Valentine Family Mobile

Tanner and I made a cute valentine mobile. Tanner colored the bodies of all the family members then glued two sides of our heads over the bodies and the yard. I cut the yarn different lengths and strung them through a paper plate, which Tanner had decorated by glue sticking paper hearts all over. Then we hung it from the ceiling.

Learning Letters

Catherine recently learned her letters. These are some activities to help her learn her letters that she has liked.

Maria recently did a post about these Baby Einstein Alphabooks. Catherine has really enjoyed them too.

When we first got these books we would sit down with Catherine and read them to her. We made sure to always say the name of the letter that we were reading about when we started a new book. After a while, Catherine knew what all the pictures were and could "read" them by herself. She liked the independence this gave her, and we encouraged it. One day she picked up a book and said, "H". I looked, and sure enough, it was the "H" book. To test how many letters she knew, I laid out 6-7 books at a time and asked her to pick up a specific one. For example, I would put out a, b, c, d, e, and f. I would ask her to find the "F" book. When she found the correct book I read it to her, and put a new book out. After a few days of doing this, I increased the number of books that I laid out at a time.

Next, we used the books like flash cards. I would hold up a book and ask Catherine what letter it was. Again, for a reward, I read the book to her before we moved on to a new one.

After she mastered the books we wanted her to associate the letters on her books to letters in other places. I thought that she might have just memorized what the book covers were and knew what she was supposed to say with each cover. To help reinforce the letters we bought her an alphabet puzzle. When we first pulled it out, I put all the letters on the floor and asked her to find certain letters. It wasn't working. She was overwhelmed by so many things to look at and couldn't find the right letters. I reduced the number of letters that I put out to about 8-10. We went through a similiar process as we did with the books. I asked her to find a certain letter and showed her where it went on the puzzle. Once she was familiar with the puzzle (there are pictures under the puzzle pieces, and so it wasn't simply a matter of matching the piece with the board. She had to learn what picture the letter was associated with) I asked her to find a letter and told her what picture that letter went with.

A while ago we bought a used computer keyboard from Goodwill for Catherine to pound on. Now that we are working on her letters it has become useful to help her recognize her letters. She likes to point out the letters on the keyboard. We can talk about the letters and I can remind her of some words that start with that letter.

These are all activities that Catherine really likes to do. She thinks they are a lot of fun, and I enjoy watching her learn new things. I hadn't intended to teach Catherine her letters this early, but once she showed an interest in it I like thinking of new ways to help her recognize the letters all around her.

Colors

Lately I have been working with Catherine on learning her colors. Here are some things I have done to help her understand the concept:

- Go through her box of crayons with her, telling her what color they all are (At this point I am only teaching her the basic colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, brown, white, pink)
- Pointing out the stoplights and asking her what color the light is. She gets really excited when it changes to green.
- Talking about the colors of her favorite toys
- Having her clean up her toys, especially her blocks, by color. I will ask her to pick up all of her yellow toys. Then we start on the green, etc.

One day I got a Pottery Barn Kids catalog in the mail. Catherine was intrigued by it because it had some Dr. Seuss pictures in it, and she loves all the Dr. Seuss books. So, Catherine and I went through the catalog, page by page, talking about all the colors in the pictures. She loved it. To bad the catalog couldn't handle all that abuse for very long. I can't wait for the next catalog to arrive!



Now that Catherine seems to have her basic colors down I am working on reinforcement. One of her favorite books right now is "Go Dog Go". There are a lot of colorful dogs in the book. I have Catherine point out different color dogs as I read the book. I think things like this are really helping.

A Few Things I Love!

Alphabooks:

These little books are the best! They are better than flash cards. Tanner likes to read them to me and Davis. They only have three pictures and three words for each letter and they come in a handy little box. When Tanner was little half the fun was taking them out of the box and then putting them back in.

Books on CD:

I still try to avoid the TV and books on tape are my alternative to the TV when I want to have a few minutes to get ready. We have some Curious George books that Tanner likes, but lately his favorite is "A Frog Thing"

View Master:

Do you remember these from when you were little? Man I loved them. Tanner really enjoys looking at the pictures and is getting better at telling me what he sees.

Crayola Floor Pad:

Tanner and I have had so much fun drawing on these pads since he was little. I used to be the one drawing what he told me, but now his pictures are really taking shape! They are like $3 or less at Target. We used to do them on the tile so I didn't worry about getting marker on the carpet.

