About the Project
The BrainBoosters Play & Learn Programme is a cognitive development programme that blends neuroscience with early childhood education, enabling toddlers to effortlessly learn the basic concepts necessary for fundamental brain architecture in an age-appropriate way.
In order to be adequately prepared for formal schooling, it is vital that a child learns to identify shapes, numbers, the concept of size, spatial relation and that written words have meaning. Neuroscience indicates that there is a critical ‘window of opportunity’ when a child’s sensory pathways (such as vision and hearing), language and higher cognitive functions are developed and synapse development is at its strongest. This window of opportunity occurs before four years of age. Because brain connections become permanent through repetition, by continually activating the neuron networks that exercise the cognitive muscle, these connections are strengthened.
The BrainBoosters Play & Learn Programme is innovative in that it develops various fundamental perceptual skills through the introduction of concepts in isolation e.g. teaching 10 colours simultaneously and not one at a time. Children need to see one colour in relation to another in order to distinguish the differences between the two. The same concept applies to shapes and numbers 0 – 10. Using the BrainBoosters Programme, most children aged 15-36 months are able to learn approximately ten shapes within a 3 – 5 week period. We introduce written words and their meaning to children under 4 years of age, and do daily counting demonstrations instead of teaching children a counting rhyme. Exploration of the environment and language development is facilitated through fun-filled games and child-focused interactions making learnt concepts tangible, intrinsic knowledge, e.g. ‘Yellow Square’ or that a door is a rectangle.
BrainBoosters also provides interactive, non-academic training for caregivers with little or no ECD knowledge, supplying them with picture-driven posters for the daily programme designed in response to the fact that South Africa has 11 official languages. Also on offer are affordable products and Parent Packs that encourage and facilitate parental involvement.