Frugal Ways to Learn the Alphabet

Mar

6th

2008

Filed Under Parenting
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As I’m sure most parents do, my wife and I strive to provide the best learning opportunities for our son. We’ve bought him the Baby Einstein toys, Thomas the Tank laptop, and other main-stream “toys” that are supposed to be educating my son while also entertaining him. But, we’ve run across two very uncommon (and cheap) methods of teaching him the alphabet….

The first is the game show, Wheel of Fortune. Yes, that’s right, “the Wheel”. My wife and were semi-fans before he was born, but it became a regular show in our house after my son was born. It comes on at the time of night that we were/are trying to wind down, get him prepared for bed, and begin to relax with what was left of the day. Over the past few months, we’ve noticed the boy being very interested in the Wheel. The opening music comes on at 6:30p, and his attention is immediately diverted away from whatever he was playing with and is focused on Pat and Vanna.

As the show progresses, he begins to yell out different letters at the TV. I don’t think he’s actually trying to spell out the puzzles, but I do believe he understands the players are throwing out letters, so he’s trying to join in on the fun. It’s quite entertaining to watch a two-year old playing Wheel of Fortune.

The second method presented itself by accident last week. I bought a new computer a while back, and the old one has been sitting on the floor in my office….PC, monitor, keyboard, mouse…all laying on the floor waiting for someone to dispose of it. My son managed to sneak into the room, and immediately grabbed the keyboard and ran off. He has barely set it down since. He carries it around, sets it down, and uses the PS2 connector to push the different letters. He calls out the letters while he’s playing with it, and although he gets a little confused with the multitude of characters in front of him, he does pretty well. He calls it his “computer”, and it’s a very inexpensive way to teach him his letters and numbers.

It’s certainly fun, entertaining, and a proud moment when your kids soak up knowledge. It’s also nice to know that you don’t need fancy, expensive “toys” to experience those feelings. A simple game show and $10 keyboard seem to be working the best for us.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Mar

6th

2008

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Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

~Colin Pow