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 Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 7:22 am
This is a subject that has been on my mind alot lately. I am a stay at home mom and It is rather important to me. I have a three year old son and I feel at this point he is at a good age to start his education at home. I am starting this thread so people can share there techniques and ask question. It is never to young to start and at least some of us know some infant and younger toddler ideas for teaching. I of course hitting an age where i am trying to teach him letters and numbers. So everyone just post your Ideas and questions and we can work together and help our children become smarter.
Summery of appropriate posts
-Education Ideas for toddler
-Education Ideas for infants and babies
-Progress Updates on our kids
-Questions for the other parents
I hope we are all able to help each other out to make our childrens future brighter.
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Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 8:20 am
Hm...how about using educational cards and blocks? smile Spell out the names of the things around your child and ask him to repeat after you slowly. When he finish each, clap his hand, like congratulating him. wink
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Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 9:45 am
)-Toddler Education Ideas-
- Draw shapes on a piece of paper and have them copy these shapes underneath your own.
- Flash Cards : Words, Numbers, Colors and Shapes.
Make up a game and a reward system.
- Building blocks: Of different colors, Some with numbers and some with letters.
- Letter Magnets for the frige.
Spell out different words that your child should associate with. (His/her name. The word "MOM" "DAD" "CAT" "DOG")
-------To post more later. (Husband just finished breakfast 4laugh
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 12:25 am
I have a three year old daughter, personally - and I am mostly a stay at home mom. I write freelance articles and clean houses for extra dough whenever possible, but I also go to school at night. My daughter's education is very important to me, as such would be for any parent. It is common knowledge that from ages zero to four a child's brain is a complete sponge. They can learn to be fluent in three languages within those four years and do so with ease, for example - and a thirty year old might struggle. Keeping our children intellectually stimulated is a vital part of their cognitive development.
Some approaches I take to encourage my daughter's 'education':
1) We read constantly. I read to her, and then she reads back to me. We look at the pictures, we talk about the colors of images and shapes in the book - the personality of the characters, the whole spheel.
2) Television is not a babysitter and should not be abused, but when I need a few moments of peaceful time to myself - she is allowed to watch permissible programs like Dora, Blue's Clues, Sesame Street, Lazy Town and singalong shows. Dora and Sesame Street have taught my daughter, along with my help, how to speak at least thirty words in Spanish. (I am not Spanish, nor do I know anything other than the 30 words or so we've learned together).
3) We periodically have dress up days. I went out to the dollar store and bought four stacking plastic drawers for all of her play clothes (tinkerbell, pirate, princess, masks, shoes, crowns, etc). She gets in character and pretends all day long. It encourages her to express herself and use her imagination.
4) Paints. We paint a few times a week and every now and then, substitute it for playdough or crafts (wiggly eyes and puffballs with glue and paper, for example).
5) I have a legal music program that I pay a few dollars a month for that helps me make musical cds for her. She tells me what she wants to hear, and I make it. "Dora" means she wants the Dora theme song, for example. She has everything from Bippity Boppity Bo, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, the Wheels on the Bus, the Bare Necessities to tracks of Chopin, Beethoven and Mozart that I tuck in there as well. She also seems partial to that song sung by Smash Mouth from the Shrek 2 soundtrack and female vocalists. She memorizes the words, dances, and it encourages her to be independent enough to choose her own likes.
6) Turn everything into a game. Count steps when you go up or down stairs. Try to show them stars in the sky and explain that the stars make pictures. Sing the alphabet when you're driving in the car and teach them to count items you put in your grocery cart.
7) Whenever we are at a stop light, we go over the "red means stop, green means go" rule.
8 ) Whenever we drive into our neighborhood, I tell her where we are. Street and city. Inspire them to learn their address.
9) A few days a week I take my daughter down to my friend's house where he lets her wail on his drum set. She's been through two of her own, and he teaches her how to play little by little. Music is a great discipline.
10) Take a body inventory. "Where's your nose?" "Where is your finger?" "Give me your left foot" when putting on shoes.
