Any Ideas For 1 & 2yr Old Curriculum?

[Largemouthfrog]

Want the perfect music resource?

http://youtu.be/bw2nif3jt6w

This clip teaches little ones about animals, counting etc and does it through a great music cartoon clip.
The site also has other resources.

https://www.largemouthfrog.net

[Unregistered]

Young children are VERY capable of learning....

I am a home dc and I do a preschool curriculum. My experience is that 1 and 2's are just too difficult and too young to do a preschool curriculum. I have found the best age to start is 3. You could possibly do things like...when child is in the high chair give them blocks to build with or other creative toys for manipulation. I am not sure, as sometimes I think kids just need to be kids (in this case a toddler), and not have things (curriculum) forced upon them.

I am sorry, but I disagree. I too run a home child care. I have a one year old currently in my care. She is now able to recognize the color's purple and green on her own. She may not be able to speak well, but can point them out if you ask her. She was taught by me.... I taught in a fun way. We laughed, danced, and played all while learning. She was not my only youngster at the time either. I also care for a recently turned 2 year old. She now recognizes all her colors and her letters A, B, and C.... plus the sounds they make..., as well as her numbers 1-5 (recognition, and grouping). My 3 year old daughter knows her letters by sight and sound as well as numbers 1-12. She has also mastered rhyming words.

Children are never too young to learn. They just learn in different ways. My best advise is to be creative. Don't always think things have to be by the book. Children need creativity and to know that what they are doing is valued. I do agree not to push, but if you are doing a curriculum where it is fun they do not see it as learning. Always keep a schedule where they know what to expect at all times. Kids need this to grow.

These are just things that have worked for me... oh and one other thing, 1 and 2 year olds love to paint with their hands (finger paint) and when you do this in a certain color it also helps them to learn their colors while making a mess!

[butterfly]

I am sorry, but I disagree. I too run a home child care. I have a one year old currently in my care. She is now able to recognize the color's purple and green on her own. She may not be able to speak well, but can point them out if you ask her. She was taught by me.... I taught in a fun way. We laughed, danced, and played all while learning. She was not my only youngster at the time either. I also care for a recently turned 2 year old. She now recognizes all her colors and her letters A, B, and C.... plus the sounds they make..., as well as her numbers 1-5 (recognition, and grouping). My 3 year old daughter knows her letters by sight and sound as well as numbers 1-12. She has also mastered rhyming words.

Children are never too young to learn. They just learn in different ways. My best advise is to be creative. Don't always think things have to be by the book. Children need creativity and to know that what they are doing is valued. I do agree not to push, but if you are doing a curriculum where it is fun they do not see it as learning. Always keep a schedule where they know what to expect at all times. Kids need this to grow.

These are just things that have worked for me... oh and one other thing, 1 and 2 year olds love to paint with their hands (finger paint) and when you do this in a certain color it also helps them to learn their colors while making a mess!

[Unregistered]

Hey I agree I don't want to force anything on the kids...but I wonder what would be good activities to have? What I did with my own child may not be appropriate for other kids....for instance my 1 year old KNEW when Law n Order Was coming on :-), or other things like chase mommie...the blocks idea is great my son loved to push them over when he was 1....maybe the correct question should be...What fun activties have you all tried with the 1s and 2s?


AppleJx

I have one year olds at the daycare that I work at. I am required to do lesson plans & it is very difficult because there attention span lasts about five minutes. They could care less about a "schedule". Give me a break, they are still babies!!! They are happy when I set in the floor and play, sing songs or read to them.

[Unregistered]

One Year old Curriculum

I have taught one year old preschool as a Lead Teacher for the past 8 years. A curriculum is important for guided learning through play. Since I work at a Methodist Church we utilize the Wee Learn curriculum by Lifeway. It uses in the book items that are developmentally important and integrates them into a play setting. This allows them play to them and intentional learning for us. They must have developmental skill sets to prep them for 2k, 3k etc... Fine motor skills work like putting things into say juice bottles, gross motor skills from 2 feet jumping (which can be accomplished through songs), crossing the median line important for brain transference, working on turning pages in books, really imperative are sensory items can be accomplished in art, a felt board, washing a baby, a sensory bin with age appropriate items, art using up and down motion outside on a wall, the most important thing is to have a caring teacher who knows where they are at and take them where they need to be. Knowing the expectations of each age. We use the Ages and Stages Questionnaire for our evaluations and have seen wonderful results. If my one year olds are still having a morning nap I transition them to the 9 to 12 schedule by meeting their needs.

[Unregistered]

Hi Everyone!
I just stumbled on this blog and was ecstatic to find a group of such enthusiastic daycare professionals. I could really use your help. I am a stay at home mom living abroad with my 13 month old son. My husband and I are raising our son in a bilingual house. We have chosen not to send our son to daycare here, because the daycares where we live are all run in the local language, which is barely spoken beyond this very limited region. We don't want to trade his English learning time for a little used regional language, especially since we plan to leave this region before our son begins school.
So,...It is up to me to educate my son and help him as much as I can to be ready to start preschool in the States. Do you have any curriculums that I could follow that would practical for a home setting? I know I can't replicate a daycare setting in that I don't have all of the toys, nor the group of other kids with whom to watch and interact. My background is in marine science, not childhood education. What would you as educators recommend to someone in my situation? I feel like I am failing my son. I try to have activities each day, but don't feel that the activities are structured enough, nor do they complement one another. I may have unrealistic expectations about how focused my son can be on any one activity. He cares more for the light switch than any shape sorter:-) He loves books, but rarely sits still for a story unless it is before bed (he gets 2 naps and bed, so 3 stories per day).
How much should I be forcing an agenda and how much should I just be elaboratiing on what he finds interesting? Are there any books or resources that you could recommend for someone in my situation?
I am interested to learn more. Thanks in advance for any help or advice you can offer.
kind regards

[daycare]

at 13 months I would just read and read read read to him. Then play play play. then sing sing sing!!

