Colors, Shapes, Alphabets & Numbers

I was thinking about how, as if by magic, our children grasp the concepts of colors, alphabets, numbers, shapes etc. at such a young age.

For instance, our daughter who will be 2.5 years old in August is able to sing the whole ABCD song, rattle off numbers from 1 to 14, and identify some of the shapes. She is able to recognize alphabets and relate them to objects: for example 'g' for grapes, but she is not able to say the alphabet when asked at random. She has some trouble identifying colors as well. Maybe she is still too young for this.

We do the same things most parents would do: read to her daily; let her watch educational shows on TV; sing nursery rhyme songs along with her whenever she feels like singing, and help her identify and say numbers and colors when there is an opportunity.

I was just curious in general, apart from the above tried and tested methods of helping our child learn, if any parents have come up with unique and novel ways in which to help their children learn to read and recognize alphabets, numbers, colors, shapes, etc.?

We would like you to share them with all the readers so we can make this whole process much more fun than it already is for us and our children.

Sriram

UV protection for Kids

I just read this article as I was browsing the web that I wanted to share with others. Please view http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/local/index.ssf?/base/news-10/121540572624740.xml&coll=8.

The article talks about how our children always need UV protection when they are outdoors in the sun. I took note since we have been going to the beach during this summer, as our daughter loves the water. Its a little scary how most of the time we don't think of these things, taking a lot of things for granted.

I thought this article would be useful for everyone with kids.

Sriram

Your kids may help you solve problems!

Have you ever faced a difficult situation that you could not overcome with all your might of logic?

Try bouncing the problem off to a kid, to see her rattle off what to do, one idea after another. If you point out flaws in their schemes, they will point out an alternate way, more often than not.

The basic reason is children believe their world has zero limit to possibilities.

Of course, you may not be able to always apply their ideas directly to problem situations. But, you can surely tweak your way around with their ideas.

In case you have any such episode to share fizz-kidz, we are all ears and eyes!