Early Learning for Pre-School and Young Children
Give your child a head start with Early Learning Games and Puzzles. This will help them develop their hand-eye
Coordination, improve their memory, imagination and vocabulary and can also greatly increase their confidence, in a fun and exciting way.
This will mean they are better prepared for when they start school. Learning and ‘working things out’ at school will be much easier for them if they have already started learning basic skills at home.
Basic counting skills, for example, and being able to recognize letters of the alphabet. These two alone will give them a good head-start when they start school. Some other good skills could include recognising pictures and shapes. These could be learned with Picture Match Cards or Floor Puzzles.
And don’t forget drawings. Colouring and drawing books will also help their hand-eye coordination and will teach them the names of colours. Children love animals, so choose a colouring book with animals in and teach them the names of the animals.
Just by completing a puzzle or picture will give your child an enormous sense of achievement, which can only further improve their self confidence.
It doesn’t have to cost a fortune to provide your child with early learning skills. There are loads of good branded games and puzzles to choose from costing between £2.00 and £5.00. Or why not create your own?
You could use your computer to easily make a basic counting or alphabet game. Use WordPad, which can be found under ‘accessories’ from your main programs list. Using WordPad will give you the opportunity to increase the size of your numbers or letters to make it easier for your child to play with.
All you have to do is type a line of numbers from 1 to 10, like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 then press return a couple of times and repeat the numbers again so that you end up with two rows of exactly the same numbers, or letters if you are doing the alphabet. Next, click on the ‘edit’ button at the top of the page and click on ‘select all’. Now look for the font size button, it will probably be set at 10. Now simply choose a higher number, 24 for example and see how big your numbers are now.
Adjust the font size to one you are happy with, then click on the ‘File’ button and select ‘Print Preview’ to see how your numbers will look when printed. If you like the look of it, print off a sheet or go back and adjust the font size and try again.
Once you have printed out a nice working set of numbers or letters, cut them up into individual squares, each square containing just one number or letter. When you have finished, you should have two complete sets of numbers 1 to 10.
Start by teaching your child the names of the numbers; take your time, it’s important not to rush with this basic skill. Once they have a good grasp of the names you could then start a number match game. Show your child a number and ask them to find the same number in the second set and, most importantly get them to ‘say’ the name of the number.
Eventually, you could play a basic counting game or any other numbers game you can think of; after all it’s your game. As I’ve said before, you are just teaching your child the basic skills, please don’t rush your child. Take your time so that they find learning is fun and enjoyable.
After that, it’s back to your computer and your own imagination as to what games to create. You could create two sets of pictures of say, farm animals or jungle creatures and play Picture Match. You may want to play this on your computer rather than printing lots of pictures and using up all of your ink!
There are, of course, many early learning products you can buy, rather than make your own. And you can pay a lot of money for some of the well known branded products. However, I have found a branded name of early learning products with many of its games and puzzles priced at just £1.99. And they are good colourful products and a lot easier than making your own. They have been around for a while but their name is probably not as well known as the more famous brands. The brand name of this collection of early learning activities is; Grafix.
Grafix kids puzzles are a premium range of learning activities, ideal for your child’s development. Ideal for developing hand to eye co-ordination skills. As well as imaginative play and problem solving. Their range of products covers children from age 12 months to 8+ years. They appear to have products to suit all kids and all areas of early learning. Many of their items are priced at £1.99 but I did see many more games at higher prices.
The best site I have found to view Grafix products is called: My First Toys. I did notice that they accept PayPal. With so many low-cost early learning puzzles and games, it doesn’t have to cost the earth to give your child that early, vital head start in their educational development.
Go and have a look at this web-site now and see for yourself, it costs nothing to look:
