learning Archives – Page 2 of 3 – The Pinterested Parent

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Fri
25 ^th

Choosing A Daycare

Posted by Pinparent — 6 Comments

I was extremely fortunate that after the birth of our daughter I was able to take a year off from work & stay home with her during such a crucial period in her life. It offered me the opportunity to be there for all of those beautiful milestones that I might have otherwise missed out on. It gave me the ability to nurse her for a full year, to take daily naps with her, to grow our bond & to just soak up every second of her short infanthood even with all of its difficulties. What was even luckier than that was when I was ready to re-enter the workforce I had a mother-in-law that was willing to take on our child care responsibilities.

Under her Nanna’s care, Mai flourished. Together they would read books, go the park & library, do puzzles and built forts. Our daughter is bright, imaginative, caring and so happy & I know that it is largely in part of her time with her Nanna. There was only one thing missing during these past 2 1/2 years, social interaction. Sure we would play with her friends on occasion, but being an only child I found that Mai lacked a certain understanding in regard to waiting her turn, not always being the center of attention and sharing.

When we made the decision to put her in daycare a couple of days a week, I am not going to lie it freaked me out. It still is and she hasn’t even started yet. Being the helicopter mom that I am, I am extremely paranoid about entrusting my heart to a stranger. Choosing a daycare has been very stressful. I found that many were full or that they didn’t have the days available that I needed or the hours did not work with our schedule. Then I also found that I myself had reasons that I did not like the facilities. When you are picking a place that it going to be caring for your most precious of packages, you better be sure. It turns out I found one that I liked. I interview with them next week.

Here is my checklist in finding a daycare…

1. Figure out what is most important when choosing a facility. Is it distance, cost, curriculum, # of children? For me I wanted her to be in a smaller more intimate daycare where there was more attention to each child & the same educational values as we have with her at home.

2. Make sure that they are licensed & accredited. You can find this info online by state. Believe me that I stalked each daycare to make sure they were legit.

3. What hours do they operate? Is there a fee if you run behind? I discovered that many of the daycares hours were outside of our needs. With my husband and I’s schedules we would have to juggle a few things to make it work. What I did not realize is that some places will charge you an additional fee for picking up your child even a few minutes late.

4. Do they have a set nap schedule? This is something you should find out ahead of time. Mai is on a nap as she gets tired schedule. Many daycares have a set nap schedule. If you are thinking of putting your munchkin in daycare you might want to start them on a mid-day nap schedule right away to make the adjustment.

5. How many children do they have & how many workers? I opted for a smaller home based daycare. The one I am interviewing with next week only has 4 children at a time.

6. What kind of activities do they do? I was pretty certain that I found a winner when I saw all of the things that this child care professional did with the children. She puts a lot of focus on nature activities, does nature walks, lots of crafts and alphabet & number lessons. When I saw the photos on her site, it looked like things that I would do with Mai.

7. Meet the caretaker in person & check out the facility. This I will do next week. We have spoken several times on the phone.

8. What is the daily menu for meals and snacks? If it is Pop Tarts and Spaghetti Os 5 days a week than it is not for me.

9. Do they have a policy on toilet training. We are still in the process of potty training. We have taken a more natural approach and have been doing it slowly. Some daycares will not accept a child that is still in diapers. Be sure to find this out up front.

10. Don’t be afraid to ask a million questions. If they don’t want to answer then you probably do not want them there anyways.

Thu
03 ^rd

Phonics Lessons

Posted by Pinparent — 10 Comments

I know I have told you many times about what a difficult infant my daughter was. From the moment she was born, she gave me a run for my money. She cried all the time, all the time. I remember my first day with her in the hospital, when she first started and did not seem to stop. In a panic I started singing the first song that came to mind, the ABC song. It miraculously quieted her cries as she stared up at me taking in my song as I named off each letter. She listened so intently, her eyes fixed on my mouth as I sang. This became my go to song to soothe my daughter.

Now here it is 2 1/2 years later & it is still a favorite. Mai sings her ABC’s all the time. Many mornings we are awaken by the sounds of her sweet voice reciting her alphabet. We have been working on sounding out our letters for quite some time now. We do many activities and lessons to practice. At random, I will start pointing out objects and sounding them out for her. “Look Mai, hat. “H” hhhhhhhh. “A” aaaaaaaaaaaa. “T” ttttttttt, hat” We read, work on her ABC puzzles & she watches me write the letters out on her chalkboard.

