What should I teach my toddler?

As parents, we are constantly teaching our children. Everything around us is new and exciting to them, and therefore often times we may not even realize that what we are doing is actually stimulating our babies to learn. Although often times I share many tools and activities that were helpful during the first couple years of life, I do believe that the best resource out there is ourselves. Us and the environment around us. Really, you could do all of the learning simply with items found in the home, part of what encompasses the outdoors, and even places that we visit on a regular basis---such as the grocery store. 

That being said, here is a list of the exact {cognitive only} topics that we covered as our babies began to grow. I list them in order.  No these are not all things that your child should know, and more specifically there is no age that they should know them by. I list them simply to give other parents out there ideas on what they can cover next. And? There are so many more little things that I don't even begin to cover here.

Reading and communicating with our little ones will cover all our bases.

TOPICS

Animal sounds {cow says mooo, duck says quack quack, etc}

Pointing to body parts {where is your nose, where are your ears. Differentiating between their body parts versus another persons--such as mama's, papa's, etc}

Matching objects: mainly puzzles--shapes, colors, etc {matching circle to circle, pink to pink, etc}

Colors { the main--white, black, purple, red, yellow, orange, green, blue, grey, brown, pink}

Animals 

Nursery Rhymes/songs

Fruit vs. vegetable

Numbers 1-10

Shapes

ABC's

Uppercase and lowercase ABC's

Counting objects one by one

Sounds of the ABC's {A says Ah, B says Bbb, etc}

Weather {differentiating between hot, cold, sunny, cloudy, windy, rainy, snowy, etc}

Numbers 11-20

Learning differences: IN/OUT, UNDER/OVER, ON/OFF, FRONT, BACK

Beginning word sounds { Astronaut starts with the letter: A, Tell me a word that starts with the letter B, etc}

Days of the week

Months of the year

Left vs. Right

Sight words

Emotions

Numbers 21-100

Spelling common words {cat, dog, mom, dad, etc}

Learn more in depth on animals {polar bears live in the arctic, penguins are birds but they cannot fly, Hippopotamus love to be in water, Rhinoceros get muddy to protect their thick oily skin from the sun, etc----easy and fun facts that help kids remember }

Writing Name

Outer space { planets, phases of the moon, learn about the Earth, etc}

Some States and where people live: {Grandparents live: Oklahoma, Mickey Mouse lives: Florida, Our friend Kennedy lives: Michigan, etc}

Outdoors {learning about the different kinds of flowers and nature around us, that flowers need soil, water, and sun to grow, etc}

Math {addition/subtraction in single digits----in other words fun with animal crackers :)  }

Writing the rest of the letters of the alphabet

Money--- {learning value of nickle, dime, quarter, dollar bill, etc}

Rhyming words

   

My oldest is 3.5 now and we have so much more to learn. I will try to add to this list as time goes on and other fun subjects come up. 

As fun as all that above has been to teach, I really am most looking forward to the real fun stuff---learning our presidents, our history, the human body {think dissecting the brain....ha}, etc.