Morgan Montgomery, 2, stamped his feet, raised his hands and pounded a table as day-care teacher Amy Lavorn led the class through an energetic version of "Goin' on a Bear Hunt."
Morgan and the other toddlers at Kiddie Korner day-care center in Senatobia, Miss., love to hear this repetitive sing-song story, which they act out enthusiastically by wiggling almost all the parts of their bodies.Not only are the young children having fun, but they are also exercising their brains, Lavorn learned in a recent workshop for child-care providers conducted by Dr. Jean Feldman of Atlanta, an early childhood consultant. About 175 other child-care providers at 13 sites throughout Mississippi were able to see Feldman's workshop simultaneously through interactive distance-learning technology.
"The brain loves to move. The brain loves rhythm and rhyme," Feldman said, quoting Dr. Pat Wolfe, a brain specialist. In her workshop, Feldman gave suggestions for activities that exercise the brain, such as finger play, stories, music and repetitive chants, songs and creative experiences.
The workshop is part of a massive project in Mississippi to spread the word about the latest brain research and how adults can enhance the brain development of young children. And Mississippi's project is part of a national public awareness campaign known as I Am Your Child, started last year by the Rob Reiner Foundation.
Mississippi's project is so ambitious that it has earned praise and recognition on the national level.
"In terms of I Am Your Child coalitions, Mississippi is by far one of the top states in terms of their activism and what they have done," said Chad Griffin, executive director of I Am Your Child.
The leader of Mississippi's project, Cathy Grace of Tupelo, was invited to make a presentation in November at the annual conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children in Toronto. Grace is an early childhood consultant and director of the Lee County Families First program.
Spearheaded by Grace and helped with a $92,000 grant from the Phil Hardin Foundation of Meridian, the Mississippi project has involved parents, educators, medical professionals, social workers, psychologists, lawmakers and law enforcement officials since it started in the spring. Called "Maximizing Mississippi's Brain Power," the project includes free videotapes for Mississippi parents about the importance of the first three years of life, billboards about the videotapes and a series of seminars and workshops about brain research and how to apply it in everyday settings.
Leaders of the project are excited about recent research such as this: Through brain scans and other technology, scientists have discovered that the experiences of children shape the wiring of the brain. Stimulation or the lack of it can increase or decrease the brain's capacity by 25 percent, Feldman said in describing the research.
Here's why: Babies are born with billions of brain cells, but these cells are not connected in networks at birth. As babies grow, their brain cells form networks in direct response to their experiences.
If these networks are stimulated repeatedly, the connections become stronger. But if the connections are not used often enough, they're not likely to remain. For example, a young child who is rarely spoken to or read tomay not have the brain connections needed to master language skills later.
"When you talk to children, every time you talk to them you're stimulating their brains," Feldman said. "Every time you touch a child, every time you smile, every time you tell a story, you're stimulating the brain."
Lavorn was glad to learn about the brain-enhancing effects of finger play and songs, which have long been part of the activities at Kiddie Korner day-care center, owned by her parents, Gary and Linda Newton. "At our center, we don't believe in sitting children down and watching TV," Lavorn said.
That's one of Feldman's recommendations for enhancing brain development: Turn off the television. "I would say don't use it at all. When they study the brain, they find that children's brains are more active when they're sleeping than when they are watching television. Kids go into this catatonic state."
Grace said the main message to parents is this: "You've got to spend time with your children in talking to them, reading to them, not necessarily in expensive settings and not with a lot of expensive toys but giving them some period of time in which you are tuned in to their needs."
To get these messages across, the Mississippi brain project includes these components:
-- Free tapes to parents. The Mississippi Early Childhood Association this year has distributed about 1,300 free copies of "The First Years Last Forever," a 28-minute video produced by the Rob Reiner Foundation and funded by Johnson & Johnson. The association contributed $10,000 to buy the tapes and billboard advertising about the tapes. Several billboard companies donated space.
-- Workshops and seminars. In the summer, talks by four brain research experts were beamed by distance-learning technology to several sites, and several "train the trainer" workshops were conducted by Florida State University.
-- Web sites. An Internet Web site that gives information about brain research, parenting tips and caregiver training sessions was developed recently by Linda Southward at Mississippi State University. The address is: http://www.ssrc.msstate.edu/mississippiminds.
The national I Am Your Child campaign has these Web sites: http://www.yourchild.yahoo.com and http://www.yourchild.yahoo.comhttp://www.iamyourchild.org.