Education of Toddlers

Candi - posted on 12/26/2010

The way I taught my kids their colors was by coloring with them. We had a bucket of crayons and I would ask them to hand me a certain color, "Can you hand me a green one?", "do you see the violet one?" stuff like that. By the time they were 2, all three of my kids knew their colors. Just simple things like that. It doesn't take a lot. Little ones are like sponges, they absorb everything.we would play I spy with letter sounds as well as colors. For example, "i spy something that starts with N." and they would learn their letter sounds. Its fun and easy. We used to take long road trips and stuff like that came in handy.

Amy - posted on 12/26/2010

I am probably the only one out there who thinks we push education on our children too young too fast. Before the age of 4 it should be manners and learning to do chores and daily things for themselves [ getting dressed, getting a drink of water, etc]. Coloring is excellent for children, although I like using plain paper and not coloring books all the time. I'm not sure what cresche must mean - I know it as a foundling hospital. Does that mean a daycare or preschool? My daughter just turned four and colors, matches shapes, picks out the one item bigger than others, traces and writes all her letters, she writes her name, but her G is usually backwards. She can count - putting those stick on tattoos since she was younger and we'd count together until it was "30" and done. So she's been able to do that for a while. But more importantly, she knows please, thank you, no thank you, I'm sorry, asks if people are ok if they're hurt or look sad. She helps with dishes, loves to put the clothes and soap in the laundry machine. I think to better them later on in life, they need not only abc/123 but just a basic way of the world. My daughter has NEVER been bored. We always have daily things to do and she helps. Free time is for play dough, water colors, toys, and things like that. It's just how it is here, I guess.

Angie - posted on 12/26/2010

By the time my children were 3 they could write their first names and recite the alphabet. On each of their 3rd birthday I experimented to see how much of their alphabet they could write - the entire thing. By the end of their 3rd year, they knew consonant letter sounds and 3 and four letter sight words, unfortunately, my oldest could read the word "pizza" - I guess we ate too much of that - LOL. They knew how to count to at least 30 in 2's, 5's and 10's. They knew all their colors and one knew even the bizarre colors, like fuchsia. All of these things they learned to do while coloring appropriate coloring pages, playing "I spy" in the car and around the house, and singing - which is the way my children learned best. Colors were learned as I hung laundry on the clothes line, “look Mollie, this is John’s blue shirt” which turned into, “Mollie, what color is John’s shirt?” I believe that there is no rush to make your children learn at a young age. If while they are playing a game they learn something that’s a bonus. One last thing, my children are all considered “gifted” but it’s not a word we ever use when we refer to them except at times like this. It’s a heavy label to carry and puts too much pressure on a child’s shoulders. Good luck with your children – they are in an amazing learning time right now. Enjoy watching them learn new and exciting things every day.

Candi - posted on 12/26/2010

Coloring helps develop fine motor skills which in turn helps when its time to use pencils for writing. Other things to help develope fine motor skills are threading toys and play doh. Play doh also builds imagination. All 3 of my kids are on the gifted level and I understand how frustrating it is to get them down on average level. Go to a bookstore and buy workbooks for older kids. I started buying workbooks for my kids for a couple of grades above their real grade. The workbooks help them trace letters, numbers, make connections, etc. You can get them for letters, numbers, math, science, social studies, and even geography. There are also lots of online sites to enhance skills. My son came out of first grade on a 5th grade reading level, out of 5th grade on PHS (past high school) level. My daughter is in 5th grade and she is middle school level on all subjects. My youngest came out of 3 yr old PreK ready for 1st grade, but they don't skip grades here so she is only in Kindergarten now. Read to your kids and lots of interaction and they will advance with no problems. Remember, just b/c they can do the hard stuff, don't skip over the easy stuff.

Misti - posted on 01/14/2009

I have a 3 year old. At school they are learning to count to 30, recognition of ABCs, phonics, spelling, tracing letters and numbers, learning Spanish, and they have a music class. Hope this helps :)