Thursday, May 24, 2012

Left or Right?

Teaching left from right is as easy as every day routines and adventures.  The other night we took the kids for a walk around the neighbourhood.  Usually, we pick where we go, choosing the same streets every time.  This time it was an adventure.  Our daughter is pretty confident in her left and right, so we wanted to see if she could do it in a real life situation.  So on our walk, she got to choose which way to turn.  If she was right, we went that way.  If she was wrong, mommy or daddy got to pick.  Needless to say, she was right 98% of the time and she led us all over bays, crescents, walking paths and we saw places we had never seen before!  And now she knows her left from her right.


Teaching left from right is something that we obviously take with us into adulthood.  And as I said earlier, teaching it is as easy as every day routine and adventures!  Here are some other quick ideas to teach left from right.
  • Instead of a walk, go for a drive and let your child tell you which way to go.  Giving them that power makes them feel important.  Let them be in charge, even if it is just for a little while.
  • Do the Hokey Pokey
  • Here's a little chant you can sing with your child!
This is my left hand, I'll hold it up high,
(Raise left hand high.)
This is my right hand, I'll touch the sky.
(Raise right hand high.)
Left hand, right hand, roll them around.
(Roll fists over each other.)
Right hand, left hand, pound, pound, pound.
(Pound fists on each other.)


1 comment:

  1. I do that with Paige a LOT but we do it in the grocery store. We go up and down the aisles and at the ends she has to tell me which direction to go next. When we reach an area that has the item that I need, I tell her what we need, ask her to look for it and she has to tell me which side of the aisle the item is (left or right). When she was much younger and we were teaching her numbers I'd have her tell me the number of each aisle that we were in. It became a great game.

    The direction game is fun too and more often than not, some older customers (grandparent types) would even ask Paige for assistance with directions for themselves. They understood the game we were playing and spontaneously decided to help out which Paige always gets a kick out of.

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