Whether you’re planning on homeschooling your children or sending them to formal education, it’s important to remember that learning doesn’t start at school. Children are literally born to learn and explore the world around them, and this is the prime time to start their education.
By giving them this head start, you’ll help your child be prepared for school or more formal education at home, so they can adapt and progress more quickly.
Teach them to Read
Before your child starts their education, they should have the basics covered. This means potty training, basic communication skills, and the ability to read and write. Some of these things might be covered in preschool, but before school starts, you will be your child’s primary educator.
Your child will learn to talk naturally as they get older, but you can encourage them by speaking to them often and encouraging them to communicate. Most children are potty trained at about two or three years old. All of this happens way before they start their education at five years old.
This leaves reading and writing. One of the best ways to teach your child to read is to make it fun for them. If reading is a chore, your child will be less likely to read of their own volition. Literacy rates are worse than they used to be, because children prefer to be entertained with devices and games, but you can buck the trend.
Read with and to your children often. This is a great bonding experience and it can be a wonderful treat. Help them develop their interests and favorite genres. Look into the best book gifts for toddlers so you can make reading something special.
Your child might not grow up to be a big reader. Some people are, some people aren’t. But they should at least know how to read by the time they start school. Writing is a bit more challenging, but if your child can draw and read, they already have the building blocks to learn how to write.
Drawing and Artwork
As your toddler gets older, they develop their personalities and preferences. One of the best ways to learn more about them and help them figure out what they like is to provide them with plenty of experiences and varied play.
Drawing is a great thing to encourage your toddler to do, for a number of reasons. First, it’s fun. Kids often like to make a mess and play with different colors and textures, and drawing helps them do that.
Secondly, it encourages them to be creative. They learn how to picture something in their minds and recreate it on the page. Yes, things might start out as scribbles on a page, but then stick figures emerge to represent people in their lives and, before you know it, you can tell what they’re drawing.
Finally, this is great for their fine motor skills and teaches them how to hold and use a pen. Start with crayons as they’re much easier to hold, but you can progress to felt tips or pencils as they get better at holding small objects.
This makes it much easier for them to transition to holding a pen or pencil and writing as well as drawing. As they gain a more steady hand, you could consider teaching them how to write the alphabet and their name.
Playdates and Social Skills
One of the most important things to teach your children is how to get along with others. Toddlers often get pretty good at learning how to socialize with adults, because they are always with their parents and other adult family members or babysitters.
But other children are another thing entirely. One upside to having more than one child is that they can socialize with each other, for better or for worse. But whether you have a couple of kids or an only child, it’s still important for your children to meet a variety of people their age.
This is because they need to learn how to make friends and get on with other people. In school, they will be thrust into a class of multiple children, and unsocialized kids might struggle to make friends, especially if they aren’t used to sharing with other children.
So, set playdates with other families and make sure your child is at least used to others their age.
Practical Skills
As well as making sure your child has the basics covered, it’s a good idea to provide a well rounded education. Toddlers are designed to learn and find it fun, which is great for parents. They also want to be with you all the time and take joy in “helping” around the house.
Yes, this does mean that they can make the chores harder, but it is a very important way for them to learn.
Rather than trying to get the helpful little darlings out of your way, encourage them to help you. Give them little tasks to do that will help them learn how to hold different items and tidy things up. You can even give them toys that simulate chores, like a toy vacuum cleaner that they can push around while you clean the house.
One great thing to teach your child is how to cook. A toddler obviously can’t be trusted around knives and hot stoves, but they can still help you with cooking.
Kids can help you pour measured ingredients, mix things up or cut out shapes with a biscuit cutter. If you make things like cookies and other baked goods, they then get the joy of eating something that they helped to make.
Children won’t enjoy being with you all the time and doing chores with you for long. They get older and asking them to do chores will become more of a chore. So take advantage of this time, it won’t last forever, and it’s worth treasuring before they get older.