I have spent some times trying to figure out how to incorporate learning time into Cameron’s play time. Toys are great and she loves them, but because she is constantly developing at the moment I want to make sure she has educational items to play with as well.
Of course when I’m thinking of buying her toys I try to see what educational value the toy has. She has a lot of leap frog and vtech items that help with numbers and colors and words. Same with learning to be kind, taking care of animals, and playing music. But I wanted something more for her as well. I searched the dollar store and the target dollar spot around back up school time and found some good stuff.
Magnets– Cameron loves magnets so when I found some numbers and shapes I knew I had to get them. She moves them around and we go over them with her speaking to each one. She also has a few magnet boards that play music and make noise with animals and letters at her grandpas house.
Coloring books- I tried to get her some coloring books that were activity books as well. And while she loves to color, she hasn’t quite figured out the activity portion yet, and she hasn’t really learned to color in between the lines, but we sit and draw on the pictures and speak to the colors and what we are coloring in.
Letter/number posters- I found this letter and number posters that teachers normally have bordering their walls in their classrooms. I wanted to use these as a little learning corner in her playroom where we could teach her and go over letters and numbers and shapes and colors.
Flash cards– The final thing I found were packs of flash cards. First words, animals, shapes, colors, numbers, adding, alphabets. She more uses these to toss around the room and hasn’t quite understood the meaning of them yet but it’s just nice to have them to go over words with her even if she doesn’t fully pay attention to it.
I know there is plenty more out there to use for creative and learning play, but this is what we have begun with as well as reading to her and singing to her so she can learn as well as play.
Do you have anything special you use to get your child to learn?
