Educational influences on kids - Issue with Spouse (1 Viewer)

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Oh and at a "gifted" school for 5 year olds.

Settle down.

 

[bigbottom]

Younger kid always gets less attention. And may be the better for it.

 

[ATC1]

My 2 year old can not sit down and listen to me read a book. He will not follow my finger and will just constantly point to a picture and say, "what is that, daddy." My 5 year old is the opposite. We have already read several chapter books with her.

My son will sit down with a couple of puzzles with no problem. He can point out the difference between an octagon and a pentagon. What we decided to do to help him with the numbers and letters was to get some letter and number puzzles. Hand him the "A" and say where does the "A" go. Also, we get mickey picture puzzles. On the back of the individual pieces we would put a corresponding letter or number with where the piece will go on the board.

He loves sitting on the ipad with puzzles as well. A lot of Mellisa and Doug puzzles with dinosaurs. The ipad will have letter and number corresponding letters and numbers as well. He will sit for hours with those.

 

[Dr. Gobbler]

Does knowing stuff make you happy? I struggle with that a lot. Sometimes I think people are so preoccupied with making their kids smart that they don't think about why they're doing it. P.S. My kids are WAY smarter than any of your kids.

My personal goal is to give my kids the tools they will need to do what they want in life. Whether they do anything with it will be up to them. And hey, if those tools help them get into college at 12 with a full ride then I've done my job and I get my house back a lot sooner and the kids can have the college money saved to start a business and hire your moron kids for minimum wage.

 

[shadyridr]

Don't underestimate the power of motor development to brain development. Physical activities where the child alternates between left and right side of the body, enhance connections between the left and right brain. think of activities like hop scotch, wheel barrow races, four square with alternating hands on each shot, dribbling a soccer ball while alternating feet, dribbling basketball between right and left hand, etc The Library - go to your local library (without the kids), ask for for juvenile section librarian and get the 5 cent tour. First few times, let your kids get used to the environment, maybe check out a book or two. When my kids were younger, I let them check out two pre-k books, and one non fiction book. They could take as 4 of each kind to a reading table, then we went through all the books and they had to choose their favorites... ask library where they would like the non checked out books to go. The non fiction books you want would be on the second or third grade reading level...make sure there are lots of pictures. You are looking for books with lots of pictures; one's that interest your children. For my son, he liked dinosaurs, planes, insects, spiders and such, my daughter like birds, mammals, flowers, and skyscapers. They would have a hard time understanding some of what i read them, but they loved flipping through the pictures while I read the captions. We returned to the library every couple of weeks, but then the more they liked it, the more often the go. The library would be an excellent opportunity for your wife to have an outing with the kids. It kills an hour and a half to two hours (prep time and travel) during a day, easy. If the kids really like it, a trip to the library can serve as an excellent treat after running some errands in the morning, then they have books to leaf through when they get home. And they will certainly be asking Mom, what's this word? At this stage, please don't get caught up in how much they read or don't read, etc. Make it a point to be seen reading, make it a point to say things like "I'm doing my math homework" when you balance the checkbook. Find an interesting point to bring up at dinner, something the kids might like. If they see you and their mom trying to expand your horizons, they will repeat the effort. Finally, my wife simply isn't cut out for homework help. That's my job, and i do it well.

Thanks, L2112. Great post.

It actually made me recall something a bit odd. We used to live elswehere. When we first moved there, we knew very few people. Perhaps that is why my wife took my older son (who was much younger at the time) to the library back then for things like story-time.

Fast forward to the present. We are in another town now. A town we know we like and want to stay in. (Unlike the other wherein we knew it was not long-term.) Since we moved, she has not once gone to the library. Part of it could be it is harder with two kids, as opposed to back at our old place with just one. However, my older child is in nursery school for a handful of hours every weekday. Therefore, she could still take the younger one and it would just be handling one at a time. Weird how she has not done this once.

I am going to ask her about this. My guess (and I very well could be wrong) is that it will come down to how she knew we weren't staying in that town long, so she'd use her time doing things with our son (like the library) as opposed to trying to meet other people. Now we are in a town we like better with lots of great people, so she has put herself out there to meet people. She is great at it, very personable and outgoing. But maybe she is spending so much time with new friends (meeting up with them, scheduling playdates with their children, texting, talking with on the phone, etc) that it leaves less time for just going to the library. Again I could be wrong. But at the end of the day, she did go to the library with our older one when he was 1, but has not done that at all with our younger one.

Interesting.

Take a 1 yr old to the library? Seriously?

 

[Dr. Gobbler]

Oh and at a "gifted" school for 5 year olds. Settle down.

You keep living that mediocre dream there buddy.

