When Kids Get the Sillies during Learning Time: 4 Strategies

It doesn't matter if you are teaching a preschooler to read or a 3rd grader their math facts.  Kids get silly.  And as a parent, it's all too easy to get frustrated.   For myself, I've found it increasingly difficult to be patient with the silliness now that I have more children who need one- on- one teaching. Time and energy are precious.

But of course, frustration doesn't help.  Here are four approaches I've found that do help:
(It's so good to be writing these out.  I need the reminders!)

Outlines and Shapes

Quick, easy, free and fun!

1. Gather a few distinctively shaped objects
2. Draw their outlines in marker on pieces of scrap paper
3. Spread the outlines in front of your toddler
4. Take the objects one at a time and ask the toddler to match the object to its outline.
5. Then try it the opposite way: have the toddler match outlines to objects.

Wooden Puzzle Science Lesson

Here's a new twist on putting together wooden puzzles with your toddler. I've discovered lately that it can be a fun opportunity for teaching science facts about animals.

As I take each animal out of the ziploc bag I say (for example), "This animal eats bugs; It's a ____"

"Frog," M answers as she takes the puzzle piece and puts it in the correct place.

Once all of the pieces are placed, I ask, "Can you hand me the animal that eats bugs?" She gives me the frog, and so on and so forth until all of the pieces are put away.

Homemade Opposites Game

This game was actually more fun to make than to play. For M, learning about opposites has coincided with the beginning of a burning curiosity to see the pictures that I take of her on the digital camera. So, one day I decided it would be fun to have M act out some of the opposites that she is learning while I take pictures.

I printed those pictures cheaply on our printer, labeled them, stuck each one back to back with its pair and covered the cards with packing tape (acts like laminate).

Some of the opposites that we found were easy to capture in pictures were:

open/closed
on/ off
empty/ full
happy/ sad
apart/ together
up/ down
hot/cold

To play the game, I place one card face up in front of M and ask her, "What is the opposite of ____" When she answers, I say, "Turn it over to see if you're right." Then she takes a turn showing the cards to me and asking me for answers.

Alphabet Block Spelling

I'm sure mothers have been doing this activity for a hundred years, but it just now occurred to me. M loves alphabet puzzles, and sometimes I wish we had more of them for variety sake. The other day, though, I realized that her wooden alphabet blocks could be used in much the same way.

I gathered some blank paper and a pen and wrote out a variety of letters on a page, spacing them about 2 1/2 inches apart. Then I found blocks with letters that matched and had M place them in the correct places.
Next, we decided that rather than random letter placement, we would spell words (starting with M's name, of course). M seemed to feel very grown up to be able to make her own name, and the names of each of her toy animals.

Same and Different Activity

We've been working on a new concept lately- the concept of "same and different." To practice, we've been playing a little game.

I made a set of picture cards out of halved index cards. I drew four simple pictures and made four copies of each. Then I shuffled the cards and turned over two cards in front of M and asked her what the pictures were.

I then asked her "Are they the same?"

If they were different, I would say, "No, they're different," and we would shake our heads sadly together.If they were the same picture, I would say "Yes!!! They're the same. Let's clap!" and we would clap our hands together. M loved the clapping- got very excited. Understanding the concept is still a work in progress, but she has fun with the practicing!
I suppose it's also good preparation for eventually playing the memory matching game together.

Sorting Letters

I still had a lot of foam sticker letters left over from another project, and the other day I found a new use for them. I labeled several disposable cups with common letters, separated those particular letters from the rest of the foam alphabet and let M sort them.

For some reason, sorting is still more of a challenge for M than simple, one-to-one matching; so this activity took a little work for M to catch on. In the end, though, it seemed worthwhile.

Shape and Letter Coloring

Today's educational activity involved multiple skills. On one page I drew the outlines of different shapes that M would recognize- each with a different color marker. This is how our interaction went:

Me: M, can you find the (heart)?
M points
Me: That's right. What color is it?
M: (red)
Me: (Red!) That's right. Can you find the (red) marker?
M points
Me: That's right. Now, can you color the (red) (heart) with the (red) marker?
M takes off the lid and scribbles on the (red) (heart) outline.

We did the same thing with a second page- only that time the page was filled with the outlines of different colored letters.

Dig for Letters

We are working our way toward M's being able to recognize and name all of the letters- not so much because I think it's "time," but more because she enjoys it. She gets a kick out of going different places and being able to point out letters that she knows on signs, keyboards, etc.

Today we tried a new activity to help her learn the alphabet. I filled a big bowl full of rice and gathered up some small foam letters I had bought at Walmart. One at a time, I placed a letter in the bowl on top of the rice and asked her to name it. Some of them she knew, and others, not. Then I buried the letter in the rice and said "The "m" (or whatever) is hiding. Can you find the "m?" She would then dig away until she caught sight of it, picked it up and we cheered.Once she had the hang of that, she was ready to search for a few letters at a time. I buried three and asked her to find them one at a time. Very fun! I might also try it with colors, shapes, and plastic animals.

Magnet Letter Game

Take a look at this cute educational game that my mother made for M! Using the thin magnetic printing paper that you can buy at Office Depot she wrote out simple words and drew pictures. Then, she made individual squares for each of the letters.M's job was to take the letters and place them in the correct places on the words. It's a neat way to help introduce her to the idea that letters can function not just individually but "in teams." :-) It took M a little bit to catch on to what she was supposed to do, but once she did it was fun.

Here she is giving herself a little applause for a job well done!

ABC Tuna Cans

I've just discovered that tunafish cans are pretty easy to recycle. They wash out easily, and their labels peel right off. Today they worked great for practicing M.'s letters. She's learned up through E; so I glued a circle with each letter up through E into the bottom of each can. I made some extra circles with letters and let M sort.

Our "sorting pattern" for all kinds of puzzles is:

What letter is that?
(sometimes answer from M)
That's an (A) isn't it?
Can you find an (A) over here?
(M points)
That's right. Can you put the (A) on the (A)?
(M puts the letter in place)

Alphabet positions

Do you remember Daisy and Demi from Little Women? They were the scrappy little twins born to Meg and Mr. Brooke. Every day Demi would work on learning the alphabet with his grandfather by contorting his body into the various letter shapes.