IMPORTANCE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
A child is always considered to be as flexible, adaptable and mouldable as clay. These delicate minds need special attention and care for future success. This blog aims at sharing some insightful reasons why your child needs early childcare education before moving to a more advanced schooling environment.
Why is Early childhood development critical?
1. It capitalises on the rich brain development stage:
Early Childhood Education and care fosters learning (be it the curriculum or life skills) from birth to 5 years old. This period is considered to be a fragile mental period for children as they pick up behaviours really soon. Hence, it is critical to nurture this period carefully as these learnings can act as building blocks to a bright future. Therefore. An early Childhood Education institute aims to deliver quality learning that can help them achieve their full potential.
Additionally, Research in the field of neuroscience and child development has indeed shown that a significant portion of brain development occurs in the early years of life. Specifically, about 80% of a child’s brain development happens before the age of 5. During this period, the brain undergoes rapid growth and establishes vital neural connections that form the foundation for learning, behaviour, and health throughout life.
This early stage of development is highly influenced by a child’s environment, experiences, and interactions. Positive and stimulating experiences, such as responsive caregiving, nurturing relationships, and appropriate stimulation, can promote healthy and rapid brain development.
2. Lays a great foundation:
Kookaburra lays the foundation for not only good health and nutrition but also encourages learning and educational success. This happens by habituating little ones to good food habits and timely eating along with being hungry for reasons that inspire positive curiosity within them.
Additionally, we also stimulate social skills. Critical basic social skills like listening, sharing and waiting for your turn are nourished. Playtime acts as a booster for social skills development. This is because during playtime children express their emotions freely.
For example: Joy on getting their favourite toy, happiness playing with friends, etc.
Furthermore, Kookaburra is also known to form a strong base for STEM skills (where STEM stands for Science, Technology, Math and Engineering). Our robust curriculum is crafted in a manner that introduces the basics of STEM making it critically important at this young age to build a strong connection towards these subjects in higher school.
3. Exposure to diversity:
When a child moves away from home to a school they get exposed to so many different kids from different homes and different cultures. Be it diversity in gender, socio-economic class or even race, it is critical to embrace it.
Also, in an early child education and care setup, children get to play with many toys that are shared with other kids. This not only reinforces sharing but also encourages acceptance towards all around us.
4. Children learn from other children:
It is as simple as watching us parents and imitating us. Children in school are constantly observing other children. They learn from a classroom setup acceptable social behaviours.
For example: In early childcare education over and above the curriculum, children sit together to eat on a table and a chair, unlike many single-child families. They learn how to eat together with all their other friends making it an enjoyable yet nutritive experience. The cherry on the cake is, they eat without any distractions and is the best example of good habit imitation.
5. Acts as a bridge to formal schooling:
Lastly, Kookaburra as an early child care and education institute/organisation acts as a bridge between early childcare education and primary schooling. A child often feels lost and underconfident if they are directly enrolled for formal education lacking the strong base of early child care education. Enrolling your young children in kindergarten facilitates their smooth transition into the formal school environment. Over and above the smooth transition, a child is backed with social skills and fits well into a new educational environment with ease.
Helping you choose the early childhood education
Selecting an appropriate early education institution for your child is of utmost importance. It should be a place where your child forms emotional connections and perceives it as a lifeline. At Kookaburra, education is a source of happiness and teaching is a delight. Here, your child learns essential skills such as self-eating and gains exposure to a diverse and nutritious range of food. In addition to the fundamental curriculum, the focus is also on developing social skills, encouraging sharing, and preparing the child for the transition to a more advanced school environment.