Confucius said, “What I hear, I forget.  What I see, I remember.  What I do, I know.”

What this teaches all of us is that young children are much more likely to learn by doing.

B. Fauth in Moving and learning for the young child said, “The more senses involved in the learning process, the greater the impression it makes and the longer it stays with us.”

Infants:  Studies have shown that infants learn best by having physical experiences.  They are tactile learners and need to use all of their five senses in order to learn and retain knowledge.  These experiences form a bond between their mind and their body which is stimulated by physical movement.  Rich experiences, in other words, really do produce rich brains.  Make a “Birthing Book” by filling 3 zip lock sandwich bags with a piece of colored construction paper, and sewing the bags together with yarn or thread (after filling with photos).  Put a photo in each side (6 photos, one on each side) about the time when your baby was born.  Label each photo (Mommy, daddy, grandma, brother, aunt, the dog etc.)  At quite times read the pictures in their “Birthing Book” to the child talking about who is in each picture.  This experience builds a sense of security as the child starts to recognize their family members in the photos.

Toddlers: Read the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” from my book Teaching with Heart… In keeping with the idea of using all the senses consider the cooking experience of making egg salad.  Use one hard boiled egg per child.  Help the child peel and mash their egg with a potato masher or a fork, adding ½ teaspoon of mayonnaise for every egg.  Serve the egg salad on saltine crackers.  This is a wonderful way to start to teach children one-to-one mathematical correspondence such as, one egg for each child, and ½ teaspoon of mayonnaise for each egg.

Preschoolers: Encourage the children to help you write the egg salad recipe onto an experience chart.  You write the words and the children can draw or cut out pictures from magazines of the ingredients in the recipe and paste them onto the chart.  After making the egg salad recipe they can then serve themselves by spreading it on bread to make a sandwich for lunch or they can spoon it on crackers to eat for snack thus reinforcing their own independence through a positive experience.