What do you/did you do with your 1.5-2 y/o if you SAH

LaVitaBella

We have pretty full days....breakfast, a show, get dressed, go to a class (little gym, library, play group) most days, then lunch and nap.  After nap she either comes to cheer with me or we go grocery shopping or an errand, then dinner, bath and bed.  

 

MH thinks that we are at the point where I should be sitting and drilling her on colors and numbers.  I think at this point you count when you can (stairs, blocks, etc) and stuff and that's about it.  

 

Not knocking either way, but did you have a set aside time for teaching your youn toddlers stuff?   

kmslwsmrs

If you're going to all those activities, she gets those things through those activities.  I don't know any 1.5 year old that will sit down and listen to "drill" exercises.

LaVitaBella

Lol I agree.  I think he means to talk it up more.  I get all annoyed when he tells me what to do with my day, but I wanted to see anyway if others had a set time were they talk about shapes and colors and stuff.  

melbride2005

I never scheduled time to teach Bella anything - I just worked it into activities we were already doing (like what you said about counting stairs - that would be a good example).

Keep her occupied with fun, stimulating activities...don't worry about whether or not she's learning the alphabet or anything like that.   

ladyredlight

When I change his diaper we count.  When he goes up and down the stairs we count.  We sing the alphabet song a lot.  When he plays with his trains we talk about the colors and numbers on them.  When he will sit for more then 3 seconds we read a book. 

I have letter and number puzzles that were Coreys that he started doing aorund this age so I will break them out soon. 

We talk to him all the time so he is much more verbal then Corey was.  I think he's doing just fine. 

And I think you are doing fine with your daughter!

LuckyBride06

Our schedule is similar to yours. I don't drill him, but when we're playing with toys or looking at books I'll just ask him questions like "what's that color" or "what's that letter/number". We incorporate learning with everyday things. And when we're out and about, he's usually playing with his vtech laptop or iPad thingy and honestly he learns a lot from those! He knows most of his letters and numbers. He loves those toys!

TexasSmith

I still don't sit down with DD #1 and have any kind of formal learning stuff. She has always learned through playing, listening to me count as we do stuff, etc. She knows a LOT, so I don't think she is missing out on anything.

lpwish

I teach Zach as we go, counting things in the supermarket and pointing out colors.  We go to Little Gym and Gymboree, and he learns a lot there also.  I couldn't get Zach to sit down and focus on a real lesson at this point.  We never did that with Maya either.

penguingrrl

I'm of the mindset that toddlers learn by exploring the world around them, not by sitting with a curriculum of any sort. I sort of go about my day and "teach" by mentioning things we see. We read a lot of books  throughout the day, but that's as close as we get at home to formal education. They have definitely learned things at a different pace. Emma is incredibly agile and can already do things on the playground that Julia can't. Julia knew all of her colors really well by 20 months and Emma still only mostly knows them. I consider both in the range of "normal" and figure there's plenty of time to fill in the holes later.

BeachBaby07

My son and I did flash cards at dinner when he was a year old on. We were alone for dinner, and after the entire day I had nothing left to sing or talk about. They were really cute ones with texture and fuzzy stuff. He loved them and learned them fast.  We read to him a ton and I took him everyplace

My daughter....I had no time for that stuff. I was lucky we all made it through the day in one piece.  BUT I read to her a few times during the day and at nighttime, and she and I run errands together a couple times a week

they are both very bright and are doing great in school, so I dont think it made a bit of difference to do the flashcards everyday. They notice everything about the world around them, and we learn through play. If they had to be at home and I forced them to be drilled that would last about 3 minutes and would turn them off for sure. 

vicki21

Never a set-aside time.... grocery shopping we'd talk about colors as she helped me put veggies/fruits into produce bags ("help me pick out 3 red apples. here are the red apples. let's count - one, two, three!")

I use a LOT of descriptive words with her, all the time... emotion words ("Alexis you're mad when you _____" or "Mommy gets so happy when you _______") and color, shape, number, letter, etc.. type words. You'd be surprised how much they pick up. Sometimes I feel like I talk 90% of the day but she knows a LOT - it doesn't have to be time "set aside" - "look how pretty the blue sky is today" or "look at that black dog - he's big, right? that dog over there is little"

Jerseyjessie

we didn't physically sit down and have class but we had it within our day. With coloring and other activities. we would count with the stairs, or picking up toys, etc. It makes it more fun this way too (or thats how I feel it does).

dmendel

At that age, I would do colors/numbers/letters in the morning.  Abby is always more focused in the morning then in the afternoon.  I would also show her stuff when we were food shopping or driving. Ooo look  at that sign, what letters so do you see?  Abby also loves to food shop and she learned a lot of different foods and would see numbers and letters at the store too.  At that age, we didn't have a lot of play dates.

At 3.5 we do more drilling/ playing.  She got an easel for Christmas and I've been doing more with writing.  I got her flash cards, so now she is into adding.