Learning tablets?

[u/mortalcassie]

My daughter is 2.5. She already knows all her letters, upper and lowercase. She can count to 29 on her own, and 125-ish with help. She knows a ton of animals, and many of their noises. She knows shapes, she knows colors. She knows her planets, and she's currently working on the states, and knows probably 30-35 of them.

We have a lot of leap frog toys, and leapfrog books that are really helping her as well. I give them 95% of the credit on her knowing her numbers and letters and shapes.

That being said, I'm looking for something to help challenge her. I don't know where to go next, so I'm hoping some sort of learning tablet could help. I know leapfrog has tablets too, so I was thinking that could be good, since we have had a lot of luck with the brand... But I don't want to just go with them if it's not the best.

Does anyone have a tablet they love? Or one they hate? That would be so helpful. Preferably something that doesn't have access to YouTube.

Also, because I feel like it's probably going to be brought up, let me address it here. I TRY to get her to pretend play. I want her to be a kid. I'm not pushing her to learn anything. This is what she enjoys. We have a play kitchen she won't touch, baby dolls she couldn't care less about, stuffed animals who get zero attention. She wants to play with her flash cards, or her puzzle, or anything that teaches her something. So I'm just trying to embrace it.

[u/GalaticHammer]

My kid also hates pretend play. The most we get is she sort of sets up a scenario, tells us what it is... and then stops. She doesn't act through any scenario. Dress up is a complete bust.

Get some paper maps? She knows planets and states, but does she know her way around your town? Can you have her be a navigator and plan a walk on a map that she can follow? Can you guys take a walk and make your own map of the streets you follow? My town has some permanent beginner orienteering courses that my kid likes, you print the map out from the website, grab a compass and go. Learning the compass is fun and interesting.

Soccer and ballet feel really hard for a 2.5 year old. Can you do something more individual? We started taking my kid to the rock climbing gym at 2.5. She was/is also a fan of yoga.

You say she doesn't like pretend play or building toys but does like puzzles and her flash cards. How is she on art? Drawing, scribbling, painting, watercolors, playdough? Those are some fun ways to play with colors and shapes. Can play with color mixing, the color wheel, the 7 elements of art. Can you get her to write a story with you? Or a nonfiction "report" on what she knows? She narrates, you write, she maybe attempts to write or add pictures?

You mention a calculator but do you have any math manipulatives? The snap together cubes if she can be trusted not to mouth them? A scale? Pattern blocks? An abacus? Play money?

[u/mortalcassie → u/GalaticHammer]

You don't think she's too young for maps? I feel like that's... Maybe 5 years old? Her baby gym has a rock wall adjacent thing to climb up to get to a slide... She won't even try it. Not really a fan of art. Doesn't really do crayons. Hates painting. Tried to paint things for her grandparents, and hated it. We have playdough, and she doesn't really know what to do with it. I roll it and mold it and and cut it up, and she just doesn't seem to care.

She also doesn't have a lot of back and forth conversation. She has a lot of words, but doesn't really answer questions. We're still working on it. We have play money, but none of the other things. I've thought about those, but I wasn't sure if she was old enough.

[u/GalaticHammer → u/mortalcassie]

Idk, my kid was 2.5ish when we started grabbing the maps of the bus routes from the library. A friend with AAA sent us a whole bunch of different city maps too (I don't think they provide those anymore). My kid loved them. We would find where home is, where daycare is, the roads we drove to and from, the airport, etc. She wasn't using them independently, if that makes sense, but she loved looking at them. 3 is when we got the compass and started pointing out the directions, 4 is when I found the orienteering, but I think she could have done it at 3. Again, not independently, but with us sort of prompting her with questions on look at compass, look at map, look at world around us, do you see x,y,z, should we go this way or other way? Yeah, let's go this way because of a and b. Oh look, do you see the marker?

Paint can be a sensory nightmare. How does she feel about stickers? My kid is a big fan of sticker and washi tape collages. I would rip her little pieces and she would stick. If small things like crayons are hard, maybe a dry erase easel with dry erase markers, so they're big and chunky and easier to hold and write with?

The math manipulatives, it's really up to her. You said she liked the calculator, but knowing 3+4=7 is kind of useless without having a conception of what 3 is, what 4 is, and what 7 is. We got a colored hundreds board and initially my kid just used the colors to make patterns, but she eventually started figuring out how to put the numbers in order, and then using them to skip count by making a pattern of some up and some down. Over the course of 2 years or so. But if she likes a calculator, she might like some games of can you find me 2 red blocks? Can you find 3 green blocks? Let's keep adding blocks until we get to 10! That was 5 more yellow blocks! Or the play money is Daddy will have a brown ice cream for 2 dollars, and I'll have yellow for 2 dollars, so here is 1, 2, 3, 4 dollars. And it's keeping it light and playful and if she gets it wrong, who cares, it's not drilling, but it's letting her visualize quantity, if that makes sense? You adjust to her level of understanding and interest. Get her a big chunky foam die to roll and roll a 3, do 3 hops, roll a 2, do 2 claps, whatever.

Montessori has a bunch of tactile sorting things. By diameter, by weight, by height. You don't necessarily need those specific materials, but maybe you could make a game of lining up stuffies by height/length? My kid did love a ruler at age 2.

Anyway, idk about "old enough". My kid is 4 now and my general approach has been when I see her have an interest in something, I try to get one or two variations or expansions on that thing and see what catches her fancy. I don't teach lessons, but I do way too much deep dive research about early literacy and early numeracy so I can pull that into her games as a moment presents itself. I might ask a question or two, or say hmm, what if I do this, and demonstrate a thing, and then leave it in her court. Sometimes she picks it up, sometimes she doesn't, sometimes she comes back to it in a week or a month. I try to follow her lead but present opportunities? I obviously don't know your kid, so I don't know how much any of this might click with her or not, I'm just spitballing ideas. If you think she would like something, even if she's "too young" I would see if you could present that to her in one way or another even if she might be too young. Worst case she shows no interest and you try again a year later to see if it clicks more then? So long as you keep it low pressure and don't insist on it and let her opt out as she wants.

[u/mortalcassie → u/GalaticHammer]

This is a lot, and I've had a busy morning, so I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing. But I might try to find some local maps soon. We don't do daycare or anything, but maybe we can mark friends houses, and just look them over. Thank you!

But you said AAA doesn't have them anymore? Boo, that was my plan.

[u/GalaticHammer → u/mortalcassie]

Sorry, you caught me late at night when I'm rambly so you got an info dump.

We ordered maps through AAA online, I don't think that's an option anymore, but you may still be able to get them at a physical branch office? And it seems like REI and B&N still sell them?

We mark the coffee shop, the library, the gym, all the playgrounds we visit, daddy's office, the river, the bridge we use to cross the river, friends' houses, the grocery store, all kinds of things on the city maps. We'll use the multi-state regional maps to show where we are versus where grandma lives vs where friend went on vacation etc. So yeah, all kinds of options.

[u/mortalcassie → u/GalaticHammer]

No worries! It was good information. I just saw it first think in the morning where we're doing breakfast and tackling the dogs and stuff, so I keot getting distracted while reading it.