Your 2.5 year old... what do you do with them? What can they do?

[lunavix]

I'm a CM and I mind twins of 2 years and 5 months. I do the usual things with them - we talk about colours, weather, chat as we go places, do body parts.... but the other day her mum mentioned if she writes some letters the girl copies them. I've never noticed (and tbh she wouldn't do it today!)

She's getting lots of words, asks a few questions 'whats that?' 'whats that noise'. Knows a couple of colours, all her body parts. She can count a bit (her mum says she can go to 10, but I've only heard it to 3 despite much encouragement!)

What can the 'average' 2.5 year old do? I know it's a loose term, but I do believe you know your own children better than someone elses and as ds isn't this old yet would love some input.

So what can your child do?

And what do you work with them, to teach them?

We play outside in the park a lot. We play at kicking a ball, jumping, catching a ball or flying disk, on the playground apparatus. We go to the Botanical Gardens and pick out colours, birds, plants, trees.

Rainy days we break out the Play Doh stuff, finger paints, crayons and markers.

We go for drives and spot the cows, horses, sheep.

Once a week we go to a location - a new town, a picnic locale, SeaWorld, a museum, farmer's market or the like.

We're pretty outdoorsy people, tho.

THanks expat but not what I mean! I mean development wise ie what can they say, what can they do (colours, writing etc)

Since the age of 2 my dd could sometimes count to 20 or more, and then she would go through a phase of not knowing them. At that age, they are simply repeating, and so if you havn't counted with them for a while they forget it again until they do!.

At about 2.5 dd would 'write' in their own little fashion. rather than large scribbles on paper, she would do little squiggles in a row and tell me she was writing. Now she is close to turning three she can write her name and form a few other letters when shown first. She also enjoys me dotting out the letters so she can join them up as though writing iykwim?

TBH i agree with you with regard to letting conversations and experiences 'teach' children at this age things, rather than deliberately trying to teach them things.
DD learnt to write her name because we wrote lots of Christmas cards out, so she had mastered her name by the end!
DD learnt to count because we counted steps each time we climbed them etc.

Are you thinking this Mother is trying to 'hint' that you are not 'teaching' enough? If so, i would gently explain the importance of learning through experiences at this age rather than structured learning. Alternatively you could just say yep she counted to 10 today and wrote her name!

Sorry, dd definitely knew all her colours etc. and had huge language by 2.5, but then i do know others whose language came along later. I always say they concentrate on one area of development at a time.
DD wasn't too interested in physical play for a time, not keen on trikes and things, whilst other children who had less language were pedalling at high speeds the same age!

DD1 is definitely more physical, but again it could be b/c we do a lot outdoors. In particular, she climbs or attempts to climb just about anything, pedals a trike, jumps, catches, throws, kicks a football - she shouts 'fitba' whenever we pass a pitch, etc.

She knows some colours, some letters and she's got her shapes down. She counts to 15.

She does A LOT of imaginary play. She even puts on different 'voices' for the different roles - something I always do whilst reading to her. She pretends to read.

She makes things out of play doh.

Dd's 3.3 now but if I remember at 2.5 she was really only interested in imaginative play with little figures. I do remember though that she would never 'perform', i.e. she could do many things but if you asked her to show you she wouldn't.

Agree totally! DD will never ever perform!

DS and his best friend (a girl, both 2 1/2) go to the childminder and spend loads of time together so play together much more than most children their age. I also spend lots of time with them both together.

They do a lot of imaginative play - this morning they were talking about going to the beach, sometimes they "go to the shops" or look after their babies together, but whatever they're pretending they usually chat away to each other the whole time. They both have very good language for their age I think - complete sentences, complicated questions and phrases etc.

DS knows all his colours but his counting isn't so great. His friend doesn't know her colours very well but can count to 10 without prompting. They both like to draw - but just scribbles really, definitely no letters yet. If we are looking at something with DS's name on I will show it to him but we are certainly not actively working on recognising or writing numbers and letters yet. They also both like glueing, painting and playdough and have just figured out how to use safety scissors.

They've both known all their body parts for a long time, animals and animal sounds, weather (maybe not hurricane for example but sunny, rainy, hot, cold etc). I can't really think what else really. Oh, and they've both just been toilet trained and seem to be doing really well with that.

I think it's fair to say that both myself and the other mum are always chatting away to them, talking while we're out whether it's shopping or pointing out things while we're driving. And if there's an opportunity to count or do colours or whatever while their playing then we do that with them but by no means any "structured" learning at this age. They'll start that soon enough at nursery next year.

Does any of t hat help?

Oh, and they are both really good at singing nursery rhymes and things. It's very sweet really.

Thanks everyone

I'm happy that I do lots with them, it's just with ds I instinctively know while we do things (such as counting footsteps) whether he's ready to 'know' them iykwim. I know what developmental stage he's at.

Because ds is only now coming up to 2, childminding has always been a learning curve as I don't have the experience with the older ones and know what they should be able to do. But I'm happy enough now. The only thing I haven't really done is days and things which I will start doing now. Want to get one of those charts you stick it on!

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

My daughter is 26 months and she ...

Knows all her colours. Including pink, purple, silver. We did this through talking about cars we saw as we walked round the shops.

Can recite her numbers to about 15. I have never taught her this, sometimes we count upstairs but it is mostly something she picked up at nursery.

Understands the concept of one and two. If you hold up either one object or two and ask "how many have I got?", she can respond one or two. Other than that, everything else is 3 or 5, depending on her whim!!

Recognises some numbers, again number 1, 2,5 and 8. We did this with her advent calendar, where we hid 'sweeties'(dried fruit to you and I) in the pockets and said can you find a number '1' etc. She soon picked that one up .

She can engage in imaginary play, but does need an adult to help her. She can not do it for any length of time on her own / with other children. But if you lead the way, she can respond and play shops / pizza restaurants for quite some time!

Yep, she knows the vast majority of her body parts. She is currently learning wrist and ankle. We tend to do this through point to the body games such as bad versions of head, shoulders knees and toes...!

She can ask a few questions such as 'what's that' but is no where near the 'why?' questions yet.

She is also just learning to use scissors (does that at nursery, not with me!) starting to properly dress herself, oh and she has just started to learn to lie little madam!

But, I work mornings, so she does a lot of activities at her nursery and then I spend a lot of time with her doing things. Most afternoons, we either go out and see friends, or we do arts and crafts etc. Also, a lot of our play is very educational. Like today, we were playing bowling, but the skittles had numbers on them, so every time she knocked one over, I'd say which one she had knocked over and after a few times I'd then ask she. Today she started to recognise the number 4! But I'm a teacher so am very sad in that I bring my work home and am heavily into early child development and maximising potential without pushing too much, so I tend to use every opportunity I get really. I'm a cuel mum

But she is still in nappies, because I can't be arsed to potty train!!

sorry about typos, its late!