One of the things that scared me most about becoming a mom was thinking about how I was going to teach my kids things. How am I going to teach them the things they need to learn? I love learning and know it never stops and I loved school (yes, I was that girl), but the thought of teaching my own children things was amazingly frightening to me.
Since I wasn't around during the baby stages of my kids' lives (you can read about it here), I can't offer you advice on how to teach a newborn, but I can tell you what works as they're toddlers to first graders.
1. Feed on their interests. With two little boys at our house, you can imagine the amount of Legos, train sets, Lincoln Logs, race tracks and other things to build that we have. When the boys were younger, we would always build with them and my husband would construct this crazy train bridges that we asked him to build. Now, they're building on their own and if we're given the chance to build with them, it's more like they're the engineers telling us what to do. Any activity that requires putting things together, taking them apart and gives your child the flexibility to use their imagination is one you should do.
2. Read to them and with them. I love books. Our boys love book. We're running out of room for our books. We spend at least 30-45 minutes a day reading. We read stories and they pick out words (and now our oldest can read for himself.). If they express an interest in something, we buy books on that something. Right now, they're really into space, the ocean and how things work, so we have books about those things.
3. Make TV/game time educational. I'm not a big TV watcher and we're not parents who put our kids in front of the television or hand them a game to play so we can do whatever we want. With that said, I don't think there's anything wrong with letting your kids watch TV or play games on your phone or iPad occasionally. The boys have fallen in love with The Magic School Bus. We gave our oldest some DVD's of it for his birthday and they love watching those and reading their books. In regards to games on the iPhone and iPad, there are lots of educational games that you can download (and even for free). There are matching games, spelling games, tracing games, reading games and so much more. They have fun playing and learn in the process.
4. Spend time with them. I think one of the greatest things you can do to help your child grow and feel nurtured and loved is to spend time with them. We're super involved parents who love spending time with our kids. We're on the floor playing, outside running around and sitting at the table coloring with them. We build with them, make forts and paint things together. They love doing "grown up" things and helping me cook and even (sometimes) folding towels. Don't not let them help with something because they're young. Some of my fondest memories growing up involved my mom letting me help her do things.
5. Make learning fun. As the boys have been learning to write the alphabet, words and even doing math over the last few years, we've had fun making games out of it. We have a child-sized white board/chalk board combo that they practice their letters on, sometimes in the form of tic-tac-toe games with us. When our oldest started learning new words in 5K, I made a parking lot of words on a large sheet of paper. I'd call out a word and he'd park his car (or airplane) on it. This "game" was so popular we had to make a parking lot for our three-year old!
6. Talk with them, listen to them and answer their questions. Our little boys have questions about everything and they want to tell us everything. I love listening to them. Talk to your kids like they're people, not little kids. I think that's made a huge difference in not only the things they're learning but in their socialization around other children and adults.
All in all, learning should be fun. Each child develops differently and at a different rate. For us, these things just come natural and work with our boys. Making everything fun instead of a chore is the best way to help them be their best (in my opinion).
