Educational Stuffs

Yesterday my Mom shared on Facebook a cute video about a DIY activity book for toddlers made out of felt fabrics. I suddenly wanted to make one for Jashley, I searched online for some tutorials, and found that it is called "Quiet Books", it is basically a book, usually made out of fabric that filled with quiet activities for the kids.I think this is a perfect activity to keep the little girl busy especially on church and whenever we travel. Plus with this book learning will be definitely fun for her. I hope I can start with this project soon as this will surely take a long time to finish, I actually planned to buy some of the materials needed last night, but Hubby and I have a little tampuhan since Sunday so when he fetched me at the mall last night, and saw him still a little grumpy, I didn't bother ask him to accompany me in buying the stuff. Anyways we're ok now, hopefully I can drop by at the bookstore later, after our dinner with his office mates.

Moving into the real topic, I actually want to share with Mommies out there the stuffs/toys & methods I'm using on teaching Jashley.

1. ABC Puzzle Mat

This mat is really helped us a lot. We have this mat since Jashley was around 5 months old, What we usually do is, we take one letter, show it to her while telling what letter is that. Mostly she won't mind us but we still continue doing this. Until she recognized the letter A, the very first letter she was able to learn, then E, C, S. Then one day I was busy doing something, she picked up a letter, run towards me and waved the letter right in front of my face while shouting "I". I asked her to pick another letter and show it to her Daddy, she was able to tell & show 3 more letters (Y,M,O). She's around 1 yr & 2 mo that time. Presently, she loves disassembling and assembling back this puzzle mat.

2. Magnetic Letters & Numbers

To encouraged her more on learning the alphabet I bought her this magnetic letters at Toy Kingdom for 100+ php per set. What I did before is, I take-out around 3-5 letters (those that she wasn't able to recognize), repeatedly telling and showing her each letter until she was able to memorize at least 1 or 2 of those letters. then we will move to another set of 3-5 letters. And since it is handy, whenever we go out , I am able to bring 3-5 pieces with me so I can teach her, while we are traveling.  

3. Alphabet & Shapes Chart

I bought this chart the same time I bought the puzzle mat, because I wanted to turn Jashley's room into a playroom, since no one is using the room. I put up the chart into the walls. But after a couple of weeks we decided to just set-up her play area on our living room so we can leave her playing there while we can do other things, and just constantly checking her. But I wasn't able to move the chart on the living room because it doesn't look nice, so I just leave that on her room upstair. Until I came up with the idea of putting it into an illustration board to make it sturdy. Those 2 charts are now sticked back to back with each other, making them a little handy in bringing upstair or downstair whenever needed. With these she was able to be more familiar with Alphabets and what objects starts with a specific letter. Same with the shapes, she was able to memorize almost all the basic shapes with this chart.

4. Shape sorter

The shape sorter is a gift from her uncle Jr last christmas, this helped Jashley developed both her analitical & motor skills, At first I just show her where each shapes should go, when it is her turn, she will try each hole and I will say "wrong" when she's trying to insert on a wrong hole, she then continue trying other holes until she heard me say "correct" and she will figure out how to fit the shape on that hole. Come to present time she's now memorize and can play alone with this toy.

looking for the right hole.

5. Wooden Shape Puzzle

This my recently bought toy for her to again encourage her in learning shapes and color. Upon opening it I show her how to use it (mas excited pa ang Mommy. hehe.). When I let her try, aba kabisado na agad. She assemble it quickly while reciting each shapes excepts the pentagon & oval na madalas nya makalimutan. I bought this at Toy Kindom also for 149 php.

6. DIY Shape Bath Toys

This one, I made this using my scrap foam sheets from my scrapbooking stash. I always wanted to buy this kind of bath toys so she can play and at the same time learns while taking a bath. But it is so expensive, so I am having second thought on  buying. Good thing while I'm searching over the net, I stumble on some tutorials on making these bath toys. I remember that I bought this foam sheets at National Bookstore on the scrapbooking section around 5 years ago (yup! sobrang tagal na niyan), so I'm not sure if it is still available now. I use my die cutting machine in cutting the flowers, circle and butterfly to have a perfect cut.

