A Little About My Baby / Toddler and Myself
As a mom of four children, we're blessed with two boys and two girls. There's the two little ones, aged 3 and 4, and the two bigger ones, aged 10 and 13. When I am not busy with the kids or house, I spend time on my online business called ToddlerFun that was inspired by my younger son.
What I Did:
It's not always easy to find time to read to our children but we should at least try and not give up. By setting a specific reading time, it becomes a habit and later on the children ask you for a story. It's a great feeling to see the interest when they start asking questions about the story; it's then that you know you're on the right track. Development and stage is important in choosing children's books. For babies, big bold colorful pictures with one word per page is recommended. Touch and play books, sing-a-long books and turn-and-learn, all interactive books, should be part of your child's collection.
How I Did It:
The way I introduced my children to books was to focus on each stage that they were at. As babies we started with books that were about the exploration of all the senses. This included books of texture, sounds and big pictures. In between the picture board books were bath books that fitted more into playtime.
Books included English as well as Afrikaans books, as our home language is Afrikaans. Looking through the bookshelves, Rogger Priddy's "Baby ABC" touch and feel book is still here. It has provided my youngest girl with lots of exploration time. It is alphabetical and has different surfaces that she loves to touch, with colorful photos matching back to a specific alphabet letters.
Animals in books have been a natural attraction to my children. On the Afrikaans side we had "Hondjie en sy maats" that was also a touch and feel book from Lapa distributors. This hard book made animal sounds that were a favourite with my little boy.
Books that stimulate the senses are much more interesting and promote children's curiosity to explore and find out more. Play-a-song books are also great since they combine simple rhymes with songs like Thomas and Friends - "Song to the station" book. Rhymes are just another way to develop speech and vocabulary. My little girl loves trains and this was a perfect opportunity to engage her in the books.
I am constantly working on the children's speech and language development. It improves as they expand their vocabulary and books that assisted with this are "My Wordbook" and "Jasper My First rhyme-time wordbook" from Fantasi publishers. Often I'll find the kids paging through it, taking in the actions from the colourful pictures.
Our nighttime stories included the Walt Disney series of books as well as fairy tales. Nothing beats Little Red Riding Hood and the bad wolf now that they aren't babies anymore. The kids love to repeat the rhyme words "huff and puff..." as they interact with the story. Books that engage children are great to have on hand.
My children learned basics like colours and shapes through ToddlerFun's own published book called "Connor's great shape escape". Of significance was how my son claimed the story because it had his name in it. Not all of us can publish books but if you can find a book with your child's name in it, then the personalization of it can be a great positive experience for young children.
Lessons Learned
- Read often or use Book CDs as an alternative and schedule time for it.
- Stack up on a variety of books focusing on engaging the child's senses. Look for turn-and-learn books, pop-up books and activity books.
- Use a child's interest to get them interested in books; if they like dolphins, then get a book on it.
- Engage children in the story by asking questions and mimicking a characters and what they would sound like. This will make the story much more interesting and capture your child's interest.
- Use the web to find recommended books based on your child's age and development.
