What should I be teaching my 3 year old?

Question

I am home with him all day -he just turned 3 and I was just wondering what other moms were doing with kids the same age. He will be one of the youngest when he goes to kindergarten in 2 years (the deadline is Sept.1 and his birthday is Aug. 12) so I kind of wanted to work with him on some letters and numbers, he knows his colors and loves to sing.

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

he's only 3, there isn't really any need to do specific activities with letters or numbers at his age. read him lots of stories, write his name on his artworks and tell him that's his name, let him copy it if he wants to, get him foam letters for the bath tub, basically just expose him to the written word casually, count the stepping stones or the toy blocks with him, let him sort them into colours, shapes etc.. if he lovesa singing, sing lots of songs with him, expose him to lots of types of music (not just kids stuff) buy him music intruments to play with, help him make his own, all of these things will help him with the underlying skills he will need when he starts school.

Answer 2

My son's birthday is aug. 6th and he just turned 3.  My son is very into singing songs as well.  We make up songs to teach him different things.  He has learned his phone number and his address this way.  We also work in workbooks. drawing lines and letters.  Also,it is your choice to send him in 2 yrs because his birthday is so close.

Answer 3

Perhaps you should enroll him in a head start program.

My parents taught me how to read before I entered kindergarten, and that was immensely helpful. Some very basic grammar rules (why you capitalize names was a mystery to me at a young age) would be helpful too, and basic math. Simple addition and subtraction.

Don't expose him to idiot TV. Most "educational" shows these days are anything but. Even Sesame Street is practically the Elmo show anymore.

Answer 4

I do a sort of daily schedule with my 3 1/2 year old. We do a reading activity- I usually read books to him and we talk about the characters, name of the book, author, etc... Then we do some sort of math activity like counting objects, graphing fruit loops or m & ms, sorting things by color, etc... We also do a game with magnetic letters where I set out around 10-15 different letters on the floor. Then I call out a letter and I pretend that I am going to find it before him. He of course LOVES the competition and just squeals with delight when he "wins" and finds the correct letter. Then we usually do something with coloring or cutting. I have been having him cut out pictures from magazines. I just give him a specific topic like "find pictures of clothing" and then I help him look for them. He cuts them out and then he glues them. Last of all, I just started writing his name on paper nice and big and having him try to copy but his 1st name has 7 letters and so we really haven't gotten far with that. He has not been able to copy the letters very well yet but we practice, non the less! All of these activities take less than 1 hour total. You can of course break them up throughout the day and sometimes I do 1/2 in the morning and 1/2 in the afternoon. Also, if I find he's just not into something that day, we just skip it. I just want it to be fun for him. There are always opportunities for learning everywhere! Even when we are just playing playdoh or something, I try to remember that I can talk about the colors, and make letters out of the playdoh, etc...

Answer 5

I get my son who is  3 and 1/2 to help me with things like putting the laundry in the washer, putting the soap in and turning the k***s, for some reason he LOVES to help me with all the cleaning up!! I also get him to help with cooking (not near the stove but helping measure and mix things. You could also get an easy game like snakes and ladders and play that together.    Have him help you sort things by colour ( even if they dont need sorting) Anything to really get them involved with helping around the house. It takes twice as long but they do learn from it and it makes them so happy.