The Everything Toddler Activities Book (22 page)

CHAPTER 15

Exploring Concepts

Your young child learns best through play. This is her way of exploring and learning about her environment. For example, when your child is playing with LEGOS, she is learning about colors, counting, and spatial relationships. You can help promote your child’s mastery of basic concepts with some of these fun, hands-on activities.

When your child is learning about shapes, he is learning about basic mathematical and spatial concepts. Everything has a shape. Start to broaden your child’s awareness by pointing out the shapes of everyday objects.

These cute characters and rhymes will help your child with shape identification.

1. From the construction paper, cut out a circle, a square, and a triangle.
   
2. Let your child color in facial features for each shape.
   
3. Teach your child the following rhymes for each shape:
   

   I am Suzy Circle, watch me bend
   Round and round from end to end.
   Tommy Triangle is the name for me;
   Count my sides: one, two, three.
   Sammy Square is my name;
   My four sides are all the same.
   

As your child searches for shapes, he is also developing visual discrimination skills
that will help him with reading when he is older.

1. From the construction paper, cut out a circle, a square, and a triangle.
   
2. Work with one shape at a time. Show your child the shape, and tell him that he is going on a shape hunt. Help him find other items that are that shape. For example, show him the circle and then go around the room looking for circles. Help him find circles in things like a doorknob, a plate, or a clock.
   

Let your child use his creativity while he explores the circle shape.

1. Pour some paint into the pie tin.
   
2. Have your child help you find circular items to use. Some suggested items include jar lids or the rim of a paper cup.
   
3. Show your child how to dip items in the paint and then press them onto the paper to create circle prints.
   

This activity will help your child use problem-solving skills as well as help him with shape identification.

1. Precut a variety of shapes from the construction paper, making multiples of each shape as well as different sizes of each.
   
2. Show your toddler how to arrange the shapes to create the forms of animals. For example, a triangle could be the head, and four circles can be used for paws. Glue each animal to the poster board.
   
3. Help your child identify the shapes that he uses. Encourage your child to label the animal that he made. Did he make a lion, a bear, or perhaps a new species altogether?
   

There are many activities that can help your child learn color identification. The most successful activities are hands-on and engage your child’s senses. Here are just a few to get you started.

Here is a way for your child to see the world through many-colored lenses.
This activity can also serve as an introductory lesson on mixing colors.

1. Put two paper plates together and cut a hole in the center about the size of a plum.
   
2. Cut a piece of colored cellophane slightly larger than the hole.
   
3. Glue the cellophane to the top of one plate to cover the hole.
   
4. Set the second plate on top of the first and help your child glue them together. Now you have a rainbow disc for your child to look through.
   
5. Repeat these steps to make two more discs in the remaining colors. Show your child how to overlap the discs to create new colors.
   

Lotto games enhance your child’s memory and problem-solving skills.
You can adapt this game for shape, letter, or number recognition as well.

1. Make two lotto cards for each color by cutting an index card in half crosswise.
   
2. Cut pieces of colored construction paper to fit the halves of each card.
   
3. Have your child help glue the paper on the cards. Each card should have a colored side and a blank side.
   
4. Mix the cards and arrange them in rows colored side down.
   
5. Your child is to flip over two cards and try to find a match. When she does, she can remove the cards. If she does not make a match, she is to turn the cards back over and try again. Do not worry about strictly following the rules. Your child may need to turn over more than two cards or even keep them facing up.
   

This fun game will help your child develop her eye-hand coordination while learning to identify colors. You need to closely supervise this activity at all times—the “fishing line” could wrap around your child, and the magnets and clips could pose a choking hazard.

1. Tie the string around the end of the stick and then attach the magnet to serve as the hook.
   
2. Cut the construction paper into fish shapes several inches in length.
   
3. Attach a paper clip to the head of each fish.
   
4. You can place the fish on the floor or put them in an empty aquarium.
   
5. Show your child how to use the magnetized fishing pole to “catch” a fish. Have her identify the color of the fish she catches.
   

