Great Ideas for Parenting Toddlers: The Final Chapter!

Barbara Curtis’ book, Small Beginnings, First Steps to Prepare Your Child For Lifelong Learning has a big ending. In the final chapters, Barbara teaches us how to do practical activities called “Small Beginning Exercises,” which help bring home the concepts she has discussed throughout the book: independence, order, self-control, concentration, and service.  Not only do these game-like “exercises” help kids move forward in their development, they are a lot of fun to do!

Here is an abridged example taken from Chapter 12:

Sorting
Materials on tray: small container of buttons, five or six each of different colors.

Setup: With child, carry tray to table. Carefully demonstrate removing everything from the tray.  Set a container of buttons on the left.  Smaller dishes on the right. 

Presentation: Using your pincer grasp, (thumb and forefinger), remove a button from container and examine it closely.  Place in one dish.  Remove 2nd and examine.  Compare with button in dish.  If same color, put in dish also; if not, put in another dish.  Continue sorting, inviting the child to take over when the moment is right.  And so on.

Remarks: Any object can be used for sorting; shells, different dried beans, marbles, etc. Muffin tins can also be used for sorting.

Age Range: two to four years

This sorting game promotes reading readiness through working left to right (just like we read), practices a proper pencil grip, develops visual discrimination, as well as cognitive and pre-math skills.

Each simple exercise Barbara gives uses easily available household materials and is designed with a particular emphasis and age range in mind for up to seven years old. Barbara includes a detailed explanation for presenting the exercise and a suggestion for storing the materials so that the child can repeat the exercises independently if they are old enough to do so.

After the final section on exercises, Barbara draws us back out of the trees to the forest:

“Never lose sight of the goal; a self-reliant child who has a sense of order, can concentrate on a task; a child equipped to serve; a joyful child who loves to learn.” 

Isn’t that a package of character traits we’d love to give our child?

Small Beginnings is one of my favorite books from 2009.  Whether you have toddlers or older children, I highly recommend it to you.  Barbara’s book comes from the pen of an experienced writer, educator, and parent—of eleven children, may I remind you! Every page speaks from the depth of her experience and character. And it’s a pleasure to read.  As a bonus, reviewing this book has had a very positive impact on my life, in addition to my parenting.  Parenting is jam packed with lessons in character building, Barbara says. And she is talking about the character building that happens in our lives, not our kids’!

“Who said parenting would be easy?   And how many people find it fun?  But the truth is, it can be much easier and a lot more fun when you learn what really make children tick, when you’re ready to relax a little and be prepared for new surprises each day.”

-posted by Donna Detweiler who was excited to give this book to several family members for Christmas—so she can talk about it more!