I think one of the best ways to keep toddlers happy is to keep their minds occupied and learning.
Intellectual Pursuits
Sweet T is a little genius.
She was a talker from day one.
Have any of my readers gotten toddlers into a foreign language? I'm trying to find resources.
From what I have read online the brunt of this falls on me.
I attempted to learn Spanish, far too late in life and I was never able to confidently speak. The same is true of my husband, which is why we thought it would be spectacular if we could get T into something now.
We watch Dora the Explorer and T repeats Dora.
She has repeated the foreign languages she has heard other families speaking at the park.
I wish I could help her learn more and try immersing her in multiple languages in the home as well.
I am trying to learn more Spanish to help by labelling and using Spanish words as well as English words for objects around the home.
We have close friends who fluently speak multiple languages in their home and I know this is a HUGE benefit for their children. I wish I was more worldly, I would like to offer T the world.
I also hope to share in the cultural diversity with T, we are blessed to live in a diverse community with many opportunities to celebrate other cultures.
This has always been something I find very interesting and important in my own life. I didn't grow up in a diverse community but have a close cousin who is biracial and lived in a community with so much cultural diversity. I loved learning from her.
I wanted my daughter to have what she had.
Physical Pursuits
We started dance last week and T loved every minute! I struggled at first because I have never been away from her like that before. Every other parent in the waiting room with me had more than one child to help keep them occupied while the other was in the studio.
T has shown us many of her new dance moves at home too!
We also have been moving up to the bigger playground and I'm allowing her to do more at the park.
I feel good about the ability to keep her body active and fine tuning her physical activities.
Learning Through Play
T learns in everything we do, I share all of my activities and chores with her. I take her on most of my errands.
And she has gotten so independent about putting on shoes, getting into her car seat and carrying bags when we go out together.
We play with baby dolls every day right now. T got two baby dolls a few months ago.
I will say most of T's language skills came from song and rhythm, we still make up songs together when playing and sing songs that we have heard together.
Creative Pursuits
I try to grow her creativity by allowing her to color and paint, make projects for gifts for friends and loved ones. She has made a friends 2nd birthday card, her daddy a Father's Day gift and card and my dad a Father's Day card. We paint and color with crayons for fun. Her creativity is amazing to me. I hope to continue to pursue creative outlets with her.
We are working on play dough and waxed string to help with fine motor skills too.
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