One of my daughter’s favorite phonics games to play is a simple one. We like to have living room picnics, so we usually lay down a blanket and sit on the floor. We use her ABC magnets & put them in a pile on the floor. We grab them one by one and Mai will tell me the letter and a word that the letter begins with. As you can see from her video, she is very enthusiastic about this game. She is very proud when she gets them all and so is mommy. Sometimes it is the simplest of things that have the greatest effect. What is wonderful is we play this often and she comes out with new words each time. Sometimes she even says some that mommy doesn’t know. The other day, she told me “Q” was for quoll. I had to ask her a couple of times to repeat it. “Are you saying quoll?” “Yes, the quoll is sooooooo cute.” I had to Google it. A quoll is a little animal that kind of looks like a mouse. She was right they are pretty cute. I discovered later that one of her ABC Mouse activities featured a quoll. My little smarty is already smarter than mommy.

Sun
22 ^nd

You Can’t Outsmart a Smarty

Posted by Pinparent — 12 Comments

One of Mai’s favorite new games is removing the contents of our Lazy Susan & placing them up on our kitchen island. I will ask he Mai what are you doing? “I go shopping” “I buy food”. She will name off all the items as she places them up on the island. “Ranch dressing, hot chocolate, barbecue sauce.” I do not love this, but it does keep her occupied while I am cooking or doing dishes. She loves playing this so much that I thought it would be a fun idea to make her her own little grocery store on the shelves of our kitchen island. My hopes of course, were that this would distract her from emptying the contents of my Lazy Susan.

I used old food boxes & rinsed out jars and lined them up in a row on the shelves.

Mai has a little toy shopping cart, so I thought we could make a fun & educational game out of it. My idea was that she could pick out the items that she wants just as she did with the Lazy Susan & that we could use some of her coins in her piggy bank and make it a lesson in counting and money as well.
Unfortunately Mai was not so easy fooled by mommy’s make shift shopping center. She picked up each container & exclaimed “Oh! It’s empty. I throw in the trash.” And in the trash she threw them. Oh Well! Better luck next time, Mommy.

Tue
27 ^th

Lessons From The Car Seat

Posted by Pinparent — 12 Comments

It is not always easy to leave the house with a toddler. As soon as you have a child it becomes a huge production to go anywhere. You have to make sure you have their diaper bag or back pack… snacks (check), juice boxes (check), change of clothes, diapers, books, crayons (check,check,check & check). And this is just for a trip to the supermarket.
With the weather getting nicer, we have been taking more day trips on our weekends. This will continue through the summer with trips to the zoo & beach. It is easy for our active little ones to get bored while riding in the car. It is not always easy to keep them entertained from the front seat.

But, like most things in life, every moment can be a learning opportunity, even if it is from a car seat in the back of the car.
I love to keep engaged with my daughter as I drive. There is always a teaching moment with our young ones.

Lessons that you can teach from the road:

1. Directions – As we drive, I always like to tell my daughter when I am taking a turn whether we are going left or right. I signal to her with my arm and repeat “Right, mommy is turning right.” She will repeat it after me & is getting better at differentiating her left from right.

2. Imagination exploration – On many of our journeys, my daughter will look around and point out things she sees during our ride. A few months back, she started making up little stories to go with the sights she was seeing. One rainy day as we were driving she made up this story about us driving in a submarine because of the rain & she was pointing out the fishies that she saw swimming up. “There is a mama fish & dada fish & baby fish.” Now, mommy jumps in on story telling time too & together we weave fun tales as we travel.

3. Eye spy – This is a good one. Mai, where is the yellow sign. “Right there!! Right there!” Do you see a red car? “There’s a red car!” This works great for shape, color and object recognition. My daughter get so excited and you can hear her pride as she points out what mommy asks for. Of course, I can’t see what she is pointing at unless we are stopped, but I am sure that she is pointing to the same things that I spy.

4. Counting -Counting exercises are another fun way to pass the time in the car. My daughter and I will take turns going back & forth counting off our numbers. We used to do this with the alphabet too, but now that she knows her ABC’s we practice on our numbers.

5. Music lessons – My daughter likes to sing. She has gotten pretty good a few songs. She can sing ‘Daisy, Daisy’, ‘My darling Clementine’ & ‘Oh Susanna’ word for word. It melts my heart. It is a great way to learn new words and music can be extremely influential to our children.

How do you keep your children entertained while on the road? Share your favorite stories from the car seat.

Mon
07 ^th

Learning to Read

Posted by Pinparent — 12 Comments

My husband and I both love to read. On the evening of our first date while riding in his car, I happened to glance in his back seat and noticed a book sitting there. After closer observation, I realized that he was reading the same book that was at that time residing on my night stand. I knew at once that it had to have been a sign.