11) I've bought countless toddler puzzles to try to get her more familiar with shapes, pictures and problem solving.
12) Whenever I see a billboard, sign, poster or anything else with large lettering - I encourage her to guess the letters.
13) My apartment complex has a park in the center of it for little kids. During warmer days we go to the park. Interaction is important.
14) Songs like Old McDonald Had a Farm assists her in learning which animals say what.
I hope you can use some of these as I have. I had to stop myself before I typed more. If you worry about helping your child to thrive, you're probably already doing it. Any little thing you do together can help them discover things about themselves.
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:31 am
Kalandra
I have a three year old daughter, personally - and I am mostly a stay at home mom. I write freelance articles and clean houses for extra dough whenever possible, but I also go to school at night. My daughter's education is very important to me, as such would be for any parent. It is common knowledge that from ages zero to four a child's brain is a complete sponge. They can learn to be fluent in three languages within those four years and do so with ease, for example - and a thirty year old might struggle. Keeping our children intellectually stimulated is a vital part of their cognitive development.
Some approaches I take to encourage my daughter's 'education':
1) We read constantly. I read to her, and then she reads back to me. We look at the pictures, we talk about the colors of images and shapes in the book - the personality of the characters, the whole spheel.
2) Television is not a babysitter and should not be abused, but when I need a few moments of peaceful time to myself - she is allowed to watch permissible programs like Dora, Blue's Clues, Sesame Street, Lazy Town and singalong shows. Dora and Sesame Street have taught my daughter, along with my help, how to speak at least thirty words in Spanish. (I am not Spanish, nor do I know anything other than the 30 words or so we've learned together).
3) We periodically have dress up days. I went out to the dollar store and bought four stacking plastic drawers for all of her play clothes (tinkerbell, pirate, princess, masks, shoes, crowns, etc). She gets in character and pretends all day long. It encourages her to express herself and use her imagination.
4) Paints. We paint a few times a week and every now and then, substitute it for playdough or crafts (wiggly eyes and puffballs with glue and paper, for example).
5) I have a legal music program that I pay a few dollars a month for that helps me make musical cds for her. She tells me what she wants to hear, and I make it. "Dora" means she wants the Dora theme song, for example. She has everything from Bippity Boppity Bo, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, the Wheels on the Bus, the Bare Necessities to tracks of Chopin, Beethoven and Mozart that I tuck in there as well. She also seems partial to that song sung by Smash Mouth from the Shrek 2 soundtrack and female vocalists. She memorizes the words, dances, and it encourages her to be independent enough to choose her own likes.
6) Turn everything into a game. Count steps when you go up or down stairs. Try to show them stars in the sky and explain that the stars make pictures. Sing the alphabet when you're driving in the car and teach them to count items you put in your grocery cart.
7) Whenever we are at a stop light, we go over the "red means stop, green means go" rule.
8 ) Whenever we drive into our neighborhood, I tell her where we are. Street and city. Inspire them to learn their address.
9) A few days a week I take my daughter down to my friend's house where he lets her wail on his drum set. She's been through two of her own, and he teaches her how to play little by little. Music is a great discipline.
10) Take a body inventory. "Where's your nose?" "Where is your finger?" "Give me your left foot" when putting on shoes.
11) I've bought countless toddler puzzles to try to get her more familiar with shapes, pictures and problem solving.
12) Whenever I see a billboard, sign, poster or anything else with large lettering - I encourage her to guess the letters.
13) My apartment complex has a park in the center of it for little kids. During warmer days we go to the park. Interaction is important.
14) Songs like Old McDonald Had a Farm assists her in learning which animals say what.
I hope you can use some of these as I have. I had to stop myself before I typed more. If you worry about helping your child to thrive, you're probably already doing it. Any little thing you do together can help them discover things about themselves.
That was an awesome post. We do do alot of those things but you have some great ideas I never thoughtof.
