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help your baby learn through creative play

	The Golden Hour

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Baby's First Skills is based around Dr. Miriam Stoppard's Golden Hour of play. It's impossible to over-estimate the importance of play to babies and young children - it's the basis for all learning - and just one Golden Hour a day gives you and your baby structured play tailored to each month's development.

What is the Golden Hour?
The Golden Hour is simply an hour of different kinds of play. The suggested activities and games within the hour cover the major areas of your baby's development so that he or she goes forward all on fronts like a wave creeping up the shore and no area is neglected.

Occasionally, as with the waves on the shore, one area of your baby's development shoots ahead of the rest. To allow for this, each month of the Golden Hour is divided differently to give more time for activities linked to these development spurts.

The Golden Hour can be flexible, the 60 minutes don't have to run consecutively and you can share the hour between partners and family.

Key to The Golden Hour

mind
Includes the senses and intellectual development.

moving
Control of the head and body, leading to sitting, standing and walking.

talking
Learning to understand and use language.

hands
Accurate and fine use of his hands and fingers.

friendliness
Sometimes called sociability. Babies learn social skills from how you relate to them.

illustration of the golden hour

The numbers featured on each Golden Hour clock refer to games and activities particularly suited to that stage. The numbers shown here are examples of each category.

Toys and tools

	Mirror A small mirror secured in the cot so your baby can see his own face helps him to focus and to reinforce his inborn response to the human face. Older babies love to look at their own and your reflection in mirrors.

	Mobiles Even for newborn babies a mobile hung 20-25cm (8-10 in) above the cot stimulates vision.

	Bricks and blocks Teach touch, grip and stacking.

	Rattles The sound a rattle makes stimulates your baby to learn about cause and effect. Once he can grasp it he finds that shake = noise.

	Music and rhymes Classical music helps maths, logic and speech. Nursery rhymes and clapping games help talking and friendliness.

	Books and stories Introduce books and tell stories to your baby as early as possible - leave a cloth book in his cot.

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