely have an influence on that. Babies like bright colours and patterns. If you want a little engineer ( I know I do), I suggest that you put up brightly coloured fractal pattern posters (pic attached). Download the freeware and enter variables until you get a pattern you like. Color code variables until the poster matches the colour of your nursery. Go to your local printing shop and have it blown up and framed up on the wall. Staring at the poster will help your baby with mathematical pattern recognition. 2. Things to touch (six month old) By six months, your baby is almost crawling and exploring the world by touch. Some of her first few toys can be old keyboards or old mouse. These provide interesting stimulation as you press on a key, and it makes a clicking noise. Furthermore, it is textured and has many crevasses to explore. By about 8 months your baby will start responding to colourful stimuli, such as large blocks and tiles. Play with her and observe what she does. Babies tend to naturally start classifying things, based on size, shape, or colour—and this builds a foundation for lifelong mathematical learning. Also set up toys that encourage your baby to explore her motor skills. Stacking rings, soft books, and other bright, textured toys do wonders to stimulate babies' senses. 3. Even more toys (Age 1) Nonfunctional calculators with large keypads work well as toys at about one year of age. Keep one on your table. Your baby will want to play with what mama and papa are playing with. When that curious hand reaches up over the edge of the desk, put the expendable calculator at her fingertips. Put measuring cups of different sizes and spoons in the bathtub for play. Give your baby plenty of sound-makers: shakers, drums, wrist bells, etc. Interacting and playing with musical instruments will build a sense of rhythm. Plus, she'll gradually learn that one shake or pat produces one sound, and two makes two noises, etc. 4. Books to read to baby (from birth) The Most Magnificent Thing If I Built A Car Hello Ruby: Adventures In Coding What Do You Do With An Idea? Papa's Mechanical Fish A, B, C for Toddler Engineers: U is for ultraviolet Quantum Physics for Babies Introductory Calculus For Infants Newtonian Physics for Babies 5. From 18 months Use a growth chart or scale to measure your toddlers height/weight. Let your toddler put money in a piggy bank (good for fine motor skills, too). Sort laundry together. Sort toys into their correct containers. Colouring book - The World's Most Ridiculously Excellent Science Coloring and Activity Book I hope these suggestions help!

VIP Member

Count with them. Counting songs, toys, rhymes and stories, count things into and out of containers, count fingers and toes, count pictures in books, count how many steps we go up and down. Basically anything and everything we can. Read books. Scientists have found that babies as young as 8 months can learn to recognise the sequence of words in a story when it's read 2 or 3 times in a row -- this is believed to help them learn language. Teach texture by letting her play with foods that vary in texture -- including cooked peas, cereal, pasta, etc. She'll get to practice her pincer grasp and explore her senses. The most important thing is to make it fun! We do not want to pressure them. Learning the basics should be fun. Ps - there is this cool kickstarter project that teaches 3 years old how to code. You can check it out here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primotoys/cubetto-hands-on-coding-for-girls-and-boys-aged-3?ref=3.jellop-ads.com&utm_source=jellop&utm_medium=facebook&utm_term=3.jellop-ads.com&utm_campaign=CB&utm_content=Cubetto-CB2

The great news is that young babies are innately curious and are pretty much born as scientist. Your role is to make sure they don't lose that side of themselves. Even within their first few days of life, infants spend more time looking at new objects than at those they have seen before. By the time they have enough eye-hand coordination to reach out and manipulate objects, they do just that--constantly. Six-month-olds examine every new object they can reach, in ways that are well designed to learn about it's physical properties. They squeeze it, pass it from hand to hand, look at it from all sides, shake it, drop it, watch to see what happens; and whenever something interesting happens they try to repeat it, as if to prove that it wasn't a fluke. So just make sure you encourage such curiosity and behaviour.

haha i don't know if babies understand math, science and programming yet bro. my nephew is still amazed whenever i fake sleep and suddenly wake up hahaha. But I think for math, most standard manner is to find out what your kid likes, example he likes oreos. start counting the oreos, take away one ask your kid how many oreos are left. That should be quite basic and easy enough to start out? if your kid likes mee goreng then ho seh boh ah hahaha. Science can be soap? when your kid is bathing, can show how water + soap = bubbles? Programming idk bro. I want to do my taxes also headache already haha. You try ask your younger cousins about these kinda things. Confirm sure got at least 1 who can point you in the right direction. Good luck bro!

