Little SmartTop Pink

Developmental Benefits

Auditory Stimulation

Discovery Exploration

Hand Eye Coordination

Language Development

Developmental Benefits

Little SmartTop Pink

Fun and interesting sound effects draw baby’s attention to play.
Even very early in life babies can hear a wide variety of sounds. Infants will turn towards the sound of a toy and begin to reach towards it. This ability to recognise the direction that a sound is coming from improves greatly during the first few years of life. Young infants listen longer to the sound of human voice and seem to prefer it to any other sound. They are especially aware of the sound of language and like to be spoken to slowly and with a high pitch. This is sometimes referred to as ‘infant directed speech’ or even ‘baby talk’. Young babies are quite sensitive in their auditory abilities and can perceive all the categorical sound distinctions in world languages. As babies develop their auditory abilities narrow so that eventually babies are only sensitive to those sound categories specific to their native language.
As soon as babies are born they are influenced by what they hear around them and modify what they able to hear, accordingly. At the same time they become increasingly sensitive to music and musical patterns. Even in their first year babies are distinguishing between musical tunes on the basis of rhythmic patterns and later they begin to recognise the same melody played in a different key. Giving babies plenty of opportunities to hear music, singing, rhythm and talk enhances their learning and prepares them for the social world where they will talk, sing, play and listen to music.

Heightens curiosity and encourages exploration.
Even young babies love to learn about the world through exploration. Kicking and waving their arms while lying in their cot can lead them to discover that a kick can make a banging sound. Exploration and play are closely linked in infants where, for example, discovering that a toy makes a noise leads to infants repeating the action that made the noise. Babies learn a great deal through repetition. Once babies are either crawling or walking their mobility gives them more opportunities to explore their world.
Babies need to satisfy their curiosity about an object or toy by approaching and handling it. Adults can influence an infant’s confidence about the world by encouraging and smiling at them when they approach an unfamiliar object or toy. Babies can show uncertainty about a new toy and in order for them to confidently explore and discover it they need the emotional reassurance from their parent or caregiver. The confidence to explore and discover new things develops during infancy and creates a healthy curiousity about the world throughout childhood.

Aiming and concentrating on a target improves hand/eye coordination.
Humans have highly developed manual dexterity skills that distinguish them from any other species on this planet. This manual dexterity emerges during the infant’s first year and, with plenty of opportunities to manipulate and play with toys and objects, becomes a highly tuned ability. Babies will reach and grasp for objects in an uncoordinated manner from an early age. As they begin to gain control over their movements infants succeed in reaching for and grasping toys. The first attempts by babies to grasp toys in their hands involve using the palm of their hand with all their fingers around the object. As development occurs through physical maturation and plenty of opportunities to play with toys, grasping becomes more sophisticated. The use of the opposable thumb and index finger allows infants to pick up very small objects in what is termed a ‘pincer grasp’. This finely tuned motor skill emerges at the end of first year of life.
The development of hand and eye coordination skills continues throughout childhood where opportunities to play games that require children to manoeuvre objects, build tall towers or hit targets on a computer screen facilitate the development of finely-tuned hand and eye coordination.

Introduces the alphabet, letter sounds and vocabulary.
Babies start to babble at an early age and this can be seen as the first signs of language. They are predisposed to pick up the sounds of the language that they hear around them. Adults can facilitate babies’ language development by playing with them, focussing on particular toys, reading books and naming everyday objects. The more babies are exposed to language the faster they will begin to pick up it up. There are social skills involved in language acquisition such as realising that it is necessary to wait until the other person has finished speaking. Babies begin to learn about conversational turn-taking from an early age; if a baby is babbling the adult waits for a pause and then talks to the baby. Babies learn to take turns even before they are using words. Social interaction is important for language development and turn-taking games are a fun and educational way for babies and young children to learn.
Young children also need to practice their language skills. Toys that name alphabet letters and everyday words satisfy young children’s need for repetition and rehearsal when practicing words and sounds. For instance, young children can press a button repetitively to hear the same sound or word again. Babies and children learn a lot through repetition and pick up words rapidly in this way. Once children begin to read their vocabulary expands enormously.

Best for ages:

18 to 48 Months

Highlights

Features 10 fun learning activities, receive virtual ecards and listen to lots of stories. Download more on the Learning Lodge website!

Description

An exciting, small and portable role play laptop with a cute bear character introducing fun learning to children! With an a-z keyboard children can press a letter to learn the letter sound and name and hear an object name relating to the letter they have pressed! Features 10 fun activities that will help them discover shapes, numbers and instrument sounds! Children can receive virtual ecards from friends and family and listen to stories read by the cute bear character; there is much for children to love while playing on their Little SmartTop! Connect to the Learning Lodge website to download more e-cards and stories!