About two decades ago when I had my first baby, I was given a bunch of information as to why reading to your baby everyday for 15 to 20 minutes at a minimum was the best thing that you could ever do for your baby. I was told that ninety something percent of these kids that had been read to on the daily would graduate at the top of their class. For my oldest, this was true. He graduated high school a year early with a welding certificate and 13 credits shy of his associate’s degree. I try to make reading a big part of life. I have also read how it helps kids with learning empathy. I feel like another huge brain developer is music.
Something I love is music classes for littles. While my oldest had piano lessons he did not get the all around music that the other kids did and do. My four youngest are in Lets Play Music. I love the steps in the program. The youngest two are in a class that is called Sound Beginnings. There are a lot of introductions in this class, repetitions, scales, etc. My 5 year old is in a different class. They learn to play simple instruments. They are so much better at scales. They also concrete their knowledge of the hand signs for DO RE ME. I had no idea about these. My 9 year old has played piano. This is a group learning environment and I thought it would make him more motivated. He had learned a lot in his lessons before but there is so much more.
I am not affiliated with Lets Play Music but I greatly appreciate what they do. www.letsplaymusicsite.com If you think it would be something fun for your kids to try they do offer a sample class. They even offer some of their classes online. There is also a link at the bottom of their site if you are interested in a home gig teaching littles music. They do have podcasts about music in general. I love this one by Sharlene Hybermeyer. https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/letsplaymusic/episodes/Ep–12—Music-and-Brain-Development-with-Sharlene-Heybermeyer-e17hp2o/a-a6hv0q6