VIP Member

Programming for babies? Hehehe Kiasu Dad. Have you heard of Glenn Doman? http://www.glenndomanonline.com/products/the-glenn-domanr-how-to-teach-your-baby-mathtm-deluxe-kit.html He is a physical therapist and his non-profit organisation designs programs to improve the mental and physical development of children. It's a home-based right brain training method. http://gdbaby.com.sg/ You can customise the program to suit your child as well. There's a program for Math as well. Another popular program is the Shichida Method but GD is geared towards home-based learning. http://www.shichidamethod.com/ The best way is to teach is to invoke his curiosity so he will be spurred to learn more even without you around.

VIP Member

For babies and kids, learning basically starts from home. Make use of their five senses in order to enhance their creative thinking and foster curiosity. For babies, you can hang a galaxy-inspired mobile or animals (some even have built-in animal sounds). You can also purchase big puzzle toys that they can play with. Playing and solving puzzles are known to gave positive benefits in early childhood for it boosts physical, cognitive as well as emotional skills. You can also start you child’s interest in math by making your everyday routine (such as eating and taking a bath) fun and exciting. You can let them count their cereals or snacks for example. Choose types of food that are colourful so they will be more engaged.

VIP Member

To add on - for older children (age 5-6), there is new curriculum offered in singapore by technology company JULES called “School of Fish”, targeting preschoolers. School of Fish is basically a game that focuses on a Computational Thinking curriculum. Computational Thinking is a system of understanding and solving problems in a logical way that people and computers can understand. By learning Computational Thinking through games, children can: 1) Recognize patterns (Pattern Recognition); 2) Break problems down into smaller parts (Decomposition); 3) Apply a sequential solution (Algorithmic Thinking); and 4) Re-apply this thought process to other similar problems (Abstraction), in a fun and engaging way.

I run Saturday Kids, a digital literacy school for kids. We teach kids as young as six Scratch, a visual programming language developed by MIT Media Lab. I sent my five year old boy Camper to a couple of our Scratch classes. He understands the logic, but because he cannot read he doesn't know which blocks to use. Camper loves LightBot Jr though. It's a coding puzzle app that teaches kids how to command a robot. No reading required, so relatively easy for younger kids to pick up. If you are concerned about screen time you can try Kibo and Bee Bot. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lightbot-jr-coding-puzzles/id858640629?mt=8 http://kinderlabrobotics.com/kibo/ https://www.bee-bot.us/

_ I am not a coder but I understand a code_ My answer is specific to coding/programming 1. I think start with pseudo code practices with kids. Eg. when you instruct them anything make sure you are creating a pseudo code and then getting them excited about it 2. the first programming language can be 'LOGO' https://turtleacademy.com/ 3. Math is intergral part of programming GET THEM TO KNOW REAL MATH its all in the approach you follow with your kid. 4. Most important DON'T FORCE KIDS into studying science but can test whether they are actually interested in the field. I believe it is not a natural choice for a large number of kids. my 2 cents.

Not sure how you will teach science and math to a baby - but when I speak to engineers, they frequently say construction toys (like Legos) inspired their careers. Legos are a good introduction to communicating ideas with physical objects. Putting things together and taking them apart gets kids interested in how things work. In observational studies, kids who spent more free time with puzzles or building blocks scored higher on tests of spatial ability. Which is fundamentals of science. So if I were you I would buy lots of lego sets and puzzles and other types of construction toys.

Related Questions

Trending Questions

Related Articles