Hmmm…

I came across this article yesterday - please take the time to read it.  Apparently, etiquette classes for kids are becoming all the rage in America.  Stressed parents have no time to teach kids social graces like table manners and stuff, and so, are packing kids off to these etiquette classes so their children will learn to mind their Ps and Qs.   The video shows a bunch of 7 to 11 years olds, sitting stiffly at a table and being taught the fine nuances of social dining. 

Kids as young as 4 - and this is the point that bothers me - are being sent to these classes to imbibe social graces!  Four!!! Why does a four year old need to be all stiff and formal? To have dinner with the Queen?

A part of me feels sorry for parents who are too busy to devote as much time as they might like to teaching their kids manners.  After a stressful day at the office, the last thing you want to do is remind your child through gritted teeth not to talk with her mouth full or to get that elbow off the table.  I can even understand sending older kids or teens to these classes, if their manners were leading to you being dropped from party invitations around town.

But preschoolers? Come on.

What do you think?  Would you consider sending your kids to  a manners class?

Color recognition activities can start as early as age two, although it ultimately depends on your child.

Many kids tend to find primary colors more difficult to grasp, because the concept of things having different colors is not an easy one to understand. Don’t mix up all the colors in your enthusiasm – start with the three primary colors. Kids find it easier to understand when you can show them each color in the form of an object, rather than trying to point out colors on a chart.

Take a number of objects of the same color in a basket – toy cars, caps, building blocks. These should all be in solid red, blue or yellow. Let’s start with the color red.

Ask your child to hand you things one at a time:

Can you hand me the red car, please?

Next, ask him for the red cap.

Stress the word red always.

Do this for each object in the basket.

Once he’s been able to establish red, move on to yellow and blue.

When he becomes fairly comfortable with these three colors individually, begin mixing them up in a basket.

Can you hand me the red car and the yellow bowl please?

The yellow block and the blue truck?

This won’t happen overnight, but once the primary colors are firmly established, it’s easy and fun to begin experimenting with secondary colors.

Keep smiling!

Learning that focuses only on seeing, and which does not include the other senses, is incomplete. Teach your child to use other less used senses to learn.

Try this activity that will help her use her sense of hearing.

Take 6 glass jars (baby food jars will do), and make them opaque by painting them on the inside.

Paint three jars red, and three green. Opaque plastic or wood jars will do just as well.

Divide the six jars into separate colored pairs, and fill each pair with items that make interesting sounds – beans, sand, rice, peas, and pebbles. For instance, one green and one red jar with peas, one green and one red jar with sand, and one green and one red jar with rice.

Place all jars before your child and ask her to pick a green jar, shake it and then find the red jar that makes the exact same sound. Once she’s found a pair, let her keep the jars aside.

Continue with the other jars.

As she gets used to identifying the sounds correctly, increase the difficulty of the activity by including other items in the jar – peas, unpopped corn etc.

This activity helps develop her fine sense of hearing, and boosts concentration abilities. 

Enjoy!