About
We help children engage their bodies and minds through fun and educational activities.
What is Babies Genius' philosophy ?
Recent research shows that the first three years of life are critical to a baby’s development. During these years the brain triple its weight and establishes billions of nerve connections, in fact almost twice as many as adults have. That is why at Babies Genius we believe that “ Intelligence can be taught ”.
What are Babies Genius' objectives ?
We aim at stimulating children’s development of multiple intelligences such as linguistic, logical – mathematical, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, emotional and cognitive intelligence.
We’re also aiming to help children building self-confidence,
self-esteem, self-discipline, social awareness and independence.
Our program will stimulate your child self-awareness, self-regulation,
self-motivation, social competence, empathy, self-respect and self-efficacy.
Physically, we are also aiming to enhance their co-ordination skills, fine motor skills and gross motor skills through play.
What is Babies Genius ?
Babies Genius is a playgroup program from the U.K. teaching through edutainment for children ages 6 months to 6 years.
This carefully structured program aim to provide children with a fun and educational introduction to alphabets, phonics, words, shapes, colours, numbers and movements through all five senses utilizing; nursery rhymes, sing-along-action songs, classical music, story telling, soundtracks, role plays, story telling using puppets, physical plays, arts & crafts, games, etc.
THE WONDERS OF THE BRAIN
The human brain is divided into regions that control various motor and sensory functions. Some of these regions are depicted in the image above.
The damage from several brain-related injuries may lead to a specific region being affected and losing the functions and its controls, causing symptoms such as paralysis (loss of movement), difficulty speaking or loss of coordination.
The left side of the brain controls the motor and sensory functions of the right side of the body, and is responsible for scientific functions, understanding written and spoken language, number skills and reasoning.
The right side of the brain controls the motor and sensory functions of the left side of the body. It also controls artistic functions such as music, art awareness and insight.
Unlock the genius in your child
A child’s brain is amazing – nothing in nature is as complex and powerful. It has around a hundred billion cells, especially neurons, in which sprouts thousands of connections and store information linking it to what the child already knows to what is new. The power of the brain lies in the number and complexity of the neurons’ connections it can make. Not only in language but also in other kinds of intelligence.
One brain – many intelligences
It was once IQ tests usually assess only two kinds of intelligence – verbal and mathematical. These can be useful in predicting how well a child will do at school, but will not predict success and happiness in life, because they only measure certain parts of your child’s mind. They miss out on many other important parts such as the personal and social aspects of emotional intelligence (EQ).
Most people think we had one kind of general intelligence and there wasn’t much you could do to change it . But more contemporary research suggests that we have many kinds of intelligence, located in different parts of the brain, each involving a different kind of thinking.
There are at least nine kinds of intelligence such as Linguistics, Spatial, Musical, Logical, Existential, Interpersonal, Kinesthetic, Naturalist, Mathematical etc. and they can be exercise and develop to become more prominent.
By working through this checklist you will build up a picture of where your child’s strengths lies and which areas your child still needs to develop. The lists show the progressive improvements in your child’s ability as they get older. You may see evidence of your child’s intelligence in each area from the earliest years but remember, children develop at different rates so, while they may be able to do mental arithmetic at six, she may not be able to do other things such as plan ahead of time.
One brain – many intelligences
- enjoys rhymes, and knows simple rhyming words
- enjoys telling stories, news and jokes.
- has a good vocabulary and remembers new words easily.
- enjoys reading books , comics and magazines.
- writes well for their age (or if pre-school , can write their name correctly).
- can spell words accurately (or, if pre-school, can recognize letters).
Mathematical Intelligence
- can complete shape games and puzzles, e.g. jigsaws.
- enjoys counting and using numbers.
- can estimate simple amount of things, e.g. peas in pod.
- can use coins to work out correct amounts of money.
- can add up and take away simple numbers in their head.
Scientific Intelligence
- enjoys using their senses to see, touch, hear, taste and smell.
- plays and experiments with materials, e.g. mix ingredients when cooking.
- ask questions to find out more about the world and is interested in the way things work, e.g. machines, the human body.
- can offer explanations to account for why things happen the way they do
Visual Intelligence
- enjoys painting and shows awareness of a range of colours.
- can draw with care and attention.
- enjoys making things, e.g. designs and makes models with constructions toys.
- is able to observe carefully and describe in detail what she sees.
- can identify similarities/differences in pairs of pictures.
- can visualize images in their ‘mind’s eye’.
Musical Intelligence
- unconsciously hums melodies to themselves.
- can follow and move to, or drum out a given rhythm.
- remembers and can sing back songs or tunes they have heard.
- is sensitive to different sounds, e.g. natural sounds, manmade sounds or different genres of music.
- enjoys playing musical instruments.
Physical Intelligence
- enjoy physical exercise like running, jumping or climbing.
- enjoys taking things apart and putting them back together again.
- enjoys and can do well at physical games.
- enjoys making things or craft activities.
