On Our Learning Journey...

The process to get Morayo to recognize all her letters and now know how to spell and write her name wasn't easy. As a matter of fact, far from it but with time it has gotten better and it is now a lot of fun! In the beginning it was challenging and frustrating but thankfully, it turned into quite a learning experience. It opened my eyes big time to parts of my parenting I had never experienced. There are some things I didn't do right at first but I learned quickly! 

Here's some of the what I did/used...

We did fun hand and body movements to help remember. The photo above shows Mo exhibiting the letters "X", "O", and "Y". We have other fun ones for "K"- We throw our hands and legs and Kick! For "S" we do a squiggly dance. It wasn't hard for me coming up with stuff. 

I mentioned the Leap Frog videos in my previous post (they are excellent and fun!). They also have learning videos from shows they love to watch and are used to. We also use these flash cards. I haven't gotten into all of them yet. So far, just some numbers and all of letters. You can tell it's been through it(package ripped. Lol). I'm getting into Three Letter Words now. She has been really good with her colors and some shapes for what seems like ages now. 

This was EXCELLENT! It helped a big deal. This actually belonged to my nephew Paul and at some point when I was visiting my parents, I found it laying around in the house and swiped it. Lol! Anyhoo.. it's great because of the sound. There were times I was teaching Mo and she would forget a letter and Mr. Turtle would kindly remind us! The pages flap over and focus on the letters for each page it shows. 

This was one of Hubby's gifts to MoMo for Christmas! It's helping a lot with her writing coordination!

This Easel was a gift from Nana & Papa Odesanya! When they asked what she would like for Christmas (certainly I decided for her. Lol), I sent the link from Amazon of this two-sided Crayola Easel to Papa O and it was at our front door a few days before Christmas! The magnetic letters are stored in the attached red bins. The other side is a chalk board. So much fun and learning all in one!

If your kids are like mine, they already wanted to spend hours just watching videos, so I gave them something to watch that they would actually benefit from! There are TOO MANY videos out there! If one doesn't work for you or them, move to the next!

Hubby has a huge white board in his home office and no this is not it. Ha! He has quite some things written on it and papers attached to it. Can't mess with that stuff. Lol. Anyhoo.. it's huge and there was some room on it for us to do some learning. This came in handy in learning how to write her name stage. The different colored markers added some spice to our learning!

Some Important things to keep in mind:

When we first got started, one of my early mistakes was yelling when I got frustrated. NOT GOOD! I caught on quickly though because when she got back from school and I told her "Okay! Time for letters", she would immediately start crying because she associated it with my yelling. 

Their attention span is SHORT! Keep learning time to max 20mins. Trust me, it's not a lot of time when you're doing fun movements. It actually goes by fast.

There were days I focused only on one letter and it just seemed like she couldn't retain that one letter! Argh! Lol.. Don't give up. You'll be surprised how their memory works!

Use rewards. We've done snacks, stickers, little gifts, trips to the park, Chick-Fil-A and ChuckECheese!

Try not to compare kids!(I know! Says the mom that almost lost it when she found out her boss's daughter could spell and write her name. Lol). On a more serious note, kids develop differently and even if a child is a month older than another, you'd be surprised the difference that one month makes. If you must, there MUST be a healthy balance. In my case I knew MoMo was capable and up to it. I'm glad I didn't hold back.

Make it FUN, FUN, and MORE FUN!

Can't think of anything else right now. It's my bedtime. Ha!

I don't want to miss a big opportunity to give a major shout-out to hubby. Every last method I've used and I'm currently using to teach the kids, he bought it ALL! Of course with the exception of swiped Mr. Turtle, the Easel and YouTube. He goes out to the grocery store and he comes back with these DVDs. I get home, there is a package at the door and it has more educational stuff for the kids in it. Some of this stuff he already got when Mo was still a little baby! I'm more hands on and take on his days he skips sometimes because he is late coming home from work but he has most certainly provided ALL the resources. You go Daddy T!