It’s All Behavior

Looking for a fantastic, low cost way to light up your toddler’s brain? You can’t go wrong with bubbles. 🫧 As simple it may seem, bubble play promotes a whole host of developmental benefits. Let’s unpack just a few on display in this video. First, blowing bubbles promotes the development of oral motor skills. In order to produce them, we must coordinate the muscles of the mouth, jaw, tongue, lips and cheeks. If you’ve ever tried this with a toddler, you know that the action of blowing - particularly with precision and directionality- is one developed only with time and practice. As the bubbles leave the wand, take careful note of our hero’s eyes. He stays perfectly still for just a moment, visually tracking both his success and the movement of the individual bubbles. Then comes the fun part, chasing and popping each one. This entails the precise activation of both his gross (large muscles) and fine motor (small muscles) systems. After walking forward to the vicinity of the floating bubbles, watch how he then relies on his developing hand-eye coordination to touch and pop each one. This is a particularly complex task, as each remains in motion. Finally, the act of popping each activates the body’s tactile sense. The bubbles are wet and slippery - information transmitted through the skin to the brain, providing information about both the texture of the liquid residue and where on his skin it has landed. For the brain, the whole activity is quite a feast - and costs literal pennies. This little bubble master was shared to TT by kayleigh.gray.2020