ABC SERIES: C is for CARS

Cars week was crazy fun! And... it actually lasted 2 weeks. Lucky for us, there were a lot of fun things to do with cars. I am excited to share some of our activities from the last two weeks. The first thing I had to teach Lanae was what a car says. Beep beep! And what we wear to keep safe while we are driving. A seat belt. We also talked about holding hands when we are in the parking lot because that is something Lanae doesn't like to do.



I like to keep it simple. 2-3 main points for her to learn... because she's only 2 and that's about all she can handle.

After our introduction we had a simple counting lesson. It's crazy how good she is. When we first start, she can point and count and I'm like "Yes! She totally gets it!!!" and then she starts going 6. 3. 2. 1. 5. 

Huh?

That's why we keep practicing. 

Now here is the most exciting part of our week. Just kidding. But I thought this was totally impressive and Lanae felt like a genius after this activity. I thought it would be way too hard and I would have to help her a ton. However, I wanted to try it anyway. That's the teacher part of me coming out.

When you look at these pictures, you will probably think that I rearranged them so they would look pretty and straight. Get this: I didn't touch them at all. Ever. She did this! All by herself. Can you tell I was impressed. And surprised.

You can probably figure out what we did without me telling you, but here is a quick run down.

1. Print and cut out the cars.

2. Tape and line up the first row of cars on a wall at an easily accessible height.

3. Prep the rest of the cars with tape.

4. Explain the rules of the "game..." I told Lanae. "I'll give you a car and you will stack it on top of the right color."

5. Give the child the car and see what they do! This is where you can understand what they understand.

6. Praise them if they get it right and offer some guidance if they don't. For example, if Lanae put the green car above the yellow car I would say, "Does that car match?" She would quickly re-evaluate.

7. Repeat until you finish with the cars... or until your child loses interest. If you keep it fun and positive then they will be more likely to keep focused because children naturally want to please people!

8. Have fun!!!

These cars are still up on our window and Lanae has taken ownership of them. Every time I open the blinds she says, "My cars!" And then we practice counting some more. I will ask her to count one of the colors. This way we continue to review counting and colors... constantly.

  
This was an extremely fun activity! And I'm so sorry to do this to you... but I'm gonna make you wait for the details on this one. I'll tell you one thing, it involves chalk and hot wheels.

And I'll be sharing this on a fun guest post in the near future! Stay tuned.

This was our end of week celebration. We made these cardboard box cars and went to the "drive-in movies." The drive-in was our good friend's house and the movie was CARS 2. Seemed fitting. I'll be sharing a tutorial on these really cool homemade cardboard box cars on Friday! Again I say... stay tuned!