4 Educational Activities For Toddlers

Learning begins at home, and learning is not supposed to be in a classroom or creche/daycare. There are easy ways to make simple things educational without over-doing it. The following educational activities will teach toddlers common educational items like the alphabet in a way that they remember and above all is fun.

1. Music

Have you ever noticed how you start singing out the lyrics to a song in your subconscious, and then suddenly ask yourself when you were able to learn the lyrics without even trying. That is pretty much how your children function, and quite a lot more adaptive at that.

Use all those children friendly videos on YouTube (now that it is safe again) through which the ABC or Numbers (Number zoo is a firm favourite) become a song which your children will cutely sing all day long while roaming around.  What this ensures is interest, and your child will want to learn more about you because they know you make it more fun.

The daycare our little one goes to participates in the Gymboree activity. She often comes home with new songs (or parts of them). We'd love her enthusiasm when we ask her about it. 

And lastly, there is no escaping Baby Shark! (but we prefer this version) It is truly a global phenomenon. We were on holiday in South East Asia, and the lady at the passport check started to sing it to our little one. Throughout our stay, we heard it from many people. Doo doo doo dooo

2. Show and Tell

Anytime you get apples on the dinner table or something which can be counted with ease, it might be a good idea to go over the basic counting lesson with your little toddler. When your toddler sees how he/she can count so many things they will eventually want to learn more and more about numbers. We are still doing this regularly with our little one. I think her favourite is counting grapes.

3. Colors and Shapes

Being able to differentiate one color and shape from another is quite important, and the best part is that children are quite interested in learning about them. Do not be hesitant to have a playroom in your house where your child (under your supervision) can play around with acrylic paints and use the paints to see how the colors blend and understand what item is of what color around him/her.

4. Grow something from seed

Lastly, our little one finds it fascinating to see things grow. Especially if you can eat the end result. We are blessed with a nice back garden where we grow apples, many types of berries and tomatoes. It is adorable to see a two-year-old understand the concept of ripe versus 'needs more sunshine' (even though we don't get much of that here in Dublin). So besides that they see the concept of growing, it also teaches them patience. My mom keeps telling me that I used to check the carrots if they were ready yet by pulling them out of the ground and putting them back if they were still too small. Just maybe some things never change.