Nap time, craft time...

Ed and I have been working on numbers with EV. Up until recently, I only thought of our little baby as, well, a little baby. Fact is however, she turns 2 in one month!  When I went back to my high school reunion, a handful of families got together for a picnic during the day at a great park. I was in awe when one of the 17 month olds rambled off his numbers, only skipping 7, or 17, I don't remember. It was like this little munchkin threw a brick at my face! I was stunned. My little physically advanced, no fear, happy as can be baby didn't know ANY number. Zero...not even zero...she didn't know zero! Well, this got Super Mama into gear.

Our techniques so far:

I'm sure there is an actual way to teach your kid numbers. I graduated with a degree to teach high school math and physics, well beyond kids learning numbers...although you wouldn't know it by some of my former students. I am definitely not trained to teach a little kid anything. However, I can bombard my child with a ton of methods and hope some of it sticks, right?

Sesame Street has been helpful, not only because she is in LOVE with Elmo right now but it also keeps her entertained for the hour long show. I can get work done, she is "learning", or at least I tell myself that. I have noticed a jump in interest with letters and numbers since watching it though. I bought her two puzzles, see below, and we have two books I just purchased. There is a numbers book at Mom & Dad's house she absolutely loves and got her initially interested.

Melissa & Doug See-Inside Alphabet Peg Puzzle

Puzzled Raised Puzzle Small - Numbers Wooden Toys

Tag Jr. Sesame Street

LeapFrog Tag Junior Sesame Street: Big Bird's First Book Of Letters

I wanted to give her ANOTHER avenue to learn numbers and eventually letters, shapes, colors, etc. During her nap time today I made a felt activity board. Super easy! I bought the felt at Jo-Ann Fabrics (it was 40% off!) and like I always do got enough to cover a whole wall while only wanting to cover a 14x20 space. Oh well, I'll learn moderation at some point. They also had $1.09 pieces of thick felt I used to cut out the numbers. I could have easily used 1 piece to cut all the numbers out but I wanted different colors. Could have saved me around $8. I had an old frame which I was attempting to rehab last year but failed with my spray painting technique. Apparently, many thin layers are better than one super thick glob of a layer...you live you learn. I don't really know where the glass is for this frame so it was a perfect candidate. How do you lose glass to a frame? I did somehow.

You can tell I used her numbers puzzle as templates for the numbers. I just traced onto the back of the felt with a black marker/pen. On the 3 in the last picture you can see some of my marks. You can't tell in the pictures but this frame has a lot of blotchy areas. Good thing EV doesn't judge :)

During the process I think I should keep working on numbers...I skipped over 6 and had to go back and make one. Yikes! The numbers stick really well so I'm excited to see her play with it. And on that note, I heard a talky baby from the bedroom. Nap time and craft time are over...now it's play time!!!