00:43 - Join extracurricular activities
01:10 - Make them 'aware'
01:39 - Boost their interest
02:07 - Go groceries shopping
02:25 - Show them labels
03:00 - Spell it
03:32 - Rhyming-miming
Hi, everybody Harper Jones here with Bow-Tiger and you're watching Saturdays with Harper. And today I thought we'd talk about preparing your toddler for school. Now, whether they're going into a pre-kindergarten or going straight into kindergarten from staying at home, there are things that you can do to kind of prepare them for this experience and this new step in their life. There's, of course, a lot of learning experiences that are involved, but there's also things, most importantly, things like social skills. As a toddler, a lot of toddlers do stay home with either Mommy or Daddy, or maybe they have a nanny, and they don't usually get the social experiences they really need to excel in school.
So to help your toddler out with this, you can do something like including them in extracurricular activities. Now, these extracurricular activities can be anything from a mommy and me class, to maybe a swim class, or even a play group where they are involved with children their own age so they get used to children and socializing in that set. They're definitely going to have to do this once they reach the school age. So kind of involving them in this earlier on will definitely help them out.
Another thing that you want to do, and this is to kind of put your mind at ease and also help your child, make them self-aware. And by "self-aware" I mean they should know how to give somebody their address if they were asked, "What is your address?" or, "What is your phone number?" "What is your full name?" Many toddlers maybe only know their first name and not their whole name. Knowing these things can help keep them safe as well. So we want to make sure we teach them just different thing about themselves.
Now, when we go into kindergarten or a pre-K you will start to see that your child starts to learn how to count, how to spell, how to read, etc. So to kind of give them the edge or the boost in this process, we can start doing these things at home. With counting, we want to make it fun. We do have toddlers, they're little children, they get distracted very easily. So we can't just sit there and repeatedly say, "One, two, three, four, five, six," and all the way to 20, 30, however far you want to go.
One way you can do this to make it fun is maybe when you're taking groceries out of the bag after you guys have gone grocery shopping, start to count out the apples that you bought or the oranges or the different products that you bought. You can start to use a counting system for this, and this makes it fun for your toddler, and at the same time they're learning, so that's great.
Now, with reading it's kind of the same thing, a lot of things that are on product labels might be too difficult for your child to read. But they can start to and you can start to spell out and sound out different words. If you guys have animals in the house, dog, cat, bird, bunny, any of these things, you can start to spell words with your child so they start to understand how words sound. A lot of toddlers are talking and maybe we can't quite understand everything that they're saying, but you really would be surprised how much their mind can absorb at this point and how much this will help them when they get into school.
With reading, we do want to start reading at very, very easy-to-read books with our children. The best way to get your child to start reading is to read to them yourselves. Eventually, they will start to catch on, they'll start to see the different letters and sounds that letters make. And you can start asking them help you read as well, not the more difficult words, of course. But if they can understand words, again, like "cat," or "dog," or "run," any of these small, small words, this is gonna really help them, again, in school.
Another thing is when you're trying to get them to learn how to spell and to learn to read, find rhyming words. This can make it a lot of fun for your kids because the toddlers, they do get really excited when they realize they can kind of make a whole sentence or a whole little spiel or song out of rhyming words. So make out little songs that do rhyme and then learn how to spell those words as well with your child.
Now, all of these things definitely will benefit your child once they get onto the school years. And you'll see, as they're accessed through kindergarten, if they have this edge, it will not only surprise the teacher and make the teacher happy, but it will also really, really make it a more convenient time for your child. They can spend more time enjoying this new atmosphere that they are experiencing and more time learning, instead of more time being frustrated because they don't understand.
So there you go, that's for this Saturday. And of course, if you guys are watching this video on Facebook or YouTube, please be sure to also check out our blog on Bow-Tiger.com. And we'll see you back next week. Thanks.
