Keep in mind, that all of these ideas are on this same Pinterest Board. Every activity, song, book, food, I've found on Pinterest and pinned them to this same Board. All Sources are from Pinterest. The only thing I came up with on my own (generally) are Field trip ideas and The weekly or monthly plans, but the everyday ideas are from Pinterest. Again, *All of the daily ideas I’m using come from Pinterest and you can find them on my Pinterest Boards. The weekly ideas are my own and can also be found on my Pinterest Boards.*
Since my little one is only 19 months, I'm trying to make this uncomplicated and basic. SO, instead of following our daily themes (Mon- library/books/reading, Tues-Music/Dancing, Wed-Art, Thurs-Games and Activities, Fri-Field trip or learning, and Sat-Food), we're going to follow it a bit more loosely. I've decided to do one shape and one color each day. I'm only choosing 6 colors and 6 shapes. This may be ambition since I don't know how many colors or shapes he recognizes. We'll go over the other colors and maybe other basic shapes once we get these ones down. We will be singing individual songs for each color each day.
Monday- Red and Heart We don't have the books yet, but they are on hold. The three books I chose are Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? By Eric Carle, Shape by Shape written by Suse MacDonald, So Many Circles, So Many Squares. I'm not sure who that is written by but it's on the same Pinterest Board as this one. I will also use color books I already have.
How it Went:
We read two books, one just about colors and the other one was colors and shapes. They were just books I already had. One is called Slide and Seek Colors made by Priddy Books. He loves this book and I do too! The other book is okay, not my favorite but since our books aren’t at the library we reserved them at quite yet, it works for now. It’s called Colors & Shapes (Baby’s First Library) made by YoYo Books. I don’t love it because I think it’s kind of confusing have a colored page and trying to teach the colored object (a different color) in the middle of the page. Also , the shapes are a little confusing, like glasses. They have round parts, but not just round parts and it’s cartoon drawing. Anyway, it works, but just not as clear as it could be.
Then we talked about red specifically and sang the song. I like the song, not because of the words, but because it’s to a tune I can remember. We sang it several times and he liked it. I then showed the heart shape. I am emphasing colors more than shapes for now because I feel like it’s more developmentally appropriate for him right now. I’m not saying that all 18 month olds aren’t capable to understand shapes, but I’ve never really talked about or focused on them a lot and I have more with colors. Plus I don’t feel like heart is a necessary shape to learn yet, it just went well with red. :)
Tuesday- Orange and Rectangle We are going to sing songs about shapes today. There is one that has several verses about shapes.
How it Went:
So I added the videos of the music we listened to about colors and shapes. He loved both of the songs and we listened to them each at least 3 times. Repetition for children is key to learning and remembering (for adults too! :)) We also tried to sing the orange song to the tune of 10 Little Indians, but maybe I just didn’t look up the right version to 10 Little Indians, but I couldn’t figure it out. So that didn’t work out for us. We’re going to get all of our library books today, so we’ll go over orange a little bit more today. We also stopped by All a Dollar to get some supplies for this week. I found little containers in the shape of a square, circle, rectangle, and triangle. So we’re using them for learning this week also! It was 1 dollar for all 4, they’re just little, but helpful. He tries to say the names of the colors and shapes. We’ll see over the week if he learns them. :)
Wednesday- Yellow and Circle We are going to use a paper towel or toilet paper roll to paint circles. Another thing I found that would be fun is to use other "stencils" is how she put it to make the same shape. Like lids to juice or milk and whatever circle type thing you can find around your house that you don't care if it gets painted. I'm combining two ideas here.