Before we had our daughter we agreed that we would read to her often and encourage her to love books as much as we did. We kept that promise & continue to. With a lot of help from her Nana, my hubby & I have bred a fellow book lover.

Over the weekend, we pulled out two bags of books that we have not read yet and had a reading picnic on our living room floor. We put down a blanket, some pillows, spread out all our books and put out a few snacks.

We devoured book after book. Mommy would read to her & Mai would point out what she was seeing on the pages and narrate the story based on the pictures.

Mai’s has such a great grasp of the alphabet and is able to distinguish the first letter of many common words. It is common practice for her to sit in her crib in the morning and practice her phonics. “A ahhh ahhh ahhh, apple”. We have done a number of phonics lessons with her and she has done wonderfully with them. We wanted to start some reading lessons with her too.

One of my favorite tools for making easy learning materials is to create simple lessons using Microsoft Word or Paint. For this lesson, we created a page with a clip art picture and the word that describes that picture minus it’s first letter. Here is an example of one of the pages.

I used a printed copy of the page I created & hung it up on a magnetic easel. You can also use the refrigerator. I gave my daughter a bag of alphabet magnets and let her go.

Mai did a great job and was very proud of herself when she was finished. She clapped her hands and said “Mama, I did it.” Yes you did!

Fri
04 ^th

Potty Training Methods & Tips

Posted by Pinparent — 9 Comments

Today was an exciting day in our home. Today our daughter reached another milestone. She peed in her potty for the first time. Let me be more specific, she peed on the potty for the first time after telling us that she had to. While she still has a way to go this was a huge step for us.
As most parents of a child in diapers know, there will come the time where you will need to start potty training. As much as you may be sick of changing diapers, the idea of starting the potty training process may be a little scary. There are so many methods and tricks that parents use, it is hard to know which one will work best for you and your family. Every child is different, so what works for one child may not work for another.

“The Monkey See, Monkey DooDoo”
Children learn by watching. They especially love mimicking our actions. Show your child how you use the potty. My daughter comes to the bathroom with me and will tell me “Mama, mama has poo poo in the bum.” Just pee pee baby. I’m just going pee pee.

“Potty Boot Camp”
Pick a free weekend and spend the weekend in the bathroom with your child, some toys , books and their potty. Keep your child in either training underwear or go bottomless. If you see signs of them having to pee or poop or if they are in the process, direct them to their little toilet. I have known friends of mine to have great success in a short time using this method.

“Read All About It”
There are so many different potty training books out there. Everyone Poops is probably the most popular and famous of these toddler stories. One of my daughter’s favorites is “Potty Time”. It is a cute little story with an audio flush feature that my daughter loves. At the end there is a nice potty chart to keep track of their progress.

“The Wait & Pee”
You may not be in a rush to get your child out of diapers. What is the rush really? When your toddler is ready they will tell you. My daughter started being verbal about having poop in her diaper around the time that she turned 2. She understood this without very little pushing from us. She picked up on poop & pee just from us discussing it during diaper changes and such.

“Web Training”
I actually picked this up from another blogger. She was offering a review for a potty training app & it piqued my curiosity. We downloaded this app to our daughters Nabi Tablet & she loves it. She cheers every time the animals go potty & she loves the music too. The app she uses is called Potty Training: Learning Animals, but there are many others out there.

“Potty Champion”
Who doesn’t love being rewarded or praised? Offering incentives, prizes and praise after a successful potty experience can be all the motivation your little one needs. Our daughter received a little piece of chocolate after today’s success. You can try keeping a potty chart where they earn stickers or ribbons too.

“Potty Here, Potty There, Potty Everywhere”
Try putting the potty where your child resides the most during training. Move it into the living room and let them get comfortable with it. My daughter will sit on the potty in lieu of her chair. When she wants to sit on the potty, we take off her diaper & let her sit. If they pee or poop, tell them “Good Job” for pooping or peeing. Keep a package of wipes handy.

“The Renaissance Trainer”
Have you ever done so much research on something that in the end you were not sure which option to take? Well that’s me. So what do you do? Try them all. We have dabbled a little bit in all of the above.

I am in no rush to have my baby grow up too quickly, but she is starting to get the hang of it on her own. She will get there in time.

Look for the signs of readiness: http://www.babycenter.com/0_potty-training-readiness-checklist_4384.bc

Remember to be patient with your child.

Don’t get frustrated. You do not want your child to feel negatively about potty training.

Be prepared for accidents and messes.

Get a fun potty. Ours sings a little song whenever pee pee hits it.

Please feel free to share your potty training advice, tips and anecdotes.
Good Luck & happy potty training.

