At San Marcos, an American early learning center in Madrid, we recognize the importance of stimulating brain development in toddlers.
From birth to age 5, a child’s brain develops more than at any other time in life. Early brain development has a lasting impact on a child’s ability to learn and succeed in school and life. The quality of a child’s experiences in the first few years of life –positive or negative– helps shape how their brain develops.
At birth, the average baby’s brain is about a quarter of the size of the average adult brain. Incredibly, it doubles in size in the first year. It keeps growing to about 80% of adult size by age 3 and 90% –nearly full grown– by age 5.
The brain is the command center of the human body. A newborn has all of the brain cells (neurons) they’ll have for the rest of their life, but it’s the connections between these cells that really make the brain work. Brain connections enable us to move, think, communicate and do just about everything.
The early childhood years are crucial for making these connections and at San Marcos, an American early learning center we assure toddler of optimal brain development.
At least one million new neural connections (synapses) are made every second, more than at any other time in life. At San Marcos, an American early learning center, we assure that children have multiple positive experiences, stimulating activity and dual language exposure. We offer small children an English immersion program.
Different areas of the brain are responsible for different abilities, like movement, language and emotion, and develop at different rates. Brain development builds on itself, as connections eventually link with each other in more complex ways. This enables the child to move and speak and think in more complex ways.
The early years are the best opportunity for a child’s brain to develop the connections they need to be healthy, capable, successful adults.
Starting from birth, children develop brain connections through their everyday experiences. They are built through positive interactions with those surrounding them, and by using their senses to interact with the world. A young child’s daily experiences determine which brain connections develop and which will last for a lifetime. The amount and quality of care, stimulation and interaction they receive in their early years makes all the difference.
At San Marcos, an American early learning center in Madrid, we pay special attention to, respond and interact with toddlers as this interaction is literally building a child’s brain.
It’s so important to talk, sing, read and play with young children, to give them opportunities to explore their physical world, and to provide safe, stable and nurturing environments.
Children who experience more positive interactions in their early years go on to be healthier and more successful in school and in life.