3Rs and Other Skills for 34 month olds

12 September 2013

As the girls approach the age where they are officially preschoolers, I'm also trying to be more intentional with what I'm teaching them at home and preparing them for kindergarten.

READING:

The first part of teaching the girls to read came with having them learn the letters of the alphabet and I shared the most useful tools for this in an earlier post

What comes next after learning all the letters of the alphabet  Learning the sounds they make. I downloaded the LeapFrog Letter Factory "movie" from iTunes and its one of the twins' favorite shows to watch. It's got amazing ratings from parents both on itunes and on Amazon and I can see why. Since they started watching it, they now know the sounds all the letters make and we practice regularly with street signs. Next step will be to start pronouncing actual words

wRITING:

The girls favorite activities is still having me hold their hands to write letters. I'm still trying to figure out alternative ways to teach them their letters. Any tips?

aRITHMETIC:

From the time the girls were able to walk upright on the stairs, we've been teaching them their numbers by counting steps. They learnt to count to 10 first and in the last few months they've gone up to 20. Now I'm teaching them the actual process of counting (as opposed to just reciting the letters). There are a lot of opportunities to do this during the day but one of the best is with their food at dinnertime. We count grapes, blueberries, , snacks in the cupboard, cereal etc. It's still a work in progress but we're getting there

SELF-CARE:

Asides from learning to dress themselves, the girls have also started learning how to sponge themselves in the shower. I got those cute animal sponges you can find in every Walmart and grocery store - the girls got to choose what they wanted so this added to the excitement. Of course they can't reach their backs, but they still love using their cow and piggie sponges

EXTRA:One more thing that the girls are old enough to learn and we've been happy to teach them is their full names (first and last names) as well as ours. This is primarily a safety measure so if we get separated in a public space, they can answer questions in a helpful manner.


Sure my twins are in fulltime daycare and are learning a lot from the time spent there, but I still find that the lessons they learn best are the ones we teach them at home and that's where I need your help. I'm really now looking for teaching guides and techniques to use in the next one year for teaching 3 year olds. 


What tools or activities have worked with your 3 year olds? 

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