How it Went:
We ended up just using the toilet paper roll which was still a little complicated for little guy. He didn’t understand not to squish it. After making a few circles, he started finger painting. I was worried he might try to put it in his mouth since the last time we painted, it was edible. We had no issues with that. Also, it wasn’t a big mess. we used the paint lid to get the paint and wasted less paint that way. the paint was from All a Dollar. We only used yellow since today was about learning yellow. Also just the circle, not the other shapes. So far this week he has tried to say the names of colors and shapes much better than usual. We’re excited about that improvement. We also read the books that we got from the library. Lijah loves the Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? book because it has a blue horse. I love because at the end of the book, you can ask your child to point to the colors. It helps you to know how much they know. :) Lijah got a little bored with the So Many Circles, So Many Squares. I think it was my fault though. We’ll try it again. He also likes the Shape by Shape book. It helps to identify shapes and it’s fun because it is a dinosaur and Lijah loves dinosaurs. Lastly, we introduced the circle box today. I’ll take some pictures so you can see and understand better what I’m talking about. He loves to take the lids off and on. I think he understands circles better than squares. Today after we were talking about circles, he said ball triumphantly like he understood that a ball is a circle or round.
Thursday- Green and Square Our plan is (if I can find enough wipe lids), to do a lift and find of shapes and colors. This will take a little more prep, but I think in the long run it will be worth it. I'll stick with the daily themes. In other words a red heart, a green square, etc.
How it Went:
We actually switched Rectangle and Square accidently, so today we are doing green and rectangle. We also forgot to sing our yellow song yesterday, so we sang it today along with our green song. We also read the 3 library books again at least once. He still likes the Brown Bear one best because of the blue horse, but I think it’s a little overwhelming for him to learn all of those colors at once. I think next week after we move, we’ll find some bottles to fill with water and put colored objects in, but only one color at a time or do 6 color sensory bags to help him learn colors. I honestly thought colors would be easier than shapes. I really like the dinosaur book Shape by Shape, it’s helped him to identify a few shapes at least. When we do colors, we don’t get any where. We also aren’t doing today’s planned activity. We did an informal colors hunt in our front room, we just looked for each of the 6 colors we’re learning about this week. He still doesn’t know them, but I helped him identify some.
Friday- Blue and Diamond I'm planning to do Spray Snow, but that will depend on if I can find the Pin for this activity and if we still have snow by then. I will also have to buy the bottles to put them in, but I can just buy them at All a Dollar I believe and need to go there anyway. That's our field trip, going outside. :)
How it Went: So instead of diamond we decided to do blue and triangle. The reason being, I only have the triangle left of the shape containers we have and since we are moving tomorrow, I need to pack it tomorrow. So we did do the spray snow idea. Unforunately I packed all my food coloring stuff, not to mention the container I would have used to put the “snow” in. I put “snow” because it was really more ice than snow. Also since it was ice, we got some grass and other fun stuff inside it. There were a few hiccups and I definitely want to try this again next year or maybe later when there is fresh snow. Another hiccup, I only had a spray bottle (all of which will be pictures later and you could totally call it a pin fail due to moving circumstances, haha!). For an older child that wouldn’t be a problem, but my little guy doesn’t know how to do that. We used orange juice since we had no food coloring. I wouldn’t recommend it. On the snow, it looks yellow and we wanted to do blue because that’s what we are studying today. Oh well. On the upside, he had fun anyway and he also knows a color! Only blue, but that is progress! :)
Saturday- Purple and Triangle We're going to rainbow fruit skewers! :) I'm hoping this will actually happen since we are moving that day. Otherwise, we may do it next week or I'll just point out the colors of the things he eats normally to keep it simple and not stress.
That's the plan! You can either do it with me this week or do it the following week and learn from mistakes. Really you can do whatever whenever you want, but I do hope you find this helpful some how!
How it Went: I didn’t have time to get all the beautiful fruits for fruit skewer, so I just told me the colors of the foods he ate at each meal. He also can recognize a diamond because of the book Shape by Shape, but we didn’t sing the purple song. We may do it next week. We hardly focused at all on colors and shapes since we moved. My advice is: If you really want you toddler to learn something, especially if it is important to you, don’t choose to do it on a CRAZY BUSY week. I think we’ll focus on colors and shapes again later, another week. I’m not sure when yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment