In Need of Creative Ideas to Help Me Teach My 3 Yr Old Boy

My son - who's also 3 - learned all his letters from the website starfall.com when he was just over 2. It's a fun website that helps teach reading.

The other recommendation I have is if he likes Thomas - I just picked up the Thomas the Train Learn at Home kit - which has flashcards, workbooks, etc. It was only $9.99 at Borders. Not all Borders have them though.

I agree with the other responses regarding working the learning into everyday tasks.

My boy is 3 and is also very active! He doesn't sit still long enough to do much of anything. What I do with him is usually when we're out doing stuff that bores him. Like at the grocery store, we point out letters and numbers, find the object that begins with a certain letter, or count out green beans. It keeps him entertained and makes grocery shopping something that he's not just stuck in a car for. When we go for walks we usually look for a certain color car or house or count the houses on a block. All these silly things keep him from getting bored and restless and apply what he knows to different things.

He's already doing more than enough then most adults in a day. Slow him down on each event and space a little t.v. time or computor learning but fun video. Try not to fill his day with work only. It doesn't have to be all educational. He needs to have fun to build his imagination also. Let him play band with wooden spoons and old pots and pans. Happy holidays.

Some things I did with my now-4-yr-old, who is also very active: To help reinforce his ABCs and letter sounds, we'd bounce a ball back and forth. I'd say "A apple", then he'd bounce it back and say "B ball". We'd go through the whole alphabet. We did that with numbers, too. He'd bounce it to me and I'd say "1", then I'd bounce it to him and he'd say "2", etc. When I began teaching him sight words, I would write 2 each on index cards and play them as a Memory game. This was even a great game to take to church because it was quiet. :)

Another game we played was called "Slap It!" (I got it from www.cullensabcs.com) I used 2 colors of construction paper and wrote the numbers 1-10 on them (so there were 2 of each number). We'd shuffle the piles (he'd have one and I'd have one). Then he would put a card down...say "5". I would lay down my cards one at a time. When he saw the "5" (the cards matched), then he would Slap It! As he became familiar with those numbers, I'd add more and more and more. I would also have him put the numbers in order. As learned all the numbers (he now can count to 100 and recognize 2 & 3-digit numbers), I started teaching him to add them together. To do this (again because he's so active), I put masking tape numbers 1-10 on the floor. I would show him a math problem, then he'd start at the first number and bunny hop the second number, and that would be the answer. He LOVES doing that!

I second the responses about Starfall.com. My son also plays games on pbskids.org.

http://www.freewebs.com/atozlearningtree has some ideas that might help you. Under the L page there is a link to the Illinois Early Learning Standards. These can be your guide in what to teach him.
Read to him often, work on proper pencil grip, using scissors and talk to him about his world. When you read ask him to tell you back parts of the stories or guess what will come up next. For math work on patterns, counting out objects and recognizing the numbers.

For learning the letter sounds and recognizing them I swear by Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD. I think it's the best way to teach the letter sounds. Have him watch it 2 or more times a day for a week and you will have that skill down pat.

N.

My opinion ... your son is only 3 and his everyday play is teaching him more than one realizes ... as long as you incorporate the "education" into his play than he will respond to it, but in my opinion if you pull him away from play and "sit him down" to learn (not that you are necessarily doing this, I do not know) than he might resist and not view learning with such excitement. Kids are amazingly creative on their own when left alone from time to time ... continue to praise the ideas he comes up with and what he has learned and he'll keep doing that.

One thing to do in general is to focus on activities that he won't get so much of in preschool and then kindergarten. You don't want him to be totally bored out of his mind when they teach the basics on colors and shapes and numbers in school. At home you are in a better position to engage him in larger scale projects that engage all his senses and abilities. For example, getting train track and blocks and legos and people and creating towns. The little town can have a store (numbers) and a park (colors and shapes) and school (whatever else the school children are learning). If possible use as many regular household items to do this - you don't have to go out and spend a lot of money. Try to do it where it can stay for several days. Follow your son's lead as much as you can to encourage his own independent thinking.
I agree that you don't want to make any of this learning feel like work to your son.
Good luck and have fun with your son!!

S.,
If you have internet access here are a couple of awesome sites.
www.drjean.org (this one has a link to the other one)
www.makinglearningfun.com
Do a search on Highway Letters, numbers and shapes. The letters are black with white lines (like on the road) so your son can drive his trucks and cars on them and learn at the same time. Everything can be downloaded for free.
I teach pre-school and use these sites often. If you want you can email me with any questions. You might even find some fun things for your daughter too.
Good Luck! T.

Hi S.,
If he likes all of the things you're currently doing, then keep doing them. Feed off of his interests. But most of all...BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS! You can always find a book at the library that can be tied to his interests. Ask him what he wants to know about, or take the lead from his favorite toys, and then go online and search your library's database to find books on tose subjects to get at your next trip to the library. Get out of the house. Take him everywhere...museums (there's a great car museum up in Volo, IL near Lake in the Hills), botanical gardens...I also go through the Calendar section in the free Family Time magazine and circle all of the events we might be interested. We've gone to a few that were so so, but most of the time the activites were really great especially the re-enactments and early settler life type stuff. As for stuff to do at home, I get a lot if great ideas from a site caled Family TLC. They have different projects and catgories up each month including supplimental reading that cooresponds the the projects. their address is http://www.familytlc.net/index.html Have fun!

My son is 2 1/2 and we play with foam stickers a lot. They sell them in buckets at Michaels and other stores. They have some with numbers and letters. We make little art projects with them. He has a blast with the stickers and is learning his letters and numbers and colors at the same time. They also sell these in shapes and other objects. They are fun to play with and best of all, if they happen to get placed on a table or wall they easily come off!

I didn't read any of the other posts so.... here goes: I had a very active 3 year old boy at one point in my life. Anything with wheels was his favorite! I found that everyday life, mini field trips even going to the grocery store were all learning experiences. You can count cans, push carts or look for the "blue box" or play "let's find this item" or in a grocery store. Don't underestimate the power of math skills in a grocery store - numbers and colors are everywhere, as well as different smells, temperatures, etc.... Singing songs in the car and making up rhymes is great. Just get in the habit that, when you go to a store, give yourself additional time because you will need the patience to let him walk an aisle and explore a bit. (NOT FOR EVERY SHOPPING TRIP - THAT WILL GET OLD!) I was never a parent who had problems with my children in a store because, my son usually got a hot wheel car at the end of the trip and my daughter would get something trinkety too - unless they did misbehave. They also learn to interact with others safely too, and helps with their social skills and good manners. You can buy all the toys in the world and they will still learn the most from you and their own observations. My daughter and son are the same ages apart -does your son have that "second mom" yet???? Great ages! Best of luck to you.

Dear S., My one son used to love lego's. He would build things with them for hours. Try Lego's or playdough. Good Luck.

I agree with the poster who said he is learning more from every day activities then you know. It is very important I think to include them in many things that you do in the course of your day. He is learning about the entire world. Everything is new to him. I wouldn't get too hung up on letters and numbers at this point. I would try to foster his love of exploring and learning with creative projects, like the painting, also building, sculpting, and just experimenting with things in his normal environment. AND books! My boy was totally into cars and trucks too-he had some of those big giant books with all the different trucks etc. and quickly learned all the names of them and what they did. Also dinosaurs, space stuff..animals....whatever is of interest to him.

Use everything in your day to help him learn his abc and 123's. For example when I was putting my sons shoes on this morning, (I put an r on the right instep and an l on the left instep) and we practice the sound of r and l and also sounded out the word to see what other letter sounds we hear and what are the names of those letters. When we play cars we put the equal amount of cars in different rows and we count rows and we match the same color cars and make patterns with different colors for example putting 2 yellow cars and then 1 red car and continuing that pattern over again. We count how many steps there are where ever we go. When he starts with 5 chicken nuggets and he eats two we do a little subtraction. While reading books to him following the words with your fingers helps them with word recognition. Remember kids learn through play especially during this age. So your right flashcards will get old super fast.

This is something my kids school did when they were in preschool. Collect labels from stuff you buy. Then read them to your son and when you go shopping, let him help by finding the item using the letters in the name of the item.

Read fun books to him. I recommend Sandra Boynton's books, Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant and the Minnie and Moo books. Also find truck books perhaps DK books. The library is a great place to go but buying some favorite books is also nice if you can afford it. Flashcards are boring. Read, listen, interact, play and have fun.

Read Einstien Never Used Flashcards. It gives you information on how and when children learn concepts and ideas on how to teach them.

Hi S.,

I have a almost 3 yr old girl and a 6 yr old boy. I just got my daughter on the computer with some great easy toddler games and she loves it....
I suggest Jumpstart series, they are great learning tools and fun, they don't even realize they are learning anything and it also teaches hand/eye coordination.
Good luck...
C.

The book "Einstein didn't use flash cards" is great. It compiles a lot of great research on how children learn and what they learn when. the research shows the wisdom of much of Maria Montessori's observations that children learn contextually and by tactile interaction with the world. So the flashcards and video/TV leapster etc are much less effective than interactive play with things. For young children in essence, play is work. there are a whole bunch of books at Oak Park Library and I am sure at many other libraries that are play manuals for montessori and give activities for parents. they are very interesting and fun. Good luck.

S., I am not sure my response is exactly what you are looking for but I raised two sons and I am a child development specialist. Three year olds are not pariticulary interested in counting, colors, and ABC's isolated on their own. My suggestion is to give him a lot of pretend play opportunities, lots of outside play and reading to him. These are the things that really increase a child's interest in the world around them, increase their vocabulary and peek their interest in colors and numbers. For example if you are playing matchbox cars with him and say "can you line up a red car, a yellow car and blue car for the race?" is a much more developmentally meaningful way to learn his colors than holding up flash cards. Please read Millie Almay'a "A child's Right to Play" to really capture the importance of play for children. Enjoy!

My daughter is three also and loves to play musical plates. I took several paper plates and wrote 1 letter (or you could do numbers)on each side. I layed out the plates in a circle( using whichever side of the plate you want)and then play music. She steps from plate to plate till the music stops. When the music stops she has to name the letter she landed on. She loves playing it and the more kids you have the more fun it will be. Another idea to use is if your son likes cars, trains, etc. you could ask him to go get 2 trains or a blue car, ect. when he wants to play with them. That way your teaching him in a natural way. Grocery shopping is another good one. Have him pick out red apples or 3 apples, etc.

I agree with most of the posts, try to use everyday stuff for him to learn. I have a son that just turned 3 and ever since he was born I counted the buttons when I buttoned a shirt, or the amount of bites left till the end of a meal, When I ask him to get me something I alway say "Please get me the RED car" or the CIRCLE bowl. When we see anything that starts with his name I point out that that is an S and that makes the sss sound. When he is playing with an educational toy (Like the v-tech computer) we work on it together.Just find the educational value in all the things he likes to do. He knows all his letters numbers colors and most of is shapes. It is great that he has no idea that I am teaching him, all he knows is that his mommy plays with him. If you need more specfic ideas I was a preschool teacher before I became a stay at home mom and I have a ton of books with wonderful ideas. Please feel free to email me

S., I own Lil Language Scholars. Preschool is the best time to teach a child a foreign language and there really is a FUN way to do it. Not the rote memorization that we learned. I have a parent book designed for ages 2-6 that includes phonetic guides for the parents in case you don't know any Spanish. I can send you a free sample of it if you like. I offer it at a 10% discount to any mamasource member. Have fun with him and your daughter, they are little sponges at this age.

Everything you do can be a learning experience. Going up and down stairs for instance. My children and I count in English going down and in Spanish going up. We cook together and talk about the measurements and often I will take a 1/4 cup when we need 2 cups of something so that we can figure out how much we need and then count each 1/4 cup that goes in the bowl. The gather ingredients and we count them. We talk about the colors, how they taste separately and how they taste together. We talk about how the vegatable oil floats on the water. We talk about fire safety.

I've done this since my oldest could stand in a chair next to the island. Not sure how much they understand at first, but they get it eventually. We sing songs in the tub. Write the ABC's on the walls with Fun Foam for the tub.

We count their m&m's, talk about how many of each color and make graphs.

We talk about the colors of our clothes when we get dressed.

We go exploring around the neighborhood looking for bugs, animals, and plants. (I even got my oldest a five dollar camera when she was about three to take pictures...you wouldn't believe the pictures she took) We get emails from the Huntley Park District and McHenry Country Conservation program about events like walking through the woods, fishing programs and crafts.

We go to the library and get the pick-up crafts, play on the computers they have there. My oldest learned to use a mouse at the library when she was about 2 1/2...and now they go on Starfall.com and PBSkids.com to play games involving the ABC's and reading.

We get DVD's from the library like Signing Time where they learn sign language. We get LeapFrog DVD's and other learning movies.

I go on-line and google pre-school activities to do from home, free pre-school materials, and so on....My mother-in-law has found numerous activity books that we use at home at discount stores like Village Discount in Elgin. The latest was a Kindergarten Workbook that had a CD in it with computer games. The two year old I watch and my four year old play it every day for an hour.

We play memory games, put together puzzles, play Candy Land, the LadyBug Game, Yahtzee, Go Fish, and Crazy Eights. I just lay the cards on the floor and help them decide what plays they will make. They both know all their colors and even the two year old knows most of her numbers.

Everything you do can be a learning experience. Just think about things as you go through the day.

This might be lame, not sure, but thought I'd put my five cents in.
Try cutting out large shapes from construction paper in different colors, and arrange then on your living room floor, and have your son run to "the green triangle", or "the orange shape", or "circle". Jump 3 times on the square, etc. That will help him with shapes, colors, counting.
They also have these number and letter things that stick in the bathtub, and makes bath time fun, and he will learn at the same time.
Hope this helps a little... my son is very active too, but too young to start learning this stuff. Look forward to seeing other answers so I can get some ideas as well :D