Sun
23 ^rd

When Our Children Become The Teachers

Posted by Pinparent — 27 Comments

Over the past few months, it has been a real joy getting to know my daughter. Sure I have been with her for the past 26 months of her life, but now that she has been talking up a storm I have really gotten the opportunity to watch her little personality take form. What I have learned is my daughter despite what it seems does indeed pay attention to everything we say to her, even if she doesn’t respond. She is bright & funny and a bit of a smart ass.

Mai has been learning so quickly. She loves to learn. She absorbs everything that we put in front of her. Recently, I have been getting the feeling that my toddler might just be smarter than us.

One morning over the baby monitor, I heard her and daddy talking. My husband was commenting on how cute her turtle pajamas were. “Frogs, Dada, frogs!” I had to laugh because I knew that she was right.

She has corrected me as well. It can sometimes be embarrassing to have a two year old tell you that you are wrong, but at the same time it fills me with pride to have raised such a bright young lady.

I have been realizing that there is a lot that I can learn from our little girl.

The Joy Of Living

Everyday things that we take for granted bring our children such joy. There is so much beauty in watching the world through my child’s eyes. Her eyes grow wide when she sees snow on the ground & squeals with excitement when a bunny hops through the yard. There is no rush to get to an appointment or to that next meeting. Each moment is breathed in and enjoyed without limits.

Fearlessness

You tend to lose this the older you get. I can remember being young & the riding roller coaster until I was ready to puke. Now, it scares the daylights out of me. When you are young, you are ready to jump into anything. You don’t care what anyone thinks or what anyone says. You are not afraid of getting hurt or injured (I know not always a plus, but how liberating).

Don’t Waste A Moment

Do you ever notice how your children never want to nap, eat or go to sleep at night? They are so busy having fun, playing & learning that they do not want to give up a moment of their time. Children have no downtime they are always busy. While, I am pro-nap all the way, I wish that I made better use of my time.

Open Your Imagination

Imagine being a princess of your own castle or having tea with an elephant and a giraffe. The possibilities are endless when you are a child. As an adult many of us lose our sense of imagination. This doesn’t necessarily mean that need to run out and buy a pirate costume & start playing dress up, but keeping an imaginative mind can be beneficial to you in solving problems and brainstorming new ideas. Would J.K. Rowlings be where she is today without her beautiful imagination?

Never Stop Learning

Children love to learn and they do it so well. We have a US map puzzle that my daughter & I often do together. She has gotten really good at it. She knows her states by shape, name & location. At this point, she might know them better than I do. Have you ever seen a child with electronics these days? Many are able to operate them better than their parents. What this means to me is there is still a lot that we can still learn even as adults. Your studies don’t need to end when you reach a certain age. Remember “Knowledge is Power”.

Forgiveness

Do you still have a grudge over some fight with a high school friend 20 years ago? Have you ever woken up not speaking to your husband after a fight? I have bad days with my daughter. We have had moments where mommy had to say no, take away her toys or put her to bed in utter exasperation, only to have her wake up in the morning and throw her arms around me as if nothing ever happened. We could all take a cue from our children.

Things Often Forgotten

Tonight at dinner as we sat down to eat, she taught my husband and I another lesson. I was pulling the fork up to my mouth about to enjoy my first bite when our daughter said “God bless our food, Amen.” I was shocked & a little shamed as well. She did not learn this from me. I have heard this short prayer many times coming from my mother-in-law. We work so hard to instill good manners and values in our child, but have managed to forget about bringing God into her life. Thank you Mai for reminding us what is important.

Sun
16 ^th

Sorting Game For Toddlers

Posted by Pinparent — 10 Comments

I know that there are mixed feelings about children and electronics. I think that they can be a great learning tool, but in moderation. Our daughter has a Nabi Tablet. It has been a wonderful tool in promoting learning for our daughter. She can access her ABC Mouse Learning Center from there and there are also a lot of learning apps that we selected for her. As I said, I think that is a fabulous tool to educate my daughter, but I also don’t want her parked in front of it for hours on end. I thought I could bring one of her favorite lessons to life.

There is one application that has an assortment of objects and a row of baskets that represents a category that each of these objects falls into. She loves this one & is starting to get pretty good at it. I decided to use this idea to create a similar game that she could play sorting various pictures & matching them to their coordinating category.

What you will need:

Paper bowls or another bowl shaped container

Old magazines or computer print-outs of clip art

Scissors

Glue

Posterboard

Directions:

Figure out what categories you would like to use. I chose animals, clothing, toys, food & transportation.

Flip through old magazines and cut out various pictures.

Cut out pictures that fit your various categories.

Put your pictures in a container.

