The Home: A Learning Laboratory Full of Opportunities for our Kids Part 3

If it is your desire to create a learning laboratory at home that is full of opportunity, than this means you should begin establishing a ready source of teaching aids (in other words, play things) for our child to use. These items should be stored where they are easy to get to. If your child shows interest in a certain activity, but you have to search for and assemble what is needed for the activity, it is often too late. Teaching moments are short-lived occasions that require an almost instantaneous response. Be prepared with your “bag of tricks” when opportunity knocks.

The contents of your bag of tricks will change along with your child. For example, when your child is a baby scooting around the floor his main playthings may include soft toys he can squish, sturdy bowls he can pound on or put things in, and board books you can look at and talk about together. However, as your child grows into a running, jumping three-year-old your bag of tricks may expand to include such things as a measuring tape, spools, geometric shapes, plastic pitchers, measuring spoons and a flashlight. A wide variety of music and books should be a staple in any home consciously prepared to provide maximum intellectual stimulation for the children who live there.

As a reader of this blog, I would like to help you construct opportunities for you and your child to play together.  As a part of this, please do not forget that activities you consider to be “work” can be a consistent and extremely useful means of play and learning for your child. Setting the table, putting clothes into the washer, and putting away spoons and forks in the drawer are all forms of play and are loaded with opportunities and means for teaching your child.
What do you think?  Please let me know your thoughts as your are reading this.