It's easy and
inexpensive to create a home environment that is
rich with educational opportunities for your young children.
Children learn through play, and learning is best when all of a
child's senses are stimulated.
~
Music ~
Music stirs
emotions and, when used in positive ways, sets up a pleasing and
stimulating backdrop for children's play time activities.
Classical music is often a good choice for background music. There
are many recordings available that are specifically designed for
children, but the truth is, practically any recording that a child
enjoys will suffice.
One of our
favorite children's recordings is Hunk-ta-Bunk-ta Chants by
Indie artist, Katherine Dines. This recording features a
compilation of chants from around the world. Chants not only stir
powerful emotion, they are a deliciously fun way to encourage
language arts skills. The rhythm and repetition of chants helps
lay the foundation for acquiring language, and even though many
songs on the album include words from different languages, they
nurture a child's imagination, stir poetic imagery, and
"train" their minds to appreciate rhythm and syntax.
This recording
presents a nice variety of chants, reflecting the use of chants to
express a wide variety of emotions (love, angst, hope, sadness,
and devotion), to recount stories, and as an accompaniment to play
(jump-rope chants are an example). The chants on the recording are
often accompanied by music, effectively encouraging children to
dance and move along with the songs; while others are purely
lyrical.
Hunk-ta-Bunk-ta
Chants is a powerful and fun recording that is great as a
backdrop for play time. The pace is varied and the music sets up a
pleasant mood as it moves from a rousing track to a gentle one.
Beautiful!
[For more information, user
reviews, or to buy:
Hunk-Ta-Bunk-Ta CHANTS
at Amazon.com]
Electronic learning aids are
simply unnecessary for families on a budget. However, for those
who want to add some variety to their child's play time, Music
Blocks is an impressive toy that allows children to play with
music. Toddlers compose music by
arranging--and rearranging--colorful blocks in the electronic
toy's base. The included cartridge allows each of the musical
blocks to "play" a musical phrase of a Mozart melody.
Placing a block onto the base on its different sides produces the
sounds of different instruments playing the same musical phrase.
Experimenting with different musical phrases and various
arrangements (including violin, voice, woodwinds, and more) is a
lot of fun, especially when the music sounds as rich as it does
with this unique toy.
[For more information, user
reviews, or to buy: Music Blocks Mozart Set
at Amazon.com]
A child-friendly tape recorder or
CD player, such as the Tuff Stuff Tape Recorder by Fisher Price,
is always fun for small children. They can tote the player around
with them from room to room and record their own voices or simply
sing karaoke-style into the microphone.
[For more information, user
reviews, or to buy:
Tuff Stuff Tape Recorder with Voice Warp
at Amazon.com]
See the Children's
Music section for more music ideas.
~
Books ~
Books, books,
and more books! When children are surrounded by books at an early
age, they can't imagine life without them later on. An easy way to
stock up on books is to frequent secondhand stores and garage
sales. This way you can get a lot of books at a fair price.
Trips to the library also add an element of excitement to
books.
Aim to own and
borrow a number of imaginative picture books--those that stir
emotions and feature fanciful illustrations that help inspire
children's imagination. Books that have a rhythm to them, and
those with fun rhymes, are great for encouraging early language
arts skills. Also aim to have a number of alphabet books and early
readers on hand, because you never know when children will attempt
to read on their own.
Workbooks
designed for older preschoolers are fantastic for promoting school readiness skills.
When workbooks are introduced early and in conjunction with play,
children love them! They add a nice element of structure to
children's play time, and they help prepare children for school
because they encourage them to follow directions.
See our Book
Reviews for our top choices in books.
~
Pencil and Paper...and Art Supplies! ~
Always have
paper and writing instruments handy so that children will become
comfortable with the idea of drawing at a very early age.
Scribbling is satisfying, and children are always fascinated with
the colorful designs they can make with markers and crayons.
