Child Care Assignment: Activities for Early Childhood Development

This assignment explores interactive child care activities suitable for children aged 6 months to 2 years old. It provides detailed interaction considerations, contingency plans, and future development ideas for ball games, peekaboo, music, sandpit play, and telephone games. The assignment is structured by age, offering specific guidance for each stage of development, from encouraging exploration with a ball for a 6-month-old to enhancing language and literacy through telephone games for 2-year-olds. The author emphasizes the importance of age-appropriate activities, safe play environments, and the role of parents in fostering social, cognitive, and physical development through play. The assignment also references relevant research to support the recommendations.

Running head: CHILD CARE
Child care
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1CHILD CARE
6 MONTHS OLD
Ball game
 Interaction consideration- While playing ball, parent should allow baby to put ball in
mouth as it is the primary tool for exploration (Hepach et al. 2017). In this way, the baby
become fascinated with the sound that ball will make. Parent need to be more social and
interactive with the kid allowing them to explore on their own through ball playing
(Moore 2017).
 Contingency considerations- As the kid put the ball in the mouth, it is important that
ball should be clean and make sure that it should not cause any choking hazard. Roll the
ball slightly left or right of baby’s tummy as it helps them to roll it back over being a
major milestone for their muscle strengthening.
 Future plan- It is important to give the baby plenty of time for ball game exploring their
world from all angles like belly and back.
Peekaboos
 Interaction consideration- For better interaction and in eliciting baby’s riotous laughter,
keep some crib-safe toys entertaining as it makes different sounds and actions like
shaking, squeezing in squeaky toys.
 Contingency consideration- Make sure that crib toys are clean and away from any
hazardous materials that can harm the kid.
 Future plan- For making game interesting put some colourful crib-toys making different
sounds so that they pick them up quickly.

2CHILD CARE
Music
 Interaction consideration- Interaction will increase when parents sing to their child
making an intimate bond, spiritual connection and inculcate sense of calmness rather than
playing an audio.
 Contingency consideration- Make short musical activities with decent pitch and vocal
range that is comfortable. One should also use appropriate rhythm of song.
 Future plan- For further development, remove words from song and sing encouraging
them to focus on music language.
1 YEAR OLD
Ball game
 Interaction consideration- Parent should have hand-eye coordination with kid so that
they get involved in the game exploring control over hands, fingers and surroundings (Yu
and Smith 2015).
 Contingency consideration- Use age-appropriate ball size that should not choke the kid
and make sure it is clean as they explore with hands and mouth.
 Future plan- Help kid to take up more challenging tasks like kicking, throwing, banging
and shaking ball for further muscle development.
Sandpit
 Interaction consideration- Make structures like hill or other objects with sand along
with kid so that they become interested in play.

3CHILD CARE
 Contingency consideration- The sandbox play should be conducted in more space
avoided cluttering and kid vying for space. Stay close to kid so that they do not put sand
in their mouth to taste.
 Future plan- To avoid kid tasting sand, put food in their mouth and wait until intense
mouthing stage is over.
Telephone
 Interaction consideration- While playing, pretend to make calls or conversations with
imaginary people making funny voices and silly characters helping to enhance fun.
 Contingency consideration- Instead of smart phone, give a toy telephone or any old
phone to avoid breaking of phone.
 Future plan- For variation, use play telephones that record kid’s voices and playing them
help to create interest and fun.
2 YEARS OLD
Ball game
 Interaction consideration- While playing ball with kid, parent should use let kid use
their receptive language following directions of ball and playing.
 Contingency consideration- Make sure the ball is clean and light to avoid any kind of
hazards while playing.
 Future plan- To make ball game interesting, use soft ball play tunnel may be a variation
enhancing motor practice and teamwork.

4CHILD CARE
Sandpit
 Interaction consideration- Be interactive with kid while making sandpit helping them to
build structures made of sand enhancing sensory play.
 Contingency consideration- Choose location carefully for sandpit making considering
sunlight and free from pebbles or any hard material to avoid bruises or any kind of harm.
 Future plan- For future, one can make permanent fixture making a dedicated sand play
space in courtyard.
Telephone
 Interaction consideration- To make it interactive, include natural gigglers and laughs
for kid to make it funny and interesting for two year olds.
 Contingency consideration- While playing telephone game, parent should be loud and
clear so that it help them to understand language, explore alphabets through sound (Black
et al. 2017).
 Future plan- Dedicate each round to different letters to enhance vocabulary, knowledge
for alphabets and literacy development.
References

5CHILD CARE
Black, M.M., Walker, S.P., Fernald, L.C., Andersen, C.T., DiGirolamo, A.M., Lu, C., McCoy,
D.C., Fink, G., Shawar, Y.R., Shiffman, J. and Devercelli, A.E., 2017. Early childhood
development coming of age: science through the life course. The Lancet, 389(10064), pp.77-90.
Hepach, R., Haberl, K., Lambert, S. and Tomasello, M., 2017. Toddlers help
anonymously. Infancy, 22(1), pp.130-145.
Moore, R.C., 2017. Childhood's domain: Play and place in child development (Vol. 6).
Routledge.
Yu, C. and Smith, L.B., 2015, July. Linking Joint Attention with Hand-Eye Coordination–A
Sensorimotor Approach to Understanding Child-Parent Social Interaction. In CogSci... Annual
Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society (US). Conference (Vol.
2015, p. 2763). NIH Public Access.