My husband and I constantly go back and forth between whether or not we want to do homeschooling. There are pros and cons to both choices and we still have a year and a half before we have to make a definite decision, so we are procrastinating till then. But as my mother-in-law always tells me, "you are already homeschooling." And she's right. When my oldest was about 8 months old, I purchased Teach My Baby from ToysRUs and it is most definitely one of the best purchases I've made as a parent. We used it almost every day and I wholeheartedly believe that it was a fantastic learning device for my sweet girl.
Fast forward 2 years and I began using it again with my youngest. I began to wonder if there were any additional boxes for toddlers and preschoolers by the same brand and was thrilled to find out there in fact were. I purchased them both and the girls each got one for Christmas this past year. We still use them everyday and I cannot begin to describe how amazing these products are and how important they have been in our home. Beyond the educational factor, they are perfect for bonding with baby, toddler, or preschooler. And even though we were never able to use the toddler box with my oldest, she still thinks it is fun to use so she can teach her sister. And both of them still use the baby box, even though they have surpassed that era.
Teach My Baby includes sounds, self, first words and first numbers.
The first numbers package includes finger puppets which have always been a big hit with both girls.
The "self" package includes mirrors, stacking blocks (great for motor skills) and a book.
Teach My Toddler includes numbers, shapes, colors and letters. (I wish I would have known this box existed when I was teaching my oldest all of these categories. We used a dry erase board everyday for 6 months to learn these subjects. However, that worked just fine as my 2 and a half year old could not only tell you every letter (lower and uppercase), but she could also give the sound(s) they made.)
Each package includes a puzzle, cards and a book. Full disclosure: we have not even started letters with our 19 month old yet. She is doing a fantastic job with numbers, shapes and colors and we are going to master those before we move on to the alphabet package. (Please ignore her band-aid...no actual boo-boo, she just wanted one cause sister had one.)
My 19 month old can easily locate heart, star, circle and diamond. She knows red, blue and yellow without any help and has no issues with counting 1 to 10 on her own. I am positive that Teach My Baby is responsible for some of that success.
Teach My Preschooler includes counting 1 to 100, math, letter sounds/sight words and writing/tracing numbers and letters.
Before we purchased this box, we had already started all of these subjects with our 3 year old, but this has only helped her become more proficient, especially with counting to 100.
The math package, in my opinion, is insanely creative. The addition side using little kids to slide down into the sand pit and the subtraction side uses the same children to jump off the swings.
It was kind of pointless to photograph the package for letter sounds/sight words as the whole package is just flash cards.
The tracing/writing package is without a doubt her favorite and mine as well. We can use it in so many different ways. Tracing numbers and letter (upper and lowercase), I can also place the transparent number or letter on the board, but ask her to draw it just by looking at it (without tracing), we use it to practice sight words and sounding out words, and her favorite part is drawing funny stick figures on it.
You could spend hours on Pinterest or other educational sites trying to think of fun ways to teach all of this information. Trust me, before purchasing these, that's exactly what I did and while the dry erase board was more than capable of teaching my preschooler all she needed to know, sometimes boxes like these can make it much more exciting and certainly less stressful for the parents. As you can see, I highly recommend any or all of the Teach My Baby products. Each box is $40, but for something I've used every day for years now, that's a very small cost.
