When it comes to raising a happy and healthy child, it’s vital to understand the five key growth areas during the critical development years before kindergarten. In fact, “Children who have parents that work on these skills at home progress at a much faster rate as opposed to those that do not,” says Ellen Barnett, Preschool Director at Easter Seals Arkansas. “Children are more likely to retain skills learned in therapy and the classroom when the work is generalized to home as well.”

Here are the five key areas you can focus on to ensure your pre-k kiddo is growing and learning:

Relationships

Build strong relationships with your children to make them feel safe to develop trust, explore, and learn. Healthy social and emotional development lets children cope with emotions and frustrations and navigate peer relationships. Barnett says learning and building relationships should be fun for both the parent and child: “At Easter Seals, we encourage parents to play with children at home during regular activities such as bath time, meal time, riding in the car, or looking at books. The therapy team encourages parents to get on the child’s level to talk, sing, read and play with them.”

Exploring and Learning

Allow children opportunities to explore and problem solve from an early age so they can begin to understand the world around them. “Have one cabinet in your kitchen that isn’t childproofed,” Barnett recommends. “Fill it with items that are safe such as, plastic and metal bowls, spoons, and cups that the child can pull out, put in and bang together.”

Textures are also important and encourage little ones to use their sense of touch. “Provide them with opportunities to play with things that have different textures. Play-doh, finger paints, paper to crinkle and tear, touch and feel books.” And don’t forget to go outside! Barnett suggests simple activities like kicking a ball, blowing bubbles, exploring leaves or rocks, or playing with a small tub of water to learn what items float or sink.

Communication

Smile, talk, read and listen to your children every chance you can to encourage language and reading development. Barnett stresses that parents should “be animated and use a lot of expression, and ask questions that will require them to answer more than yes or no. It is important to get on the same level as your child and look at them while you are talking to one another.”

And busy parents, don’t worry if you have to skip bedtime stories from time to time—you can build language during your everyday activities, too. “While riding in the car, play games like “I Spy,” sing songs together, count the number of cars you see, name the colors of things around you, point out common road signs so that your child begins to recognize them, talk to your child about their day and ask questions,” says Barnett.

Playing

Act silly, play and interact with your children. These experiences help guide social, emotional, language, physical and intellectual maturity. Parents shouldn’t underestimate the power of play and the parent’s role in it: “Play is a child’s ‘work’ and their parents are their first teachers!” Barnett says. “When play is child-driven, it provides the opportunity for them to explore their world and be creative, and keeps them active. It is important for parents to be involved and fully engaged in their child’s play because play helps them to build positive relationships with their children.”

Moving

Encourage children to move—movements both big and small are important for physical growth. “At Easter Seals, the teachers and therapists have been able to encourage movement through teaching children to ride tricycles, throwing and catching a variety of balls, playing games that require children to move, whole-group parachute play, stretching in between classroom activities, and dancing to music,” says Barnett. “We have had representatives from Special Olympics come to the preschool and set up an obstacle course and movement activities for the children to participate in. We will be implementing their movement curriculum in our summer program this year!”

Easter Seals Arkansas has over 70 years experience providing early intervention services to help children with special needs and disabilities reach their full potential. If your child is not meeting development milestones, please contact Easter Seals Arkansas at info@eastersealsar.com or (501) 227-3600.