Table Time for Tots and Toddlers

This morning on the way to school I was listening to a leadership tape by John C Maxwell entitled “You’ve Gotta Have a System”. I have always loved systems and I believe for a home or an organisation to function smoothly, you’ve gotta have a few good systems in place.

When you have a rhythm in your daily structure, it allows your child learning opportunity where obedience, focus, and practical skills are being enforced. Seeing your child happy, content, creatively learning new things and having a good attitude is a big blessing for any parent.

Table time is not just another activity you provide to occupy your child while you are busy. It is a training system to teach sitting skill, contentment, focus and fine motor skills.

When you organise your kids activities into different structures (ie, table time, mat time, room time), guess who is in control of the activities? We the parents are. We are not trying to entertain them constantly, trying to keep boredom at bay, and we are not running into mischiefs throughout the day because they are bored, We become facilitators of their learning opportunities.

Here in this post I would like to share some of my favourite store-bought activities that are suitable for younger children and I hope to share some future posts on home-made manipulatives.

These geometric shapes boards come in a set of 3. They are made of one wholes, halves and thirds. My first challenge in training my tots is to teach her not to pick up the pieces and throw them onto the floor. Hand picking and placing the pieces in the right places require fine motor skills and good hand eye coordination.

These simple jigsaw board is another great table time activity which you can increase in level of hardness for older toddlers.

This wooden alphabet cart below can be pulled around contains alphabet blocks, number blocks, picture blocks and basic calculation symbols.

Stamping is a fun introduction to colouring and painting

This is a fanta colour board which is made up of 30 button shaped, soft plastic pieces with different colours and 3 primary shapes.

It comes with easy-to-insert domes on a transparent board with different design pictures that encourages hand eye coordination, colour and shape matching skills. It helps the child with their fine motor skills and developing dexterity.

Felt creation encourages learning independence. They are open ended story board that are great for high chair and table time activities and require little supervision as they are unbreakable.

The water doodle mat is another mess-free writing, colouring, drawing activity for the younger ones. This one comes with different shapes, alphabet and number traces. I placed my sponge cut out alphabets there for younger hands to feel and trace.