During the Toddler Years
When the kids were younger, I
incorporated learning into our ever day routine. MaryEllen was
my first born and we would spend oodles of time reading. We read
simple books that introduced colors, shapes, animals and the
alphabet. I also sang simple songs to her and we would do the
hand movements if there were any. When Donnie came, we did the
same things, and we also danced a lot for exercise.
When MaryEllen was going on two,
I remember us sitting at the kitchen table and we were drawing
on butcher paper with markers. I decided to try to introduce
her to the alphabet. I drew an 'A' and told her this was 'a'.
I then wrote down the letter 'B' and told her this was 'b'.
After repeating them a few times, I asked her to point to A,
and point to B. I did this until I knew she knew. Then I added
letter 'C' and asked her to point to a letter mixing them up
so I knew she understood. I then dressed the letter up, adding
a hat, feet or whatever to make it look funny. We did not do
all the letters in a sitting, I would introduce 3 at a time
whenever it felt appropriate. We would review during bath time
with the foam letters you find for bath play. As she was
bathing, I would say, 'Hmm, I am looking for 'A', can you help
me find it?' She would look and I would pretend to look also.
Then she would pick it up and hand it to me and I would
congratulate her on her find. This was great reinforcement for
knowing that she understood.
She learned colors by me
pointing them out to her. I would ask, 'MaryEllen can you hand
me the red marker?' or I would say, 'You are wearing a pink
shirt today.' I would point to her shirt and repeat the word
pink a few times. We would also sort legos into their
respective colors.
Shapes were introduced the same
way as the alphabet. I would draw a circle, triangle and
square and name them for her. Then I would ask her to point to
the triangle, or the square and circle. We would then notice
shapes during the day. Oh, our cheerios are circles. So is our
bowl. What shape is this part of your spoon? An oval! Right!
What shape is your waffle? Square! Good job. Pretty soon, she
would be asking me.
Numbers were also introduced the
same way as the alphabet and shapes. Three at a time. I did
make flash cards 1-10 and placed them on the carpet in threes.
When we were at the mall, I would point to the large prices
above the clothes and ask her what the numbers were. We sang
1-2 Buckle my shoe. I would say, '1-2' and she would finish,
'buckle my shoe.' Then I would say, '3-4', she'd say, 'shut
the door.' We'd do this to ten. Then we would switch places.
After she mastered that, we went up to twenty.
Rhyming was done mostly in the
car. During a drive I'd say a word and then she would say a
word that rhymed. If it did not rhyme, I would say, 'Umm that
doesn't rhyme. Try again.' and I would repeat my word. Then
she would say a word and I would have to say a rhyming word.
Sometimes I would say a word that did not rhyme so she could
tell me to try again.
All of this was repeated with
Donnie except I had MaryEllen's help. She was so good with
teaching him his shapes and colors. She'd go around saying, 'Gonnie,
what color is this?' or 'This is a square.' Even today she is
still teaching him stuff and making him mazes or scrambled
word puzzles.
The kids enjoyed doing puzzles,
the wooden ones with the handles, and playing in a sand box we
made of cornmeal. I bought a huge plastic container with a lid
and filled it with cornmeal. When it was time to play, I put
it on newspaper spread out and added measuring cups and
spoons, small bowls and cups. The kids had so much fun filling
and pouring. After they were done, I would pour whatever
spilled over onto the newspaper back in and closed the lid and
put it up. A little vacuuming and that was it. This was one of
the kids' favorite things to do. They also enjoyed when I
filled another big basin with water and let them play on the
kitchen floor. I put this on towels, and after I dried
whatever did not make it on the towel with the towels, and
popped them in the washing machine. Usually the kids had to
get dressed into dry clothes and a few of their stuffed
animals had to be thrown in the dryer, but this kept them busy
and they had loads of fun.
I hope these ideas can be of
some inspiration. I so enjoyed the toddler years. Now I can't
wait for grand babies so I can experience it once again. That
might be a while though.
Here is a list of websites I enjoyed when the kids were
toddling around. Okay, I still enjoy them!!
http://www.dltk-kids.com
http://www.first-school.ws
http://www.preschoolexpress.com
http://www.preschooleducation.com
http://www.childcareland.com/free.html
http://www.akidsheart.com/threer/lvl1/lvl1.htm
Hope those are helpful. I would like to mention a nice bible
curriculum for preschoolers too if anyone does bible. We used
Little Blessing and really enjoyed it. Here is their website
http://lbbl.homestead.com/ .
The cost is affordable too, I think it is around $15 for the
CD that has all 52 weeks. Check it out!
