A Co-Production from Learn With Less® and the Play On Words Podcast Are you constantly wondering if you’re doing enough as a parent? Do you feel pressure to “get it right” when it comes to your baby or toddler’s development? In this episode, In this co-produced episode, of the “Play On Words” podcast and the Learn With Less®” podcast, Ayelet Marinovich of Learn With Less® joins host Beth Gaskill of Big City Readers. Ayelet Marinovich is a pediatric speech-language pathologist, parent educator, & founder of Learn With Less®. She’s the author of Understanding Your Baby & Understanding Your Toddler, 2 incredible resources that remind parents: you don’t need fancy toys or complicated activities—your everyday interactions are already powerful learning moments. We talk about:🧠 Why you don’t need more stuff to help your child learn✨ How to feel confident that you’re doing “enough”👶 The surprising ways babies and toddlers learn best📚 Simple, evidence-based ways to support early development🎵 Why everyday routines (yes, even diaper changes!) are packed with learning opportunities If you’ve ever doubted yourself as a parent, this episode is your reminder: you are enough. 💛 Helpful Resources Related to This Episode The Learn With Less® Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint Ayelet’s books: Understanding Your Baby & Understanding Your Toddler Connect Learn Play – Digital / Printable infant, toddler, and pre-school aged ideas to provide simple, enriching ways to support early development through play, language, music, and movement – using everyday items – helping you Learn With Less®! Learn With Less® Fundamentals Course Big City Readers Courses Ayelet’s Musical Album, Strength In Words: Music For Families Connect With Us Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Beth: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of The Podcast Episode Beth: Welcome back to the Play On Words podcast. I am so excited and a little bit nervous today to have Ayelet Marinovich here from Learn With Less® to talk about: Do kids really need toys to learn and thrive? If you don’t know Ayelet, she is a child development guru, parent, play based learning specialist, and speech therapist too, right? So many things, I’ll let you introduce yourself, but this is an episode (I already know) is going to be so great. So welcome to the show. Ayelet: Thank you so much for having me. Beth. It’s great to be here. Yay. Beth: Okay, so tell us a little bit about you and Learn With Less® for the people who might not know you! Ayelet: Sure. So again, I’m Ayelet. I have been a speech and language therapist since, gosh, 2009 / 2010. When I became a mom in 2014, I was far from where I grew up, which was here in California. My partner and I had moved to London, and so I was pregnant and had my first child there, across the pond. I was really looking for, number one, community. Number two, a way to utilize the knowledge that I have in my professional arena, and connect that with creating connection points with other new families. So I started leading caregiver and baby classes with my own child, just in my community, out of our home. I loved it so much because it was an opportunity to connect, to bring people together and, again, to share information that at least I knew. Obviously, the overwhelm of early parenthood is intense, and this was a place that I could feel confident. I could feel at least a little bit less vulnerable and and really share that information with other new parents and caregivers who I knew were feeling the same way. I just started leading these groups, and really facilitating these groups and utilizing that knowledge, and just expanding on the kinds of questions that I was getting and asking myself. What can I do to support and connect with this teeny, tiny human in my world? And yeah, that’s, that’s how it came to be. Beth: Wow. And so now, are you still leading them, or are you mostly training and coaching other people to lead them? Ayelet: Yeah, primarily I license and support other educator and therapist types to utilize the curriculum that I developed, to use in their own communities. This is amazing because it expands the impact that I can have exponentially, and really allows me to feel like I’m putting something into the world that is healing and helpful. Beth: It is. I even like the song on your podcast. Is that in – do you sing that in the class? Hello, everybody, I get it stuck in my head when I’m listening. I love singing it in my own house, like when I’m making dinner. So, okay, do you do miss teaching the in-person or the actual “caregiver & me” classes? Now that’s my growing pain, too: You want to have a bigger reach, but you kind of have to give a little! Ayelet: Yeah, and I do from time to time, often offer them virtually! I mean, it’s funny, right? Because when I started the licensing program, it was February of 2020, ...
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40 mins