Do you do learning activities with your young children? Or did you?
I was shocked to discover recently that a large amount of children entering kindergarten do no know their ABC's, can't count, and have trouble with basic English like recognizing how to put simple sentences together. I was told by a pre-school teacher that if the parents won't work with the child at home then what they're learning in pre-school won't be enough to give them a basic start in Kindergarten.
We have all sorts of things we do just for fun around our house. We count things for fun. I've read to my children since birth. I also have index cards up all over the house that have the names for things on them. For instance I have one on the door that says "door," one on the microwave that says "microwave." My 3 year old can say her ABC's and recognizes almost all of the letters (she mixes up V and Y on sight and often skips N when saying her ABC's). She can also count to 30. She's learning some basic three letter words like dog, cat, hug.
My 2 year old can count to 10 and can say her ABC's about half the time without mistakes, and recognizes a lot of the letters already. My three year old speaks very well for her age, but my two year old still struggles to speak clearly (she'll be 3 in April).
I don't actively WORK with my kids, these are just fun things we do. We count, we sing, we read, and draw and write. We also do puzzles, mazes, and work on things like color by number pictures (though really my three year old just colors the number not the whole section). I didn't realize how much work goes into preparing your child for school, but I guess we're on the right track.
What sort of learning activities do you or did you do with your children? Did you start doing them just to get them ready for school or was it just something you always did? I can remember actively working with my SD on things but that was after she'd started school and was struggling a little bit with things like learning to count money, recognize patterns, struggle with spelling and sight words.