teaching your child the fundamentals with hands on learning

I recently had a parent teacher conference with Ayven’s teacher and I was talking to her about her thoughts of him learning his abc’s numbers, patterns, etc off the IPAD. She said it’s great they do that but they are not learning the fundamentals. What did she mean by that?

She said you need to teach kids with hands on learning before you put any electronic device in front of them. Yes they can learn from games on the IPAD, but are they really understanding what they are learning or just memorizing the game they are playing? She said the key to teaching kids at a young age is using real world objects and showing them how to apply it to certain concepts. The more they do things with their hands, the better they will understand it.  Check out my post on creative ways to get kids to focus on learning post for some other cool ideas.

With her advice she gave me, I bought the Learning Resources Sorting and Patterning Pocket Chart. It comes with 185 colorful cards can be sorted into the clear display pockets by color, shape, animals, transportation, food, clothing, insects and sports. With all of these choices, you can make your child’s imagination go in all different directions.  He thinks it’s a new game for him to play but really it’s way to teach him about different patterns, shapes, objects and their associations. This chart is great because it can be used with older kids too because all the words are on the back of each piece.

Here is how it works:

You start a pattern or association for your child if he/she is younger and you let them finish up the pattern. For example, I did types of fruit or things with wheels or crayons with the color pattern green, blue, green. You then ask them to complete the pattern or association by finding another card to add. The chart has little pockets that the child can put the cards in as they do their patterns or association. It’s giving them hands on learning, something fun for them to do and really challenging their minds.  The best part about this chart is that it has pockets that hold all your extra pieces so it’s mess free!

The pieces have the words on the back of each card so your older ones can practice their reading as well.  There are also question mark cards you can put in place so your child knows that they need to fill in the missing blank.

Here are some exercises I have been doing with Ayven and some you can use for older kids:

• Finish the pattern color (ex. red, green, red, ?)
• Choose cards that represent clothing
• Finish the shape pattern (ex. star, rectangle, star, ?)
• Find items that have wheels
• Find animals that start with the letter C
• Find sports balls that are round
• Find all blue items

The possibilities are endless.  This definitely was a great investment for us as he is not only loving this type of learning but truly understanding what he is trying to do.