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 2:38 am
Sing all day long. 3nodding
About everything. 3nodding 3nodding
And ask questions of your child. It's all well and good to encourage your kiddo to ask them, but the wider view you present by asking questions of them is priceless.
Woebe: Hey Theo, what's that?
Undie Boy: I don't know.
Woebe: Well waddya think it is?
Undie Boy: Ummm.... A duck. :3
Woebe: Uh.... Close. xd
Get out of the damn house. rofl So many people I talk to rarely leave their home, let alone take the kiddo out. Kick the buggers out into the back yard (if you have one) If not, go to the park, the zoo, anywhere with grass.
heart Zoo. yum.
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 3:48 am
Ask open ended questions. (EX: instead of asking "did you like the park?" ask "what did you like best about the park.")
Get the big lego's and build things with them, teach them how to build specific things.
When doing arts ask them what they are drawing/building it encourages them to be creative, because they sometimes change what it is. (My baby cousin Leif drew a bear, but about an hour later it was suddenly a firetruck.)
Start to teach the sounding out method.
I hope I could help. sweatdrop
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 9:41 am
You should really start education the minute your child is born. Point out the window at a tree and say "that's a tree!" Or point to something blue and say "that's blue!"
As soon as I was born, my mom bought a quilt that was made to look like a circus. The audience in the stands was raised slightly, so you could play with them (but not swallow since they were still attached). The lion's main was furry, the seal was made of a sleak material, etc... She would lay me on that quilt and explain what all the animals were and what sounds they make, etc... I could touch all the different fabrics.
When my fiance was about four months old, his mother sewed him a quilt with the alphabet on it. Every day, from that early, she would lay him on the quilt and ask if he knew what this letter was or that letter. He could recognize and identify letters as soon as he started talking.
My mother arranged for my to stay at a French nanny while she worked. I started there when I was about ten days old. So right from the begining, I was emersed in French during the day and English at night. I grew up knowing both languages.
There should be no point at which you "start" education. You should be constantly exposing your child to knew things and teaching him/her about the world from the very begining.
EDUCATION AS A GAME: This can be a little dangerous. It worked really well for me -- my dad and I would play a "game" in which he would write a math problem down (like 2+2) and I would have to solve it. I thought it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed spending time with my father, I enjoyed what we were doing, it was great (just one thing, though -- be very careful about your rewards. Praise is good. Food/treats is bad).
That tactic failed miserably with my fiance. His parents would say "lets play a game!" He would get excited and happy that he would get to spend time with his parents playing a game. But when they presented the "rules" of the game, he realized that it wasn't a game. It was thinly disguised education. He totally rejected it. His parents tried to force him to play. It worked with his older brother, so they thought "this tactic works! No sense in changing it." As a result, my fiance became extremely distrustful of his parents. He thought of them as "lying to him" when they called it a game. He also very much switched off to all academics because they tried to force him too hard.
The lesson here is that you need to be flexible. Pay attention to the cues your child gives you. If he/she isn't reacting to something well, you need to change your tactics (and not change your child to fit the tactics).
READING TIME: My father, who has a real penchant for theatrics, would often burst into my room with his hand over his eyes. He would stumble about and pretend to cry, and talk on and on about how pitiful he was. Being extremely gullible when it comes to my father, I would always get very worried and ask him what's wrong. He would then hand me a book and say "I really want to read, but I've gone blind! Now I will never know what happens in the story!" And that's how I learned to read.
You may not be of quite as an "eccentric" disposition as my father is. But the basic principal there is something you can use. Read to your child for a bit and then ask if he/she would like to read to you. Set up some sort of schedule so that maybe your child can read to you an hour a day or something. That will give him a good foundation that will really help him once he starts school.
If he (writing he/she is annoying, I will just pretend you have a male child from now one) doesn't know his letters yet, try teaching him through osmosis. Not real osmosis, obviously, but something similar. Decorate his room with letters. You can paint the walls, for example. Or, you can make (or buy) quilts to hang on the walls with letters. Another perfectly good solution is to simply get a bunch of paper and make a border around the top of the walls that you can write the letters on. Make sure that they are really big and clearly visible from your child's bed.
