Day care is much more than the name says. Along with the supervision your child needs while you're away, they'll also have plenty of opportunities to learn, grow, and develop. Through play-centered experiences, socialization, and expert educational attention, your young child will come home with new knowledge, skills, and abilities. What can your child learn in day care?

Reading and Writing

Okay, so your 3-year-old isn't going to come home from preschool reading chapter books and writing their own novel. It's much more likely that your young learn will start building the basics of early literacy. This includes learning the letters and maybe even connecting some of the sounds that they make to them. By the time your child is ready to leave day care and go to kindergarten, they may have the ability to write a few letters (at least the first letter of their first name, or maybe their entire first name). Your child will also learn book-handling skills, the narrative structure, and how to tell their own stories.

Early Math

Number recognition, counting, identifying basic shapes, understanding patterns, and the part to whole relationship are all math skills that your child can learn at day care. Keep in mind, the fact that your child will learn about math doesn't mean they're sitting at a desk doing equation after equation. Math in the early years typically includes hands-on activities such as counting small toys, building with blocks, or making math-related art (such as pattern pictures or drawing squares and circles).

Social Skills

Your child won't only have the chance to work on academic skills during the child care day. Social skill building is just as important as learning about reading, writing or math. From the first day of school, your child is getting the opportunity to socialize. As part of a class, your little one will develop the ability to make friends, share with other children, take turns, and function as part of a larger group. These are important skills that your child will take with them to grade school and well beyond.

Motor Abilities

Running outside, climbing on the playground and riding tricycles are all activities that help your child to build gross, or large, motor skills. Along with other movement-based activities, your child is getting the chance to building strength, develop coordination, and improve balance.

Dropping your child off at day care means that you're giving them the chance to learn and develop. Through activities that focus on academics, social skills and movement your little learner is coming home every day with new abilities that you can watch grow.