Don’t you love when a regular, everyday moment turns into a chance to teach??
We were just reading “But Not the Hippopotamus” when Lily realized that they were drinking purple juice in the illustration. She promptly decided that she, too, would like some purple juice. Well…all we have in the house right now is apple juice!! Soooo…we made it purple! We got out the red food colouring and the blue food colouring and added it to her very diluted apple juice while explaining how the primary colours of red and blue, when mixed together, make the secondary colour of purple. She was SO amazed and excited!
Did you have any spontaneous learning moments today?
I had told my son that we would make cookies today. After a busy morning I convinced him that to make them after his nap would be the best. So, I dug out my alphabet cookie cutters and I LEARNED that he knows all his letter sounds (uppercase) - except Q - I suspected this, but hadn’t tested him. As he placed the cookies on the pan he was saying things like "Oh oh. I have to move the /j/ so I can put down the /m/. " etc. He did this for almost every letter he put down - duplicates and all - entirely on his own accord. I guess he didn’t feel too vulnerable because he responded so openly to my question that was phrased like this: “Wow. We sure have a lot of letters here, don’t we? Are there any letters that you don’t know the sound for?” - He found the Q and said “Dat one”
Kizudo that’s awesome! Good for your son!! I have been wanting to get a set of these to use with play dough. My wish list just keeps growing by the minute lol
Yep. Put them on your list. I keep a list of the alphabet on my fridge (large font) and the cookies in the freezer. Everytime we decide that it’s “cookie time” I bring out the list, he has to choose a letter, tell me the sound it makes, colour it in with a crayon and then I go get that cookie and put the list back on the fridge. This time I’ll ask him to tell me a word that starts with the letter he chooses.
I love moments like these! Fun, and educational. And also shows what good parents you are. Just talking and playing with your child makes such a big dfference!! I babysit for a friends and her 3 yo daughter thought her dad (who had been deployed for 8 months) was still in the plane, when I asked about her daddy. Surprised her mother never told her. I took her over the world map and pointed out Cuba, where he wad “working hard”. Now she can point out Cuba every time she is asked. And doesn’t think daddy was in the plane for more than a year, lol.
Now for our learning moment today: My dd who is 3, gets to watch 1 NickJr show a day. She picked NiHao KaiLan for today. The ants in the show were wearing construction uniforms, and helmets because they were building a bridge. Dakota pointed out that they were fire fighters… So I told her they were dressed as construction workers. We went on to learn about what construction workers do and why they were wearing those uniforms and helemts. She was very interested and had a lot of fun with it.
With mine we have moments like this that I wish I could record. Theya re so special to me. Giving breakfast my oldest said is a fruit mommy. So here we go oing through the cupboard picking fruit and or vegetables out. Sorting them all out. It was so much fun. And now dad has decided to get them a dog, so here we go looking through dog pounds and private kennels, and foster parents for dogs. my child begins to learn which breed is what, it is so great to have your LO learn an dpick up on things so fast. even my 6months old she is loving music, and she is singing the scale when i start singing. she practices the scale over and over when someone start sininging.
Remember keeping a journal of your LO’s learning moments is fun to look back on and to help teach new parents.
Now that my DD is asking a lot of questions I find everyday is a learning experience and we try to explain as much as possible - today we were watching the birds outside while eating supper and she learnt about three different types of birds, saw their nests and discussed what they were busy eating and we had time to fetch more seeds for them (they were eating flying ants though) and even discuss types of bugs, that male birds are the coloured ones usually - all within a few minutes and it meant a lot more than doing it out of a book.