From there, you can talk to your child about the letters. Like "That one is called A. It makes a "aaaah" sound." Once you have all the sounds down, you can start the reading tradition I mentioned above.
WHAT TO READ: THis is always a little touchy. In some ways, it's best to start with books that are very simple. Not many words, very simply plots, big letters and short sentences, etc... But as my father has often said "it's not just about THAT your child reads, it's WHAT your child reads." That was in reference to the Harry Potter series, but I think it's applicable to all reading. Choose books that challenge your child. Giving him more complicated sentences teaches him to be able to remember the first part while he is struggling with the second. That can do wonders for his memory and his ability to focus later in life. You may not want to go as far as my father who decided that P.G. Wodehouse was a good thing to start an infant on.
That's about all I can think of for now. Best of luck!
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:16 am
Kalandra
I have a three year old daughter, personally - and I am mostly a stay at home mom. I write freelance articles and clean houses for extra dough whenever possible, but I also go to school at night. My daughter's education is very important to me, as such would be for any parent. It is common knowledge that from ages zero to four a child's brain is a complete sponge. They can learn to be fluent in three languages within those four years and do so with ease, for example - and a thirty year old might struggle. Keeping our children intellectually stimulated is a vital part of their cognitive development.
-Cuts down so not to take up too much room.-
I so just copied and pasted this to my computer for later. whee
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:43 am
Kukushka If he (writing he/she is annoying, I will just pretend you have a male child from now one) doesn't know his letters yet, try teaching him through osmosis. Not real osmosis, obviously, but something similar. Decorate his room with letters. You can paint the walls, for example. Or, you can make (or buy) quilts to hang on the walls with letters. Another perfectly good solution is to simply get a bunch of paper and make a border around the top of the walls that you can write the letters on. Make sure that they are really big and clearly visible from your child's bed.
Also another experience that I had which would have been good to avoid was being challenged to further your reading level once you have learned to read. In grades 2 and 3 I was not challenged at all to get passed the 'The bee goes buzz. Buzz... buzz... buzz...' stage. The books made available were far to easy so I never had any motivation to do any better. So ask they get older make sure to remove some of the items that they have outgrown so that their progression continues.
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Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 9:19 am
First, for a rant:
Do NOT buy those stupid v-tech 'learning system' things
I mean, what's the point in paying $60 extra just so a computer recorded voice can tell your kid the cat is orange?
My daughter has never had anything like that, and she's the brightest child I've ever met
She could read fluently on her first day at school, which confused the teachers, and could already write out simple words
The reason?
I devote my weekends to helping her grow, and I can see the rewards
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:54 pm
We bought my son the foam letters and numbers for the bathroom... Of course, he doesn't understand them, but he can count to 5 already (number of fingers on a hand, hehe).
Of course... he ended up trying to either eat the numbers and letters (Like Cookie Monster does on Sesame Street, lol) or he lost them. My parents gave him the numbers sheet and he threw numbers all over the house...
We're in Numbers Search and Rescue, lol.
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Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:21 am
I'm going to do to my kids what Alexandra Romanov did to hers. She had her kids learn German, English and Russian (their original language). She also had them speak to her in English, and Russian to their father.
What my boyfriend and I plan on doing is learning Japanese and Spanish and teach our kids those plus English, so they could speak to him in English, speak to me in Japanese, and Spanish to my boyfriend's parents. xd Seems kind of confusing for a little kid but I'll make it work somehow!
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Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:09 pm
Careful with that. You have to be extremely strict with when what language is used.
I've known kids who have gotten extremely confused with multiple languages and just completly shut down and stopped talking. Others will have permanent problems with word recognition (turning the sounds they hear into actual words) and may act as though they are deaf (asking you to repeat things all the time).
If I were you, I would pick just two languages and be EXTREMELY strict about when you use which. If you notice problems, back off and revert to the dominant language.
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