I would just think out loud. Tell him everything that you are doing and build his vocabulary. it's amazing to see how well kids read when they are older if their parents spent the time talking to them, reading to them and building their vocabulary when they were young.

My oldest son who is now 17 started reading books at age 3. By the time he was in Kindergarten, he could read at a 3-4 grade level.

Puzzles and dumping buckets of anything are always fun at this age.

[Lavender]

Hi Everyone!
I just stumbled on this blog and was ecstatic to find a group of such enthusiastic daycare professionals. I could really use your help. I am a stay at home mom living abroad with my 13 month old son. My husband and I are raising our son in a bilingual house. We have chosen not to send our son to daycare here, because the daycares where we live are all run in the local language, which is barely spoken beyond this very limited region. We don't want to trade his English learning time for a little used regional language, especially since we plan to leave this region before our son begins school.
So,...It is up to me to educate my son and help him as much as I can to be ready to start preschool in the States. Do you have any curriculums that I could follow that would practical for a home setting? I know I can't replicate a daycare setting in that I don't have all of the toys, nor the group of other kids with whom to watch and interact. My background is in marine science, not childhood education. What would you as educators recommend to someone in my situation? I feel like I am failing my son. I try to have activities each day, but don't feel that the activities are structured enough, nor do they complement one another. I may have unrealistic expectations about how focused my son can be on any one activity. He cares more for the light switch than any shape sorter:-) He loves books, but rarely sits still for a story unless it is before bed (he gets 2 naps and bed, so 3 stories per day).
How much should I be forcing an agenda and how much should I just be elaboratiing on what he finds interesting? Are there any books or resources that you could recommend for someone in my situation?
I am interested to learn more. Thanks in advance for any help or advice you can offer.
kind regards

I am a lead teacher of mobile infants up to age 18 months. Every day I take them outside or substitute a large motor activity if we can't go outside, I provide a sensory activity, an art activity, and one more fun things. We read lots of books (get more at the library that I don't have at home), I sing songs and do fingerplays plus play music and dance. I try to do simple themes as repetition is good for learning at this age. This week I did a water/fish theme. Some of my activities:

"swimming" in a baby pool with stuffed fish
"swimming" with rubber duckies
crawling in a tunnel
stepping on a sensory mat
Playing with warm, soapy water and bath toys in sensory table
Playing with ice
Regular water play
Putting paint on fingertips which they spread on wooden fish, then giving them a paintbrush and water to spread the paint around (making rainbow fish)
Squirting food coloring dyed water on paper and manipulating it

I don't use a specific curriculum, instead I base my plans on observations of my kids and their families plus what is going on around us. For example, I planned a sun/sunflower week during a week I knew was supposed to be sunny all 5 days.

With this age, IMO, all you ready need to do to meet their developmental needs to to read, talk a lot (narration and good interactive child-directed speech), and provide them opportunities to explore the world and what their new-found mobile bodies can do.

[RituPatil]

Hi, A friend and I are currently working on starting a daycare facility here in Florida, we have idea's on what we want to implement for our 3 and 4 year olds in terms of lesson plans but I would like to have more ideas for the younger kids. What have you all done with the 1s and 2s? All input and advice wanted and NEEDED..thanks!

AppleJx12

Pre school education is one of the most important phase of a child's life. It is here where the children interact with others. A good pre school is one that balances perfectly between fun and education for the children. Planet kids provide this balance and i can see the difference in my kids now.

[Unregistered]

My kiddos start to be interested in creative art around 14/15 months. I don't ever require or push them. I do all open ended art. They start to sit at circle time out of choice about 18 mo.

I do a very a short circle time 7-10 minutes and it's very interactive and visual with flannel board activities, finger puppets, songs, puppetry, etc.

My littles are joining in a lot by 20 months!

[Unregistered]

One Year Olds

Hi, A friend and I are currently working on starting a daycare facility here in Florida, we have idea's on what we want to implement for our 3 and 4 year olds in terms of lesson plans but I would like to have more ideas for the younger kids. What have you all done with the 1s and 2s? All input and advice wanted and NEEDED..thanks!

AppleJx12

I have been teaching children between 12-24 months for almost 8 years. This is our typical day...Breakfast from 730a-8a, 8a-9a diapers and color review, 9a is story time, 915a-930a art/craft, 930a-10a snack, 10a-1030a diapers and centers, 1030a-11a outside time, 11a-1120a circle time, 1120a hand washing, 1130a-12p lunch, 1215p-230p nap/quite time, 230p-3p snack, 3p-330p diapers/shapes review, 330p-4p outside time. People who say you can not teach one year olds are very very wrong. I have 10 in my class and 6 of the them know red, blue, green, yellow, orange, brown, black, white, purple and pink. They can count to 10 in English and Spanish. They know square, circle, triangle, heart, oval, rectangle and star. We also do Reading, Drawing, Writing. This is a program where you read a book for two days, the third day you just review the book let them ask questions or just show the pictures, the fourth day you have them "draw" something that relates to the book and then the fifth day you ask them to "talk" about their drawing. It's amazing!! Their little minds are sponges and they love to learn as long as you make it fun

[Trust DayCare]

Hi All,

We had our daily activities that you could see and try , check it out here :



Hope you find it helpful :hug:

Best,

Trust DayCare