- is good at miming or mimicking the actions of others.
- is good with their hands, e.g. cuts accurately with scissors.
- is good at remembering physical routines, e.g. dance steps.
The “Can-do” child
Children tend to develop one of two beliefs about intelligence, either that it is fixed and cannot change, or that it can be improved through effort. Those who believe that they can improve through effort are usually more successful at learning than those who think their abilities are fixed. There is a danger in children thinking that they have a fixed intelligence, whether they think they are not very smart or very clever. The trouble with telling children they are very clever all the times is that it leaves them vulnerable to self-defeating worry if they fail. Some children are told they are not intelligent and every failure seems to confirm it, so they stop trying. What children need to learn is that any aspect of their intelligence can be improved through their efforts or with help . As eight-year-old Ben says: “it doesn’t help if people just keep telling you to try harder”. What you have to do is tell yourself. You need to help your child learn to help themselves. Encourage them to believe that they can do things if they try, by giving them hints. Follow the old teaching adage ” Tell them before they start, tell them when they are doing it, and tell them when they have finished. ” You don’t need to praise everything she does correctly, concentrate instead on praising every effort that she makes. This is similar to the Socratic method, in which the teacher askes questions for the student to discover the answer by themselves.
The Thinking Child
Young children develop many beliefs about the world as they try to make sense of their experiences. For example James, aged five, has some odd beliefs about the concept of “matter”. He knows that a bag of rice weighs something, but say that a grain of rice weighs nothing. He says that when you keep cutting an apple in half, eventually you will get to a piece so small it will be nothing, take up no space and have no apple in it, “because it’s so small it’s not there”.
James’ idea is not silly because some objects are too small to detect with the human eye. But his idea is mostly wrong since something cut in half is still a smaller something. Life is not only about what your child can see, it is also about how they make sense of what they see and do.
Your encouragement and support are crucial. Help your child by taking an interest in what they do, say and think. Remind them to stop and think, and help them to make sense of what they are doing. It is the combination of many small creative activities repeated over the years that will help make the most of your child’s mind, as there is no single quick way to make your child a prodigy.
WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY
Happily, the brain is much more generous with most aspects of development than the rest of the body. With a series of critical and sensitive periods clustered from birth to around age ten or twelve, some windows of opportunity open early, while others open relatively late. The more you understand about the optimal times for development, the more you will be able to help your child’s brain get the stimulation it is seeking. Here are some of the key developmental windows in young children:
- Social Attachment (0 – 18 months)
From the day your child is born, their brain is primed to build a strong emotional bond with those people who provide them with consistent loving care. Without positive social experiences during her first eighteen months, the ability to develop secure, trusting relationships becomes much less likely. Stress hormones affecting the area of the brain called the limbic system are thought by many scientists to be the culprit. Whatever the underlying mechanisms, it’s already clear that the emotional foundations they build during these early years will strongly influence relationships throughout their life.
- Motor Skills (Prenatal – 4 years)
It is obvious as soon as a baby is born that their motor skills have already begun their developmental journey. Equally, there is much more to be accomplished before the child will be running, jumping, climbing, or riding a bike. Fortunately, since so much motor development must occur, the brain is also quite forgiving when stimulation is not forthcoming during the optimal time. For example, babies in some cultures are carried on cradleboards during their first year or two, yet they learn to walk easily once given the opportunity to practice.
- Speech and Vocabulary (0 – 3 years)
A child’s first three years are the most important for learning language. The more language they hear, the larger their vocabulary will be throughout childhood and adulthood. In addition, the types of conversation they hear makes a difference. It is language spoken directly to a child during this language learning period that is most effective in building a strong circuitry to support vocabulary growth and proficient language skills. This back-and-forth experience, is something no infant will experience while sitting in front of a screen, but instead helps develop their communication skill to become a conversational master.
- Math and Logic (1 – 4 years)
Between the ages of one and four, children develop the capacity to understand logic and mathematical concepts. During this period, stimulating experiences can provide the optimal benefit. Stacking blocks and knocking them down, stringing wooden beads onto a piece of yarn, or counting a row of raisins before eating them one by one are all experiences that help a child become a skilled mathematician and logical thinker. Children whose opportunities are limited during this stage are more likely to fall behind their peers in school and find it difficult to catch up academically.
- Music (3 – 12 years)
Infants enjoy listening to music from birth, and by the time they are toddlers, they are enthusiastically dancing to the radio and singing songs. Playing a musical instrument, however, must wait until hand-eye coordination is sufficiently developed which is around age of three. But is there an upper boundary? Based on the few data available to date, some researchers suspect that the optimal window for learning to play an instrument begins to close around ten to twelve years. According to the theory, although adults can still learn to play an instrument, they are unlikely to develop the solid neural foundations necessary to become virtuosos. Although the final work isn’t in on the validity of this theory, there’s no doubt that the earlier one learns to play a musical instrument, the more years are available to hone the skill and to enjoy making music.