7. Magnetic Drawing Board

One day when hubby and I arrive home from work, eto ang naabutan namin na ginagawa ng batang makulet.

Little busy bee.

Mama taught her pala how to hold a pencil that day and within the day ayun master na ang paghawak ng pencil. From that day whenever she saw a pencil and paper, she will repeatedly says (or rather shout) "write, write, write" and will not stop until you gave her a pencil and paper. So hubby and I decided to buy this drawing board to encourage her to write/doodle more and of course to save our walls from her doodles. Right now, whenever we saw her scribbling on that board, I will asked her; "what are you writing baby"?, she will confidently replied "Jashley" while pointing on her doodle.

8. Books

She have a lot of books also; from alphabets, numbers, shapes, colors, animals and story books. Since she was around 3 months old We make sure that every night before we sleep we will open & read a book for her. As of now, she's the one requesting na to open and read a book for her (see my kwentong libag post), minsan nga she's the one who's telling the story pa or whatever is in the book.

My little reader.

9. Educational Videos

From time to time we allow Jashley to watch educational videos like Dora the Explorer, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse & some nursery rhymes on YouTube, but we limit it for like an hour per day.

10. Educational Smartphone Games

Since I noticed that she's able to operate my phone already, I downloaded several games on my Iphone for her. There is this one shape puzzle game wherein you have to drag a particular shape on its corresponding slot and after you finished sorting all the shapes balloons will show up from the bottom of the screen for you to pop it up. At first she's just interested with popping out those balloons and she will just let and wait for me to sort out the shapes, then when she sees the balloons coming out, she will then take the phone from me. I thought she's just not ready yet for a puzzle game so I didn't force her to do the sorting, but to my surprise, one day while I was busy preparing food on our dining table, and while she's sitting beside me I let her play with my phone. Then she suddenly call me and show me the finished puzzle, I asked her to do it again, it looks like that after all those days she's just observing how I am doing it.

Another puzzle game that she loves to play.

Those are the tools/toys that helped us on teaching Jashley, right now she's able to count na din from 1-10 although constantly skipping the number 5 (i don't know why), for counting I just use any similar items I can find at home to teach her, like candies, her feeding bottles, pens, hangers, etc. I just repeatedly counting these items until one day I heard her counting on her own na.

Here are some of my personal methods naman:

*I usually focus on one lesson at a time, so she will not get confused.

*I use different kind of tools on a each lesson so she will not get bored, I notice kasi if we use one kind of material lang after sometime she don't want to respond anymore kahit ilang beses mo siya tanungin. looks like she's not interested anymore.

*Be creative and fun on teaching, I have a lot of activity in mind that I want to try but some of them I think is not yet appropriate with Jashley's age yet, so I wasn't able to try pa.

*I don't force her. What I do, I will play with her muna to warm her up then slowly asking her some questions, if she respond that is my cue that she is currently in the mood for learning. If after 2-3 times of asking her she didn't reply I won't force her.

*We compliment her everytime she does it right, in that case mas lalo siya nagpapakitang gilas.

*To help her memorize something, after I show and tell her a thing, I will ask her to show and tell it also to her Daddy, then to Mama, to Papa, and to whoever is also there (the more person the better), so in that case she will repeat it as many time as possible for her to remember that particular thing. She enjoy doing this especially when she receives compliments like "very good baby" or "galing galing naman ni Jashley".

So I think thats it for now, will just update if I have discovered new techniques and ways to make learning more fun, 1 tip lang mga Mommies, observe your kids on what interest them the most, so you will know how you will approach them, like for my baby since she like showing off what she knows kapag madaming siya audience, I use those moments para turuan siya, infairness hindi naman kami napaphiya sa audience. Hehe... Till next time mga Mommies, If you have teaching methods that can share with me, I would love to hear them too.