Our sessions are designed by specialists, carefully adapted to the age of the child. The toddlers’ sessions are suitable for children from 1 to 4 years old, as all the activities can be adapted in difficulty to suit different ages.
At Shaping Little Minds we are committed to free play, allowing each child to choose the activity or game they want to do at any given moment, which is very beneficial for decision-making, the development of imagination and personal autonomy.
However, we are also aware that children need to learn from a very young age to follow instructions, to listen, to sit for a while and to participate, together with their peers, in group activities. For this reason, our sessions also have two moments (at the beginning and at the end) where we sit together and participate in group activities.
Shaping Little Minds’ sessions have different stations that will change each week depending on the theme of the week:
At this stage, children are not only great discoverers with an insatiable curiosity, but they are also much more independent and want to do everything by themselves. All this, together with the experience of new emotions and not knowing how to express them, gives rise to what we call ‘the terrible twos’.
But don’t panic! This is also a very exciting period for parents and children. At this age, they experience great intellectual, social, emotional and learning changes that will help them explore and understand their new world.
The child’s play at this age is still parallel (they tend to play next to another child but not together) although peer-to-peer play will soon begin. Providing the child with situations and environments that facilitate learning has a very positive impact on their development.
This is exactly what we do in our sessions, creating activities and games adapted to the child’s developmental needs and based on the 4 key areas of development:
Begins to understand spatial concepts (up, down, inside, outside), colours and sizes. Approaches objects and thinks about them, classifying objects, differentiating between similarities and differences among many others.
Improved balance, strength, agility and stability. Strength is gained in the fingers and arms, which allows young children to start drawing using their wrist instead of the whole arm. As a result, children begin to draw lines, circles, dots and even simple shapes such as triangles or squares.
During this stage, there is an explosion of vocabulary. They enjoy listening to stories and singing and learn many new words a day. Comprehension also progresses at a very high pace.
They begin to evaluate their behaviours as good or bad. The sense of empathy begins to appear, so sharing may be a little more common than before, although they will continue to reaffirm their identity. This is also the stage where childhood fears appear.
16 Allen St, London W8 6BL
Lyncroft Gardens, London NW6 1JU