Make a sign for your category with picture examples of the category. Glue it to the inside of the bowl.

Line up your sorting bowls & spread out the picture cutouts in front of them.

Match up your pictures to the appropriate bowl. Here we have a dog, cat & horse matched up to the animal sorter.

Hmm…Where does this go?

Right there..right there

My daughter loves anything that has pictures that she can sort through. She named off all of the cut outs and we sorted through them together. She did the best on her own with the animals and the food. I love this activity. It is cheap & easy to make and it is something we can do together or she can play with on her own.

The Power Of Music – Influencing Your Child With Song

Posted by Pinparent — 18 Comments

Music is a powerful thing. Certain songs that you hear on the radio, can take you back to a certain time, or place in your life. It can bring forth emotions & feelings that you had forgotten were there. It can make you cry or smile, soothe you or get you pumped. It has an amazing effect on all of us big & small.

It’s calming. When my daughter was a newborn, she cried all the time. Rocking or dancing with her was my most popular method for calming my little girl & it was usually always accompanied by song. My favorite song to sing her was ‘Once upon a dream’. I still sing it to her now, only now she joins in.

It is said that introduction to music at a young age aids in physical and mental development. We enrolled our daughter in music classes when she was 18 months old. She loved everything about it. She was fascinated by the instruments and the lyrics. She was learning to talk during this time. It was fun hearing her try to mimic the song lyrics. Each session began with a song introducing each classmate. What a wonderful tool to help remember your classmates names, I thought. It is a great memorization tool. How do you think kids have learned their ABC’s for years?

It gets them moving. If your child is anything like mine, she loves to dance. Whether it is an up tempo song or a more soothing ballad type, she will move to the beat of the music.

It is incredible the influence music can have in influencing our lives…

Our daughter is like a tornado through our home. I call her “Destructor” because she leaves a path of destruction in her wake where ever she goes.

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Mai has not been the best at picking up her toys. She is great & taking them out, but does not like putting them back. Mai is at an age now of understanding. She may not always listen, but she hears me & comprehends what I am saying. I have tried several different methods for getting her to put her things away. She often liked to challenge mommy & would take out some toys, pour them out & then say “Mommy pick up”. No, no, no, this was not going to happen.

One day after she had made a particularly big mess. I started singing while picking up her toys. I asked Mai to help me.

We’re going to pick up our toys…

We’re going to make some noise… (making noise)

We’re going to pick up our toys, right now…

(Clap hands) Good girl!

I have only sung this song probably about 3 times. A couple of days ago, my daughter in a “destructor” moment, pulled out a box of her flash cards & threw them all over the floor. Mommy very calmly, said “Mai Mai, please pick up your cards.” All of a sudden she broke out singing. “Pick up tooooooyyyys, make noooooisse…pick up toys, right now. Gggggood girl.” She proceeded to pick up all of her flash cards & continued singing. I was floored. Floored not only that she remembered this little song, but that it actually worked. I could not believe it. She has done this everyday since. Never underestimate the power of song.

Thu
27 ^th

Phonics Muffins – Phonics Lessons With Muffin Tins & ABC Magnets

Posted by Pinparent — 20 Comments

Toddlers are incredible. The amount of information that they take in, learn and retain on a daily basis is astounding. I am fascinated by my daughter & also often surprised by her as well. From the time she was an infant, we surrounded her with the alphabet. I sang the Abc’s to her when she would cry, which was all the time. We also had a few visual aids…

Mai’s Nanna made this beautiful ABC quilt for her. It hangs on the fence in her playroom.

With all of the alphabet jammed down her throat, it was no wonder that she learned her Abcs early. She has been sounding out her letters for some time now. She will play with her refrigerator magnets often while I am cooking. “B! Bbb bbb boy” You are right baby, B is for boy. She is growing up so fast that I can hardly believe it. With Mai sounding out her letters so much, I came up with a game that could hopefully challenge her phonics learning and entertain her.

This was a cheap and easy to make activity for my toddler. Just line muffin tins with pictures of different animals & objects and let her match up the alphabet magnet to the coordinating word. For example, matching the A to apple or B to banana.

What you will need:

2 muffins tins

Printouts of clip art objects to cover every letter of the alphabet (There are only 24 spots in the tins but you can switch out the other 2)

Alphabet magnets

Using the muffin tin as a stencil, outline the clipart & cut to fit inside of the tin.

Gather your magnets.

Watch your little one with pride as they pick up the letters and place them on the correct pictures. “M! Mmmm mm m monkey.”

I was overcome with pride watching my daughter do this activity. I have to admit that my eyes watered a little as she completed the tins. I could tell she was proud too. Next step…reading.