Hellobee Boards

Hmm. At that age, I think we tried to make learning fun but repetitive.

Like, we'd stack blocks. Before stacking, we'd say "ohh I love this color! This is red! Let's stack only the red blocks!" etc etc then we'd count them. That kind of thing.

She learned a LOT in preschool though. It really surprised me!

N is 20 months and the obsession with animal sounds is going on months strong, he knows about 20. He also knows 7 colors and will point them out to me all the time. Doesn't seem too interested in numbers or the alphabet though.

I like your approach. If you have various toys that open the discussion about letters, numbers, colors, and shapes, then you can just let your child lead you where they want to go. My daughter showed zero interest in singing the ABCs for months, and then one day she just belted out the entire song from start to finish. I think she was more into shapes and colors first, and then letters, followed by numbers, in that order. Other kids might be entirely different though.

We just talk to her A LOT!!! She's really into the alphabet right now. Of course every letter is A but she's learning! She knows all animals and sounds so I think she's moving on to other things.

@scg00387: I say just talk, talk, talk. Get on lo's level when you can and point things out- shapes, colors, numbers, animals, smells, things in the air (airplanes, helicopters, sky..)- just everything!

@mrskc: Nah I don't think you have to force it...he'll let you know when he wants to focus more on those things. I'd do the same thing as you, for what it's worth. I have no idea why my lo has become obsessed with colors, and she only knows the numbers from "Spot Can Count," which we've read 0958430594830598340589 times. No 1:1 correspondence or anything like that. Anyway, for whatever it's worth, I don't think pushing it when they don't care about it is a good thing.

LO has always been into ABCs, numbers, colors, shapes. Totally toddler-led, but she can sing ABC song, identify some letters, can count to 20, knows about 10 shapes (trapezoid, hello!), and a bunch of colors. We talk to her a lot and I think she learns a lot at "school" aka daycare. She's more interested in reading than playing with dolls or blocks, although she does enjoy those things occasionally. For us, it just all happened naturally.

This is also a great age for sensory play, if you're okay with a bit of a mess, finger paints are great and you can explore color in paint.

We had very little in terms of traditional educational toys, but we did have a shape sorter and a set of stacking rings. Those are great for color and shapes. As for numbers we just used good old pen and paper for that. My son loved to point out numbers.

@mrskc: @googly-eyes: I agree with letting it unfold naturally (which I guess is pretty much what everyone else is saying, too )

My LO picked up a lot at daycare/ preschool, so that was easy for us. I kind of hate toddler play at home and I would rather eat glass than read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? again, so we go out and do a lot of activities each weekend. Zoo, farmer's market, parks, children's museum, etc. Since we go weekly she has picked up a lot of stuff at those places that she likes to talk about. Then we just expand from there.

@katsupgirl: i like how you incorporate counting! I am going to try that.

We have not any system to LO's learning, but notice that he is picking up tons. He's been learning the letters with the foam letters we have in his bath tub. And now he likes us to names the letters he sees in books. It is all very sporadic though and I am not worried at this age about doing anything specific or systematic for his learning. He learns with everything he does! Colors and shapes he learns through his toys and blocks, but also transfers it to other things, like sometimes he will name the color of clothing.