learning styles

With scrapbooking being popular it is now much easier to find a whole set of alphabet stamps. There’s even a choice in fonts and styles and a missing letter doesn’t involve turning the room upside down and inside out to locate it. Phew. And best of all, ink pads have washable ink! Stamping out a page of letters is an activity that appeals to children with a visual learning style. Kinesthethic kids love the hands-on and stamping action. Auditory munchkins enjoy saying the letters as they stamp away. This project has learning value at several levels. Matching letter names and images is certainly beneficial, but just seeing which way letters go and noticing how some look very different from the others and some look almost the same are also important.Sure is better than the olden days when we had  to make stamps out of potatoes and the ink was goopy tempra, (like we did so long ago in February to stamp out valentines)!

Each of us has a preferred learning style. Some people are visual learners, some are auditory and others are kinesthetic. People with a visual learning style prefer seeing or reading about something new; auditory learners like explanations and stories; kinesthetics need hands-on manipulating and feeling. This is very over-simplified. In reality, we learn using all three ways and some tasks are more suited to one method than others. But we all know friends and coworkers who respond better to memos and emails, others whose mailboxes are over-full but love to chat, and those who need first-hand experiences. Children have learning preferences, too. New ideas need to be presented in a variety of formats to both appeal to their strengths and to expand their strategies. That’s why we sing the alphabet, read books, play listening games, and manipulate play-dough. Here’s another idea, that combines all 3.  This abc puzzle is hands-on, very visual and kids can practice saying the letters, too. I picked it up at a dollar store. The pieces fit snugly, at first, but are quite small so a container with a lid may help. In any case, it’s easy to do together and 3 times the fun.