ABC Hide and Seek

Earlier this year I reached out to one of my best friends because I was worried about my son Brecken’s interest in anything educational. Brecken is 3 ½ years old and is an active, funny, adventurous, sweet and kind little boy. He has a great vocabulary and actually seems kind of grown up for his age, but it was worrying me because he just didn’t seem interested when I tried to teach him things.

I loved to learn and school was very easy for me. My husband Jeremy on the other hand did the very minimum he had to do in order to get through school and was never very interested in his studies. Brecken’s disinterest in learning had me worried so I called my friend Catelyn to get some education advice. Catelyn is a School Psychologist.

The specific thing I was concerned about was Brecken’s seeming inability to identify his ABC’s. He has been able to say his alphabet for a long time, but when I started trying to get him to read and write them, he just got frustrated. Catelyn gave me a wealth of advice and suggested making a game out of learning. She said that it is possible that Brecken gets frustrated because I ask him too many questions. So possibly, if I steered away from asking questions until he was comfortable in knowing the answers, he would not get as frustrated with my educational attempts. She suggested playing ABC Hide and Seek.

We took pieces of different colored construction paper and I cut them into different shapes. I then took a marker and wrote A, B and C on different colors and shapes. Brecken covered his eyes and I then went around the house and hid the alphabet shapes. When I was done, he had a basket and I asked him to find all of the letter B’s. He went around and to my surprise was able to easily identify all of the B’s. Then we repeated the process with A’s and C’s. When he would bring them to me I would ask him the colors and shapes.

Brecken really enjoyed this game and he did not seem to get frustrated at all. What are some educational games that you play with your children? Please leave links in the comments section to blog posts you have written regarding early childhood education. I am always looking for new and fun ways to teach Brecken and Annabelle!