 

[shadyridr]

 

[Witz]

Searching for abcmouse.com and found this thread.

Update on the learning situation?

 

[Lutherman2112]

Don't underestimate the power of motor development to brain development. Physical activities where the child alternates between left and right side of the body, enhance connections between the left and right brain. think of activities like hop scotch, wheel barrow races, four square with alternating hands on each shot, dribbling a soccer ball while alternating feet, dribbling basketball between right and left hand, etc The Library - go to your local library (without the kids), ask for for juvenile section librarian and get the 5 cent tour. First few times, let your kids get used to the environment, maybe check out a book or two. When my kids were younger, I let them check out two pre-k books, and one non fiction book. They could take as 4 of each kind to a reading table, then we went through all the books and they had to choose their favorites... ask library where they would like the non checked out books to go. The non fiction books you want would be on the second or third grade reading level...make sure there are lots of pictures. You are looking for books with lots of pictures; one's that interest your children. For my son, he liked dinosaurs, planes, insects, spiders and such, my daughter like birds, mammals, flowers, and skyscapers. They would have a hard time understanding some of what i read them, but they loved flipping through the pictures while I read the captions. We returned to the library every couple of weeks, but then the more they liked it, the more often the go. The library would be an excellent opportunity for your wife to have an outing with the kids. It kills an hour and a half to two hours (prep time and travel) during a day, easy. If the kids really like it, a trip to the library can serve as an excellent treat after running some errands in the morning, then they have books to leaf through when they get home. And they will certainly be asking Mom, what's this word? At this stage, please don't get caught up in how much they read or don't read, etc. Make it a point to be seen reading, make it a point to say things like "I'm doing my math homework" when you balance the checkbook. Find an interesting point to bring up at dinner, something the kids might like. If they see you and their mom trying to expand your horizons, they will repeat the effort. Finally, my wife simply isn't cut out for homework help. That's my job, and i do it well.

Thanks, L2112. Great post.

It actually made me recall something a bit odd. We used to live elswehere. When we first moved there, we knew very few people. Perhaps that is why my wife took my older son (who was much younger at the time) to the library back then for things like story-time.

Fast forward to the present. We are in another town now. A town we know we like and want to stay in. (Unlike the other wherein we knew it was not long-term.) Since we moved, she has not once gone to the library. Part of it could be it is harder with two kids, as opposed to back at our old place with just one. However, my older child is in nursery school for a handful of hours every weekday. Therefore, she could still take the younger one and it would just be handling one at a time. Weird how she has not done this once.

I am going to ask her about this. My guess (and I very well could be wrong) is that it will come down to how she knew we weren't staying in that town long, so she'd use her time doing things with our son (like the library) as opposed to trying to meet other people. Now we are in a town we like better with lots of great people, so she has put herself out there to meet people. She is great at it, very personable and outgoing. But maybe she is spending so much time with new friends (meeting up with them, scheduling playdates with their children, texting, talking with on the phone, etc) that it leaves less time for just going to the library. Again I could be wrong. But at the end of the day, she did go to the library with our older one when he was 1, but has not done that at all with our younger one.

Interesting.

Take a 1 yr old to the library? Seriously?

Our local library has a section that contains manipulatives for pre toddler and toddler. Wooden puzzles with a star, a square, a rectangle, etc. They had boxes of manipulatives, like a muffin pan with plastic balls to place in the cups of the pan. Tons of cardboard books.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

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[Long Ball Larry]

I wouldn't worry about any of this stuff.

Your kids will learn this stuff eventually in preschool or pre-K or Kindergarten or whatever.

There really isn't any correlation between little kids learning their numbers/letters/colors/whatever earlier than "normal" and academic success later on in life.

They really aren't going to be "behind" once they start school and if they are they will catch up in a heartbeat.

To be honest, I actually have heard the exact opposite. I've heard that the more kids are read to, the better chance they have at being smart later in life. And vice versa, the less they are read to or do educational things, the less smart they are and the less motivated they are down the road.

Just what I've heard.

That sounds like false causality. My guess is that's more genetic. Parents who read to their children frequently are more likely the be intelligent themselves and their children then would be more likely to be intelligent.

I would also suspect that those parents are more likely to be involved over the course of the kids educational careers, at other times when it might be more even important.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Oh and at a "gifted" school for 5 year olds. Settle down.

You keep living that mediocre dream there buddy.

Yeah, that's what it is.

 

[Frostillicus]

My daughter is five and she loves Abcmouse.com and she's way smarter than all your kids (especially fatguy's) and also is a gymnastics all-star. Pretty much ignoring the younger kid, but he seems to be smarter anyway.