5 Toddler Life Skills We’re Focused on this Summer

Remember those summer reading lists we used to get in grammar school? Even though Brielle is not yet at the stage of reading dialogue I want every season to be educational in some manner, even the summer. Since there is so much stuff to be learned at the precious age of almost 3, I thought it would be smarter to focus on a little at a time to build up her skill set.

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Here’s what we plan to focus on this summer:

• Using a public restroom potty. Dare I say it but Brielle is potty trained. Sure she has the occasional accident (and yes still wears a diaper to sleep as we haven’t tackled the overnight thing yet) but she’s really good… at potties in homes. While she hasn’t had accidents outside the home, she does seem to hold it and wait until we’re home instead of using a public restroom.  This is all fine and dandy until she really needs to use one! I hope to keep practicing this with her to make her confident in this new skill!
• Identifying colors. Derek is red/green color blind and while all the studies say it’s highly unlikely she’ll be the same as it’s more commonly found in males, the girl cannot get these colors down. Yellow is clearly her favorite and purple is one she recognizes because it’s her cousin’s favorite, but red and green are always the hard ones she mixes up.

• Recognizing ALL the letters of her name. Brielle’s been singing the ABCs for a long time now. She points out specific letters when reading certain books, playing with toys or just out and about. But now I really want to start working on identifying ALL the letters, starting with the ones that make up her name. She’s got B down but let’s work on the others.
• Learning left and right. She knows under, over, up, down, behind and all those words about placement relationship. In the past when in the car and we’d talk about things that are coming (buses, trucks, dogs being walked) and whose side of the car they’re on – Hailey’s side or Brielle’s side. But now we’re working to say they’re on the “left” or “right” side of the car to understand these concepts.
• Putting her shoes on the correct feet. This goes along with the point above. The girl is never consistent on putting her shoes on the correct feet. She gets them on, no problem, but I often have to remind her to switch her shoes once in the car.

To help with this last skill, we are happy to have been introduced to the Name Bubbles’s new shoe label design!

Look how cute this rainbow design is! (and PS all of a sudden she has a bigger active shoe collection than me!)

When applied onto the inside of each shoe, the rainbow is complete when the shoes are correctly placed side by side. And bonus – it labels their shoes with their name, sometimes a requirement at daycare. I applied the labels to her shoes, showed her how to tell which side is which and within minutes she was pairing all the sets together correctly!

You know we already love NameBubbles labels for our food and drink products and our coats, so we’re super excited to build on this skill this summer with the help of their shoe labels. We have applied the rainbow clothing and dishwasher safe labels to her summer water accessories for water days at school so they don’t get lost!Save

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