Teaching Tots: Choose your lesson

Welcome back for the 2nd installment of Teaching Tots! This week, I wanted to focus on ideas that you might want to teach to your tot. I'm kind of skipping ahead, and probably should have focused on the 1 year age range, but I jumped to 2 year olds. Sorry, it's probably because I have a 2 year old and my mind is no longer stuck on the 1st year, but rather, surviving the 2nd! I promise, that I'll go back though!

A 2 year old should be advancing in their language skills. 2 year olds should start to put 2 word utterances together, be able to follow simple commands and related commands, and imitate words.

At age 2 a child is really expanding their vocabulary and knowledge. The way a 24 month old speaks and a 36 month old speaks is totally different. I think that at this age, you should see a huge burst in language skills in typically developing tots.

In order to expand language and knowledge skills, I think that you should work on colors.Colors can be taught using a variety of methods, and I'll go into more detail later, as today is just an overview. But, tell your child what color everything in his world is. His shirt is green, his hat is blue, the flowers are yellow. Naming things to your child will work wonders.

We have also used color changing bath tablets to teach colors. Gretchen loved adding them into her tub water and telling us what color the water was.

You can have color days- choose 1 color and let your tot wear that color during the day, color only with that color, and plan your food around the color.

Once your child has mastered colors, then they can master shapes.

Focus on the simple basic shapes. There is no reason for your 2 year old to learn what an octogon is before he knows what a circle is. Focus on: circle, triangle, square, and rectangle. Note that your 2 year old, or even 3 year old, may confuse a rectangle and a square- that's okay! They do look a lot alike.

Purchase simple shape puzzles to work on this skill.

Numbers can be fairly easy for some tots to master. Although, my child counts 2, 5, 2, 5- at least she knows number words! Don't expect your tot to count in order, instead at this age, worry about them knowing number words. Some tots will pick up on numbers because they are always the same, numbers are never out of order, 2 should always follow 1, and 3 should always follow 2. Kids that like repetiveness and routine, might pick up on this skill quickly. I have seen a few autistic children pick up on numbers quickly because they like that it stays the same. (Note- i'm not saying your child is or could be autistic, simply because they've mastered their numbers early.)

To teach numbers- count everything! I mean, absolutely everything! Count the number of grapes on their plate, the number of steps out to the car. We count how many times Gretchen will have to dump water on her head to wash out the shampoo. Eventually, your child will catch on.

Finally, the alphabet! Now, I don't think that learning the alphabet is a skill for all 2 year olds. Often times, the alphabet isn't mastered until a child is 4 or 5 years old. I do think that it's important for the ABC song to be sung, and for letters to be exposed into your child's world. We purchased a Leap Frog alphabet set for Gretchen, and foam letters for the bath tub. We also purchased small magnetic letter set and a pizza dish to take on road trips, so she can play with the letters. Of course, we always name them when possible!

So, once you choose what's important for your child, and what level they are on, then we can plan further from there! Take this week to focus on what your child can do, what they have difficulty with, and what your goals are for their learning abilities.