Water & Weather

So I started a preschool co-op with a few friends so that we can challenge our older kids and have some time to run errands or play with our younger kids. Our first week was this past Monday and I was in charge of doing it. The unit for this month is water and I was supposed to cover water in the weather. I also was supposed to spotlight the letter M and the number 3.

It looks like there is a learning curve for me when it comes to teaching 4 kids all 2-3 years of age. I spent way too much time having them sit and listen to me at "circle time". I thought I had enough variety and fun things to keep their attention, but sadly I did not.

The following are things that they enjoyed:

Picking a song to sing out of the jar (I asked the ones who were sitting quietly).

Listening to the story of 3 little pigs while I put the houses and characters up on a felt board. (I found a cute sight where you print off the characters onto cardstock and then glue felt on the back. You can check it out here.)

Coming up one by one to trace the letter M with their finger.

Talking about weather and dressing Walter the Weather Bear. (I tried to make a bear and clothing out of felt. I used glue when making the clothing, but I think I will redo it and use markers and or sew the clothing to make it look a little nicer.)

Sprinkling water on their heads from a watering can and telling them that the cloud was getting heavy with water and so it was raining.

Throwing paper scrunched into balls around because I said it was raining meatballs (they couldn't really focus when I tried to start reading 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' so that ended up being really random.)

Making Mud out of flour and water and squishing it all over the kitchen table.

Eating mud cups.(chocolate pudding, oreo cumbs, and gummy worms)

I have been suprised at some of the things Tanner picked up. I think it helped that I also checked out books from the library that talked about weather and the water cycle. So that might have helped him learn more too. Also I had printed out the date in large letters and used masking tape to stick them on the wall. Today he was pointing to each piece of paper and asking what it said. Now if I ask him what the month is he points to the paper that says January and he will say "January". You could also talk about Noah and the Ark and I found a site with fun weather experiments (see the side column) but they seem like they are for older kids.

Unrelated to weather; if you see him ask him who the president is. It is pretty cute the way he pronounces Barack Obama.

Puzzles

Tanner is a puzzle master! He has been into puzzles since before he had his first birthday. Of course we first started out simple with wooden peg puzzles like the one below:

When Tanner was really young I focused on just having him match the pictures. I would help him to put the piece in. I would also give him verbal clues about what to do and show him, then let him try to do it himself. I think at first he just loved dumping out the puzzle pieces. When he mastered this type of puzzle I introduced frame-tray puzzles like the one below (and the one I had was from my childhood so it was thicker cardboard. Some of the ones they sell new are really thin and more difficult and poorly made.):These type of puzzles are great because the "tray" has part of the picture already there to get you started and underneath the puzzle pieces it has an outline of the shape of the puzzle pieces(which can help your child to match the shapes of the pieces with the outlined shapes). I was surprised at how young Tanner was able to master this type of puzzle. He could do these 12 piece puzzles before his 2nd birthday. Then we graduated up to wooden 12 piece puzzles like the one below (the picture below shows the wooden box the puzzle comes in.):

This type of puzzle is of course more difficult because your child has to learn to really look at the picture to try and match up pieces. If Tanner wasn't so interested in puzzles I don't think we would have done these at such a young age. It took great patience on both our parts. He would try to match up pieces that didn't work and I would either point out a different piece he should try or tell him to rotate the piece. Of course some of the directions had little meaning to him at first. So I would tell him and then show him what I meant. I also talked about the picture it was making and I would tell him to look for the bus's wheels or the man's yellow shoes. After these puzzles your kid could probably do most any puzzle of course the biggest puzzle Tanner does right now is about 48 pieces.I like the wooden puzzles because Tanner can rip the pieces apart and not break them! Also they seem like they will last longer.

Candyland

Tanner got the game Candyland for his 2nd birthday. It has been a big hit! Of course at this point he likes telling us what color he picks and gets excited when it is a "double yellow!!" or any other color. But the most exciting for him is when he gets a character card. Even if it sends him all the way back to the gingerbread man at the beginning. He is good at finding the correct square he is supposed to move to when he draws a card. Sometimes he gets really into the game and we play it a couple times. Some times we only get part way through the game before he is ready to put it away. We just follow his lead and have fun. I think it is great for color recognition and for learning the basic rules of playing games. The key is to be patient, have fun, and remember you are playing to the age level of your child, not to win! ;) I guess you can play it online too (though we haven't tried that yet and I am guessing your child would have to be older to enjoy it online).