Playing Is Educational

People are often surprised when I tell them that my children’s favorite activity is reading. Yes, they have other interests like sports and dance, but they genuinely love curling up with a good book. I suppose this isn’t surprising given that when they were younger we had family reading time.

About a half-hour before bed time all four of us – my husband and our two kids – would pile onto the master bed and read together. When they couldn’t yet read on their own, my husband and I would take turns reading educational childrens books aloud. When the kids started learning to read, they would read to us instead. It was a great bonding activity and a fantastic way to grow a lifetime love for books.

I am obsessed with the commercial about teaching your baby to read. I find the thought fascinating. There is some debate when it comes to such things like teach your baby to read. On one hand it’s great to start early on and on the other hand is it making your baby grow up to fast?

Early learning is a key element to any child’s development. This can be anything from teaching them their ABC’s to counting to ten. These things will help give them a jump start as they grow. As a parent you want the best for your child so it’s really up to you to make the best decision.

In this day and age it is really important to start teaching your children certain fundamentals. It is important when they hit their toddler years to start working on the basic fundamentals. This can be anything from the alphabet to teaching them their numbers. Teaching them manners is another way to help start your child off right.

The great thing nowadays, is that there are so many different ways that you can teach your child and make it fun for them at the same time. Toddler educational toys are a great way to start teaching your child the basics. Educational toys are interactive so it will keep your toddlers attention.

Teaching kids how to tell time does not have to feel like a boring math lesson. There are plenty of ways to make time telling lessons engaging. One of my favorite methods is using an oversized, child-friendly clock.

After lessons on what the big and little hands mean, as well as how to count to 60, I test the kids on what they’ve learned. I’ll give the first child a clock and say “The time is now 1:15. Could you please show me 1:15?” Then the child puts the big and little hands on the appropriate numbers. If they get it right then they pass the clock to the next child and make up a time of day for that child to put on the clock. The giant clock makes its way around the circle until everyone has had a turn.

These days, parents are turning to multimedia in order to keep their kids entertained and stimulated. It’s enough to make some of us wonder what happened to the simplicity of teaching through books and human interaction. For a certain generation of Americans, Dr. Seuss books represented one of the most prominent tools utilized in early childhood education.

In his remarkable run of popular kids’ books, Seuss broached serious topics such as war, ethnic diversity and discrimination in ways that appealed to children. His silly rhyming structure helped to mask the serious moral lessons he tried to teach, and the dressed-up language made the message more palatable and less preachy. And of course the artwork alone makes these books worth a return trip even decades after that first read.

These days, parents are turning to multimedia in order to keep their kids entertained and stimulated. It’s enough to make some of us wonder what happened to the simplicity of teaching through books and human interaction. For a certain generation of Americans, Dr. Seuss books represented one of the most prominent tools utilized in early childhood education.

In his remarkable run of popular kids’ books, Seuss broached serious topics such as war, ethnic diversity and discrimination in ways that appealed to children. His silly rhyming structure helped to mask the serious moral lessons he tried to teach, and the dressed-up language made the message more palatable and less preachy. And of course the artwork alone makes these books worth a return trip even decades after that first read.

It’s been proven that kids who have active imaginations while they’re young tend to be more creative, innovative, and successful as adults. But in addition to fostering imaginative practices, it’s also important to address early learning. We learn a significant portion of the sum of our knowledge when we’re young, and children who start learning as early as 3 or 4 will have a much better chance at advancing in education than children who don’t start learning until kindergarten and grade school. Early learning can encompass a variety of topics, including the basics like problem solving, deduction, and reasoning, as well as more advanced subjects like reading and math. Giving your child fun educational toys and games, and spending time learning with them will help them develop more quickly.

It’s also a good idea for you to ensure your children interact with other children their age.  Developing social skills is also an important part of development, and children who have educational skills but lack social skills will be at a disadvantage, and vice versa.

Too often these days kids sit around playing video games in dark, cramped, and musty rooms. There was on kids I knew that ate nothing other than birthday cake for a week because he was so engrossed in playing his video games! I don’t want that to happen to my kids, so I have made sure to introduce them to educational games that are fun, yet informative.

At first my kids wanted to know what made these games educational and why they couldn’t play video games like all the other kids. After a while they became used to the new games. Now they look forward to playing the games, and even ask me if they can take them over to their friends’ houses!

When children are in the early stages of development, their minds absorb and retain an astounding amount of information. This is why little children can learn a new language and understand tens of thousands of new words in a few years time, when it takes some adults months of training just to gain a rudimentary understanding. During these first years, it is important to help your child learn and make education fun.

One of the best ways to promote learning is through the utilization of fun and interactive toys. There are a variety of playthings on the market today for infants and young children. Many toddler educational toys are reasonably priced, and are a sound investment in your child’s future.

If you’ve been reading newspapers or checking online news sources in the last few years, you may have noticed a series of stories detailing the downfall of Americans’ geographic knowledge. In 2006, a National Geographic poll found that almost 33 percent of young Americans couldn’t locate Louisiana on a U.S. map. This came less than a year after Louisiana was grabbing headlines in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Of course one could cite sample size and other statistical problems with the study, but there’s no denying that young people could benefit from learning more about the world around them. Educational childrens books like Merriam Webster’s Notebook Atlas are an indispensable resource that kids can use at home as well as at school. It seems that our public education system is leaving a bit to be desired, so it’s up to parents to help fill in those knowledge gaps.