How Long Is It Until My Birthday?
My girl's birthday is coming in a few weeks and among my children, she is the one who really gets excited when there are special occasions such as these. She always wants to count down until the special day, which is okay when we are counting only a few days, but could get harder if we are talking weeks and months. Lol.
We are currently mastering her take-aways so her birthday countdown just gave her a great problem to solve.
"If there are 31 days in May and today is May 28, how many days are left in the month?"
"When is your birthday?"
And so she begins to count.
As she is doing this exercise, I realized that she still finds dates and times complicated and confusing. She even asked me, "Is Little Man's birthday over or under Christmas?".
I had to tell her there isn't such a thing as over or under when talking about dates, but instead we use before and after. She is still confused. More lessons o come on this.
Another Learning Opportunity
Meanwhile, I have not yet really gotten serious with Little Man memorizing the months of the year so his big sister's lesson on dates also became the opportunity for him to learn the months of the year.
He knows the seven days of the week but not yet the twelve months, so here it goes...
My children (as do most other children, I think) are physically oriented so I thought of adding a little twist and fun to our memorization lesson.
Let's Hop and Learn!
But first, art time!
I took out a piece of A4 paper and cut it into 12. Fractions. Fractions. :)
Anyway, I wrote the months of the year on each piece of paper. To add more color and a bit of fun, Little Miss added some drawings to them.
To make it more meaningful, I asked her to put drawings that are related to the special events that happen in that particular month. Her birthday is in June, so cake it is!
 |  |
|---|
Once done with all the twelve months, I stuck them on our floor in such a way that they are spaced as wide as their steps.
The idea is for them to hop onto these labels while reading them.
 |  |
|---|
At first, they (Little Miss joined of course) hopped using both legs, or even crawled as they touched the labels. When that became too easy (or boring) we leveled it up and added a challenge to hop all the way from January to December.
They kept on coming back to this every now and then. I did not even have to tell them. That's a feat for me!
You will find in the video below the fun activity which made Little Man memorize the months of the year in just a day (actually, just half a day).
Sorry for the bad edit. I really did not have any intention to put a video to this post, but I realized it makes more sense if I did so I quickly put together this one.
Memory Training
Being physically active, it helped my children to learn when it involves physical actions like hopping and skipping. It is also a great way to improve their coordination, balance, and memory skills.
Other similar activities are bouncing balls when spelling or doing maths. As you say the words, bounce the balls.
Anyway, if you want to know what "DEAR Time" Little Man mentioned in the above video, it is Drop Everything And Read, where we make it a point to read everyday. Sometimes we take videos of him while reading (like this one below) as it can also help me assess his progress as time goes by.
I hope you enjoyed this small post. Do you also have any special tricks you use when memorizing? I'd love to hear in the comments!
