Stay at home moms with toddlers at home: How do you teach them?
11:11 asked:
My daughter is in daycare currently but I am pregant and will not be able to afford two children in daycare. Plus, I will have to stay home for a year or two. My daughter learns a lot in daycare and is building social skills.
My daughter is in daycare currently but I am pregant and will not be able to afford two children in daycare. Plus, I will have to stay home for a year or two. My daughter learns a lot in daycare and is building social skills.
My question is how do you teach them and how do you foster their socialization skills?
Thanks.
JOHNATHAN
December 20th, 2008 at 9:49 am
take them to the parks,,, play school a couple days a week is good too. have play dates with other parents.
December 20th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Children learn by play. That’s what you have to do, that’s the same thing they do at daycare is play, because that’s how they learn.
Congrats and best of luck!
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:21 am
As much as she’s learning in daycare, you’ll teach her more:
You have resources to become a good teacher for your children, including the Internet, the library, your church, local mom groups, the playground and Mommie-and-Me classes.
Do your homework and you’ll be fine.
December 24th, 2008 at 2:48 am
If you live in an area like me, there usually is some play group at the local library. Check that out. This is where the kids are read to, etc. Also, they will be fine with the socialization skills if you have a local park where other children are there with their kids. And you can have some adult conversations too!
December 25th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
You play with them, read to them, sing, dance, do arts and crafts (age appropriate of course). There are lots of things to do with kids at home. You can also join a group like MOPS or a local playgroup. Neighbors with kids around the same age are great people to start a playgroup. It gets the kids to socialize and the moms get some much needed adult time.
December 27th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
“Teaching” them at this stage is a lot about playtime. You don’t sit them down and say “this is the colour blue” etc but build it into your normal activities. When you’re throwing a ball to each other say throw me the blue ball, or “go find the red car” etc. Your child is already in “learning mode” so she’ll pick up almost anything right now.
As for socialization, you should join a playgroup, go to gymboree or take a class at your community center. She needs interaction with other children her age. Even going to the park in the summer can be great, you can time your visits to when other people are always there so she can play with other kids.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:00 am
give them free play time. read to them. make sure the TV choices are good ones. (i reccomend PBS.) No baby talk. Correct their English. Sing songs.
DON’T LET THE TV BABYSIT OR RAISE YOUR CHILD.
(i TRULY BELIEVE THAT THE AMOUNT OF TV A CHILD WATCHES MAKES THEM MORE PRONE TO ADD.)
oh yeah, and LOVE them. lots of hugs and kisses. create an emotional supprot system.
January 1st, 2009 at 10:31 pm
I used to get the Brighter vision packs, they come customized for each child’s age, and do activities from there. They send tapes of CD’s with music, and stuff. I have a gazillion of books, I read to my kids daily, several times a day, I take them to parks, to parties, to church… you name it. I take them to the beach, to museums, fishing… there’s a lot of inexpensive things you can do with your kids. Sky is the limit. I borrow movies from the library and also tapes, to encourage their auditive learning. But really most of all kids learn best through exploring all three avenues auditive, visual and hands on. If you can have it all in one place, it’s win-win!
Get school supplies, like playdough, glue, do projects every week, stuff like that. We go to the beach and pick up rocks, and then glue them on a piece of wood.
There’s lots of toys that are known to build cognitive skills, and they are not super expensive. But, keep in mind that all kids learn through play. Their attention span is really short for now, so most of the learning you’ll have to ‘play ‘ it out for them. And relax, you can do better than the day care.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:24 am
with my daughter at two, first and foremost I would speak plainly to her, just as if I was speaking to an adult, and if she said something to me in a wrong way like mispronouncing or leaving words out I would then repeat back what she said in the correct manner for instance if she came to be and said “me want cookie” I would then say “oh, you would like a cookie?, can you say..mommy can I please have a cookie?” and even if she didn’t say it right the firs time she would of course still get the cookie, but I would just do that whenever she mispronounced or mis said something. it really helped to further her vocabulary at an early age. I read to her, constantly, to this day she loves books, but her favorites were the ones with the flip ups, and we would play a game, I would flip up the pictures and ask her what they were, and then the next time I would ask her to flip up a particular picture, sometimes it wouldn’t even be on the page we were on, which resulted in her searching the pages to find the item, this promoted her memory skills. and we would do projects that dealt with certain things, we made dirt volcanoes, and shapes out of clay that she got to paint by mixing the color wheel. as for learning to count…she loved working with pennies, (with supervision of course) and we would count how many pennies she was awarded for throughout the day for good behavior such as potty training, putting her toys away, remembering to say please and thank you, or no thank you instead of just no, etc. as for being able to socialize with other children, I signed us up for mommy groups, and the mommy and me classes at a gymnastic place in our neighborhood, it kept me in the loop with other adults, and got her used to being around other children. Key shows she watched:
blues clues
dora
dragon tales
veggie tales
and strawberry shortcake
but the main keys are no baby talk, talk to them just as you would talk to somebody else, and talk to them as if they should know what you are talking about, this gives them the sense that they should, and therefore…they will, and reading, reading is big key in knowledge. oh, and coloring, and writing with a pencil, my daughter loved to have a clean sheet of paper and watching the crayons move across it and the pencil, I would make dotted lines for letters, and she would trace them. or we would color together, but then, she’s a little artist today, so it may be that she just loved to draw and color, but the quicker you get them started the faster they learn. their brains are like little sponges, which is a good thing and a bad thing…good because it really is pretty easy to teach them, and bad because well…they are constantly watching, and pick up all our nasty habits
January 4th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
have playdates with other kids her age. go to the public library for story time. kids learn by playing, so play with her. and make sure she gets some interaction with other kids her age.
January 5th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
i babysit a few kids. Helps with finances and gives my kids the socialization they need. I only watch people I know though. I don’t want to watch a brat who will teach my child to be a brat.