This is a great sensory activity that will help your child observe what happens when
colors are mixed. Be sure to talk to your child about what she sees.

1. Add a small amount of the blue and red paints in a zip-top bag and seal. Place that bag inside a second bag and seal.
   
2. Let your child squish and knead the bag to mix the paints and create the color purple.
   
3. Repeat with other color combinations (such as blue and yellow to make green, white and red to make pink, etc.).
   

Children develop a mathematical awareness at an early age. Although your toddler is not ready for mathematical equations, you can start to introduce him to the concepts of quantity and the symbolic representation of quantity.

You do not need to plan a formal activity to help your child develop number and counting concepts.

As you go through the day with your child, count with him. Point out things in his environment and encourage him to count with you. “Let’s count how many cookies are on the plate.” “Look, Andy, there are a lot of birds on the tree, let’s count them!”

Use this popular rhyme to reinforce number concepts with your toddler.
You can also do this activity with The Three Bears and their bowls of porridge.

1. Recite the following rhyme for your toddler:
   

   Three little kittens,
   They lost their mittens,
   And they began to cry,
   Oh, mother dear,
   We sadly fear
   Our mittens we have lost.
   What! Lost your mittens,
   You naughty kittens!
   Then you shall have no pie.
   Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
   You shall have no pie.
   The three little kittens,
   They found their mittens,
   And they began to cry,
   Oh, mother dear,
   See here, see here,
   Our mittens we have found.
   What! Found your mittens,
   You darling kittens!
   Then you shall have some pie.
   Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
   You shall have some pie.
   

2. Set up the three pictures and have your child count and distribute the mittens for each cat.
   

Here is a fun way to help your child see the relationship between numerals and quantity.

1. Cut the construction paper in the shape of a cake. Repeat to make 5 cakes.
   
2. Mark the assigned number on the side of the cake.
   
3. Cut out 15 thin rectangle shapes for candles. Cut out tiny yellow teardrop shapes for flames and glue them onto the candles.
   
4. For each cake, help your child identify the number and glue on the appropriate number of candles.
   

Here is a fun outdoor activity that will reinforce number concepts and counting skills.

1. Mark each bag with a number, starting simply with just 1, 2, and 3.
   
2. Take your child outdoors where he can find things to collect, such as leaves or stones. Direct him to put the appropriate number of items in each bag.
   

Your young child is just starting to learn to decode and interpret symbols. Although you may consider letter recognition an important skill, be sure to keep the learning activities fun! Letter recognition is only one step in developing literacy skills and will not be fully mastered for a few years yet. (You will find more literacy activities in
Chapter 11
.)

Help your child with letter recognition and problem solving with this twist on a classic game.

1. On each index card, draw a line crosswise down the center.
   
2. On each side of the line, print a letter of the alphabet so that the top of each letter faces the line in the middle. To keep it simple, you may wish to use only a few letters.
   
3. Show your child how to match up the ends as you would with regular dominoes.
   

Help your child with letter recognition and awareness. Show her how there are letters all around her.

1. Have your child pick out and identify letters in her alphabet soup or cereal.
   
2. For a variation, give your child some dry alphabet cereal or noodles and challenge her to find certain letters. Perhaps you can help her spell her name.
   

Here is a concrete way to help your toddler with letter identification and the sounds the letters make. Close supervision is needed when you are working with small objects.

1. Cut your chosen letters from the poster board. Make them 8–10 high, leaving plenty of room to glue objects.
   
2. Help your child select and then glue appropriate objects onto the letter. For example, glue buttons on the “B” or glue pennies on the “P.”
   

Time is one of the more complex concepts you can’t expect your young child to comprehend. This is because your child cannot see or touch time. Time is an abstract concept, so any meaningful activities must be hands-on and relevant for your child.

Although your child is not ready to measure time with a clock,
you can introduce him to the basic concept of time passage in a concrete way.