Teaching my Toddler: ABC, 123, Colors, and Shapes

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LearningAtHomeSince we have yet to enroll my 2 year old daughter, L, in a pre-school program, learning at home is a top priority. Over the past year, we have gradually acquired a variety of learning toys, books, and tools, most of which we now use daily.  Here are five of our favorite ways that we’ve worked with L to master her ABCs, 123s, colors, and shapes:

B. Toys’ Alpha B. Tical Puzzle
This puzzle was our “1st Birthday” present to L, so it started as just a fun, colorful way for us to talk about the letters, the sounds they make, and some of the first words that start with each letter. Now, she completes the puzzle in alphabetical order, and when she’s done, we’ll point to each letter as we sing the ABCs. The chunky pieces are perfectly sized for toddlers to hold, and despite frequent use, the puzzle still looks brand new.

Roger Priddy’s Colors, ABC, Numbers and Numbers, Colors, Shapes
We have a bunch of Priddy Books’ “Bright Baby” and “Play and Learn” books, including these two books (the content is similar, but the sizes are different) that L enjoys both at-home and on-the-go, respectively.  We’ll be buying Priddy Books for years to come, they teach from First 100 Words to “Learn to Write Your Letters” Flash Cards, and much more inbetween.

“Repeat after me…”
This is so simple that I almost excluded it from my list, but L requests it often, so I thought it deserved a mention.  I say the alphabet, one letter at a time, and she repeats each letter after me. When we’re done with the alphabet, I count one number at a time, and she repeats each number after me.  Toddlers think simply… learning doesn’t need to be complicated!

Ikea’s Mala EaselLearningAtHome-Easel and Crayola Dry Erase Crayons
This easel has a white board and chalk board, and we also bought a roll of paper that we can use; however, so far, we have been so happy with our dry erase crayons that we haven’t tried anything else. In addition to filling the board with scribble-scrabble and doodles, we practice ABCs and letter recognition (I write the alphabet on top and then fill the board with words for L to “spell”), 123s and counting (I write each number alongside that number of dots for her to count), the colors of the rainbow, and shapes.

Tiger Tales’ Sticker Activity Books
L loves stickers, so we have been loving these ABC and 123 activity books from Tiger Tales (a Wilton, CT company!). The books are filled with a mix of stickers, coloring, drawing, tracing, mazes, and more. Some of the pages are still a little too advanced for L, so I either modify the task, or just plan to re-visit again later.


What are your favorite toddler learning activities?
Leave a comment below, we need some new ideas!

2 COMMENTS

  1. My (2 year old ) daughter really likes the Preschool Prep Series of videos. We have Meet the Numbers, Meet the Colors, Meet the Letters and Meet the Shapes. Once she gets a little older, we’ll move up to Meet the Sight Words and Meet the Phonics. They are all really great!

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