Six Favorite Educational Toys

 1. Busy Bugs

Busy Bugs are all about math, including patterning, colors, addition, and subtraction. Both of my children have adored playing with them for years. Owning these darling and brightly-colored bugs means I sit back and wait for my children to ask me for math - er, busy bugs.

2. Rainbow Fish Lotto

I posted a short review of this game here! My three favorite things about it are: 1) It's based on a storybook, 2) the pictures are bright and beautiful, and 3) even a just-turned-two-year-old can play it.

3. Kumon First Steps Workbooks

These don't sound like toys, but the First Steps workbooks (for ages 2 and up) may as well be. There are Kumon workbooks for older ages, too. We have an ages 3-4-5 workbook which has been received with good grace but not the happiness with which the smaller workbooks were greeted. For ages 2 and up, we have tried Let's Cut Paper!, More Let's Cut Paper!, and Let's Sticker and Paste!

My son went from not knowing how to correctly use scissors to becoming a cutting expert! I have to stop him from finishing these books in one sitting.

4. Stringing Beads

Any type of stringing beads is a great educational toy, useful for fine motor skills and patterning. The Melissa & Doug set pictured below in the carousel has good reviews.

Fun & Engaging Activities for Toddlers, a fantastic toddler learning activity blog, has some great ideas for making your own stringing beads.

5. Magnadoodles

My children never got obsessed with these like they did with other toys, but they always liked drawing on them even when they didn't want to draw or write on paper. I have a hunch it's easier in terms of fine muscle strength, but that's just a guess. It also seems a little bit more like magic to them when the marks appear on the Magnadoodle board. My older son wrote his first letters on a large Magnadoodle.

A chalkboard, dry erase board, or yogurt on a baking sheet can all serve the same purpose, if your child likes those surfaces. They are interesting, somewhat unusual, and often easier than writing or drawing on paper.

6. Puzzles

Puzzles are simply classic. There are so many different types of puzzles out there, and levels of difficulty for any ability.

Something like the Melissa & Doug Jumbo Fishbowl Puzzle pictured below is great for babies, to get them used to the idea of puzzles and to increase their fine motor skills using the knobs on the pieces (manufacturer recommended age 1-3 years).

Other than the pick-up of 26 small pieces, we like the Melissa & Doug See-Inside Alphabet Peg Puzzle for toddlers and preschoolers (about age 22 months and up at our house, but the manufacturer says 3 years and up due to choking hazard).

The Crocodile Creek Jungle 123 7 Foot Floor Puzzle was a fantastic first jigsaw puzzle for our preschooler. It was an easier jigsaw, but just challenging enough to keep him interested for years:

I also highly recommend the Melissa & Doug Dinosaurs 48 Pcs Floor Puzzle for this level.

A high quality puzzle that was perfect for the next step was Ravensburger's 35-piece Dinosaur Playground (manufacturer recommended ages 4-15 years):

Two Ways to Help Children Who Get Frustrated with Writing

Often a child has difficulty forming perfect letters and numbers due to the fine motor skills challenge it presents. This may cause emotions to run high. From the child's perspective the skill being attempted may seem impossible.

Working on the concept of perfectionism helps. See this wonderful page from the National Association of School Psychologists for more on this topic.

So does practice. The challenge is to give plenty of opportunities for practice but at the same time make sure it is fun, at least at first.

#1: Make it larger.

A child who struggles writing letters and numbers may need a bigger space to write them. This can also be helpful with very active children because it allows their bodies to move around a little bit, too.

Gather 8.5 x 11" pieces of paper, preferably white copy paper for ease of use. You will need as many pieces as the letters in your child's name. Draw dashed lines in the outline of each of the letters in your child's name, one per piece of paper. (Don't make the dashes too close together or it looks like the child's work is already done.)

Tape the pieces of paper on the floor or a table within easy reach of your child, in the order of your child's name. Ask him or her to trace the letters to spell the name. Give lots of encouragement and laugh with him or her if that's appropriate.

Note: If this is still hard and too frustrating for your child, allow him or her to practice drawing lines alongside a ruler, which will eventually, with practice, make very straight lines that a perfectionist-leaning child will like.

#2: Do Dot-to-Dots.

Dot-to-dots are a less threatening way to make lines from a specific place to another specific place. Children who feel threatened by the idea that they have to make a perfect letter may not feel threatened at all making lines that will reveal a fun shape. It is best to give a few dot-to-dots in a row, or as many as your child wants to do (within reason), in order from simplest to hardest.

Additional Activities:

My son also likes any activity better when it's done in a Kumon workbook. He has tried this one and this one and this one.

I also refer you to one of my favorite learning activities blogs, Children's Learning Activities, for their activities that work on fine motor skills.

Storybook Week 3: Chrysanthemum

The book Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes, stars an adorable mouse with an absolutely perfect name. At least, it seems perfect until one day when a classmate makes certain comments...

1. Origins of a Name

Story Interest

Ask your child what his or her full name is. Together, look up the meaning of the name in a name book or dictionary or online. Some questions to consider together are:

What do you like best about your name?
What does it sound like?
What does it remind you of?
If you could choose any name for yourself, what would it be?

For a baby or toddler:

If you or someone you know has the talent or budget for it, you could make or purchase a name sign to hang in your child's room where he or she will often see it. There are many vinyl wall art companies to choose from these days and many online tutorials for decorating and displaying wood letters with materials you can find at any craft store.