You can easily
create a little art station in your home with a small table and
chair or a child's desk. Keep a good stock of paper, washable
markers and crayons, chubby pencils, and paints on hand--readily
available for those moments when a child is inspired! Children
will enjoy building their own things with glue (glue sticks are
terrific) and various paper materials. Keeping a box of a variety
of different supplies is sure to fuel children's
imagination--scrap paper, egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, cotton
balls, dried beans, and other common objects from around the
house. Craft supply stores have all sorts of doo-dads that will
inspire kids--colorful pom-poms and feathers, foam shapes,
sequins, and glitter are just some ideas.
We have found
a child-sized easel as one of our better investments. Many kids
will be happy with a simple double-sided easel that features a
chalk board on one side and a white board on the other. Some
models come with a roll of large paper that pulls down onto the
surface, or a clip to hold a pad of large paper, which is great for times when children want to keep their
masterpieces!
Easels are
especially fun for active children, simply because they don't have
to sit down to write or draw. Young kids are proud to draw and write on boards
that everyone in the house can see clearly. Besides the
ability to display their artwork, kids appreciate the freedom they
get when they can do their work on an upright surface. Because an
easel is quite large and can easily be a focal point in a room,
caregivers can use it to display a "lesson" for the
day--for example, they might put a large letter "B" on
the board, which defines the learning theme of the day.
You may be surprised at how an
easel attracts attention and motivates kids to start
creating.
Our choices:
~ Imagination
~
Halloween
costumes often seemed like a bit of a waste of money, that is
until I started our costume box. Costumes got used over and over
again, throughout the year. Any time we came across some piece of
clothing or accessory that was a little unusual or fun, we'd add
it to the box. I had a purse, for example, that was a little too
boxy for my taste, and I turned it into a "doctor's
bag". I came across a pint-sized motorcycle jacket, and that
went into the box as well. Old funky necklaces, unusual hats, a
clown wig, an old pair of high heels--all went into our costume
box. In the end, we had one fabulous box that was pure fodder for
the imagination and total fun.
~ Toys to
Build, Count, & Sort With ~
It's
almost a cliché, but kids really do appreciate building blocks.
These can be the basic wooden ones or colorful foam models, but
whatever shape and form they come in, they are staples in a
child's play room.
There
are plenty of basic (often wooden) puzzle sets that feature
different shapes and sizes of pieces and blocks. We love the Shape
Fitter by Plan Toys for toddlers, any wooden or foam alphabet puzzle, and
Lauri foam puzzles for simple shapes. For older preschoolers, we
love the ABC Puzzle Upper and Lower Case because it features both upper-and
lower-case letters side-by-side. It also features peek-inside
illustrations of familiar objects that begin with each letter
(such as a quail for "Q" and an ice cream cone for
"I". For families who want their children to learn to
associate the "big" and "little" letters with
each other, this puzzle is ideal.
[For more information, user
reviews, or to buy: ABC Puzzle: Upper & Lower Case
at Amazon.com]
Things
to sort and count are absolutely great for encouraging logical
thinking and early math skills. Kids can count Cheerios, sort
objects by color or shape, line up their figurines in order, and
so on. We had a large plastic container that was divided into
smaller compartments -- originally designed for beads or something
on those lines -- that we successfully used for years as a sorting
tray. All sorts of interesting objects went into that tray over
the years--buttons, coins, marbles, feathers, and so forth.
One
of our favorite learning games for older preschoolers is Mighty
Math. This set takes children through geometric puzzles that
become progressively more challenging as they go along. Kids learn
all about the parts that make up a whole with this game, and it's
a rewarding experience! It contains circles, half-circles,
rectangles, triangles, diamonds, and squares. Children build all
sorts of different objects with these basic pieces. This set contains small pieces, so it's
better for kids over the age of 3.
[For more information, user
reviews, or to buy:
Mighty Mind Game
(hardcover) at Amazon.com]
See our article: Favorite
ABC's and 123's Videos
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