On the first day, I shared how the brain physically develops.  I showed a great PBS video called The Developing Child.  I showed the kids the different areas of the brain and talked about what “jobs” they have, such as sight, hearing etc.. I had the kids do a quiz with me from PBS (attached) about the physical properties of the brain.  Then we watched another portion of the Developing Child about how neurons form and why they are so important.  (The brain weighs about 1 pound at birth and 3 pounds by age 5.  We are born with all the neurons we will ever have, it is the development of connections between the neurons that cause the physical growth and about 70% of that occurs after birth.) After that, we made neurons out of candy.

On the second day, we talked about early childhood development.  I placed a time line on the wall (birth to five) and had strips of paper with different developmental milestones (walking, talking etc.) and had the kids guess the ages of the milestones.  On a side note, Escher was the only one who really knew anything!  I guess lots of babies in the family helps! JThen we talked about how important an infant’s environment and interactions are to their healthy development.