Since my big girl is in 5th grade and she was 8 when I had my baby, I feel like I am starting all over again. Not to mention I worked full time when my oldest was this age - oh, my baby is 17 months, forgot that part...lol. She is starting to really talk a lot. She loves books. She enjoys naming the animals. My question is this - all of the board books I have - have animals that don't really look like real animals. In other words, turtles are not orange with big smily faces and frogs don't look human like. Dogs and cats don't play instruments. I was wondering if there are any flash cards available that have real pictures of animals with the names of them? Or if you have suggestions for better ways to teach her these animal names. Will it even matter? I am not sure she would know a turtle in real life, but she sure does in her books when they look like non-turtles. :? What is appropriate for teaching a toddler of 1.5/2 years old? Is this old enough to color, finger paint, etc? What do you do with your toddlers when you are doing school?
My oldest was 6 1/2 when my youngest was born. Oldest is now 14 and in high school, youngest is now almost 8. I did things very differently with them probably because when you have just one it is easier to focus on just them. Plus I babysat another child when my youngest was little. Anyway.......I don't think you need "real" looking pictures to teach them what animals are what. Of course if you can find it that would be great, maybe look at the library for some books and I think I saw the flashcards at WalMart once. But I think your child will be able to learn what they are even with cartoonish pictures. You could probably find some pictures online too. When dd14 was little I spent so much time teaching her though play. We'd look at books and play with wooden puzzles of ABC's, animals, hands and feet that hand fingers and toes numbered. Come to think of it I believe I got those nice wooden puzzles at WalMart. We used them till they fell apart. By the time she was 2 she was speaking in sentences, could say her ABC's in English and French, name animals, shapes and county to ten. With dd7 I didn't have that much time to devote to one child but I think she learned a LOT from her older sister playing with her. She talked really well (I think that was just hereditary) she knew her ABC's in English only, knew animals and shapes but probably not quite as well as her sister did at that age. Mine both LOVED to finger paint at that age or sponge paint but only my oldest liked to color. My youngest is just now starting to enjoy coloring. I think learning through play is the best way to go. You may check with WalMart to see if they have those puzzles still. It's also great for hand eye coordination.
I think finger-painting is great at that age as long as you supervise and use non-toxic paints...my ds has always wanted to do what my dd does so when she was 4 and painting he was about 15 months and doing it right along with her. A great book for photos of animals with names is My Big Animal Book by Roger Priddy. My dd recieved this on her 1st b-day and enjoyed it and my ds loved it when he was a little one.
I don't have this age in my house anymore, but I do teach this age group in Sunday School. I cannot for the life of me get these kiddos to use a crayon. All they want to do is watch them roll off the table and wad up the paper because they like the sound of it!LOL I am not about to try fingerpaints with these guys! One of the things you could do for "realistic" animal pics is try Ranger Rick or a similar magazine. My kids love this mag.
