I am guilty, probably like many other parents out there, of making sure I do a lot with my first child when they are little, but as more and more come along fail at remembering to focus on the youngest. Part of it is that my daughter is so happy to just play with her brothers. She wants to do whatever they do, so I don't stop that often and find something geared just for her.
My mom was watching her for me a month or so ago and she had a whole bag of tricks. One thing in that bag was a package of colored craft/popsicle sticks and a jar. I watched as my daughter just loved putting the sticks in the jar.
I thought of it again few days ago and told her I was getting out a game for her. I had an empty 2 liter bottle and had purchased some colored sticks. (On thing to note - I have noticed that if they get wet the color rubs off of them.)
She quickly and happily began the game.
The opening on the bottle seemed just right, but maybe for someone younger (my daughter is 20 months), a Mason jar or even just a bowl are a good place to start to avoid too much frustration.
And for a little more difficulty, an old jar with a slot punched in the lid is great.
While we had the sticks out I thought I would try another game with her. My oldest was around her age when we started doing color matching and teaching him his colors. So, I got out a cup for each color and put a few sticks of a single color in each cup, leaving the rest there for her to sort.
If she put in in the right cup, I would get really excited and tell her good job. If it was wrong, I would calmly say no and take it out, repeating until it was in the right cup. That being said, I don't really think it is important or necessary for a child younger than 2 (or 3) to know or be grilled on their colors. If it wasn't fun for her I would stop. And I did. She got bored of this one much faster than the other game.
This is a fantastic idea.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to try this today. :) I bet my kids will love it.
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