Point out the picture to your child, saying the name and talking about the letters, pictures, colors, and shapes in it.  

We are extremely fortunate to have an artist in the family: my mom. Here is an example of part of a name picture:

2. Read the Book

Read-aloud

Read the book together, or watch the Scholastic Storybook Treasures story video. The video has marvelous, soothing narration by Meryl Streep.

3. Fat Orange Crayon

Arts and Crafts/Handwriting

In the book, Chrysanthemum loved to write out her name with a fat orange crayon. Set out a large piece of paper and a big orange crayon. Have your child write out his or her name on the paper.

For a toddler: Draw block letters of your child's name on a large piece of paper. Let your toddler scribble away at the paper with a fat orange crayon. It may be more fun if you join in!

4. Teasing

Emotional Awareness/Social skills

Use puppets that you have or make paper bag puppets by drawing faces and hair on the bottom of a paper lunch sack. Start a role play using the puppets in which someone is teased for something like a name or hair color. You can play the teasing puppet and the puppet being teased, while your child plays a friend of the puppet being teased. See what your child does as a friend. After a few minutes, you can switch all the roles.

For younger children, you can model the friend being helpful, saying encouraging statements like, "I like your name," or "I am sorry you feel bad. Do you need a hug?" You can talk about strategies such as telling the parent or teacher if they feel bad about something someone said or did to them.

For older children, talk about what teasers or bullies want. For example, you can talk about how reacting strongly and emotionally to the teasing makes bullies want to do even more teasing. Model calm, bland phrases like, "Thank you for noticing," or "It's interesting you think that." These, if repeated often, should be very boring and demotivating for a teaser or bully.

For even older children, or any children who use cell phones and online technology, research cyberbullying and address those issues with your child.

Typing as a Writing Activity

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The above is an example of a writing activity for young children. It is my older son's attempt at a typed sentence. Typing activities can be a fun and useful change of pace from manual writing exercises. Children need manual writing practice as well, but in the early stages the focus is on the difficulty of the mechanics. Typing gives them a chance to work on sentence structure, capitalization, and spelling without worrying about the physical dexterity challenge that goes with handwriting.

Computer activities can kick-start learning for children who are fascinated with computing. They tend to learn fast if they're doing something exciting.

The idea of typing as a language arts activity came from the book Your Child At Play: Three to Five Years: Conversation, Creativity, and Learning Letters, Words and Numbers by Marilyn Segal. I recommend the book for an easy read about what's going on in preschoolers' minds and development. It has tons of easy suggestions for parents to try with their children, including the idea to let preschoolers play in word processing documents and even start an email account to correspond with friends and relatives. (Of course, parents should control all computer and online activity with kids, especially kids this young. I help my son send emails to his grandma, and that's about all we do with his account.)

Should Anyone Learn Cursive Writing?

Recently I read an article in EducationNews about the use - or disuse - of cursive writing. There were many arguments for abandoning cursive now that we have the magic of word processing.

Argument #1: Word processing more efficient

Yes, word processing is much more efficient. When I first learned to use word processing (in college!), it took some time to adjust myself mentally. I thought that I composed messages, stories, essays, and papers better while writing by hand. I later typed up what I had written out by hand, when that was necessary.

Not much time passed before my mental processes caught on to word processing. Eventually I found that I could compose better and more easily when typing in a word processing program, email, or blog post. If I wanted to go back to writing by hand, I would go through another period of adjustment before I was again comfortable with it.

For many purposes, word processing will be the more efficient and effective tool. I can think of one instance when a high level of efficiency makes the message less effective: personal, intimate correspondence. A handwritten letter obviously takes more time and effort - in effect, it's a time out from regular daily life - and so it is much more valuable to the recipient.

Argument #2: No use for it after school

I have found two reasons to use cursive at this point in my life. One is letter and card writing. I want my messages to take more time than typing so that the recipients know they are important to me.

The other reason is taking notes for certain projects. There is something about taking the time to form attractive cursive lettering that gives me a psychological boost. It influences me to put more effort toward quality in all phases of the project. Often, I would rather have my project turn out well than save time doing it. In those cases, starting with neat cursive notes gets me started with the right attitude.

Argument #3: No time, they have to do standardized tests

I wonder how many individuals have gotten any benefit out of the standardized state achievement tests. That is a topic for another (hundred) post(s), but I consider it a weak argument against cursive writing.

Pro-cursive point #1: Cursive helps kids distinguish between words

The way that cursive connects letters in a word gives kids visual and tactile practice distinguishing where one word ends and another begins.

Pro-cursive point #2: Some schools still embrace it; 80% of teachers devote some time to it in 1st, 2nd, 3rd grades

The article in EducationNews did not give the reasons that certain schools still embrace cursive writing. It would be interesting to find out their particular reasons.

Here is an excellent post giving one person's reasons for wanting to hang on to cursive writing.

My own last point is not rational, but I am glad to think that my son will be taught cursive writing like I was. I hate to see any discipline go completely out of use. Trends come and go, and someday children who were never taught cursive writing will learn of its existence and decide to study it on their own. I imagine it being like some of the more esoteric martial arts: Some people will enjoy plunging themselves wholeheartedly into this “lost art.” Oh, right! Like calligraphy.