If you want to know what a bewildering world most young kids live in unless we help them to make sense of it, think of shopping in a grocery store that doesn’t organize items according to similarities that make sense.
Imagine if all the yellow things were on one aisle. Squash next to lemonade near yellow cake mix, next to corn flakes is what we’d find in stores organized by color. How about by alphabet? Tuna, tomato sauce, toilet tissue and tile cleaner would share the same space.
Just imagining all the ways products could be organized helps us see how important it is for children to make sense of their world. They do this by learning to classify and to sort the objects and experiences in their world.
In school, children have daily classifying activities. They sort objects according to color and use, classify foods by categories and learn systems for organization. But school experiences are limited. The real world in your home, grocery store, Grandma’ house, traveling, etc. provides rich and varied and important opportunities for your child’s learning and include you, your child’s best teacher.
Children learn best if what they learn with is real, concrete and relevant; in short, their everyday real life is where most learning takes place and the adults in their world — all of us — can help.
How about laundry? If you’re still putting away your 3-year-old’s socks, underwear, shorts, etc., then you’re missing a chance not only to get a little help but also to teach classifying. “Socks go here, undies here, shorts here,” are words that help children understand that things are organized according to a system, usually one that makes sense to all of us and that makes getting these things easier.
In the laundry area, sorting dirty clothes is another chance for learning systems. “White clothes here, light colors go here, and darker colors here”; by use: “work clothes go in here”; or by fabric: “cotton here, permanent press there” are ways to show children that organization is important to getting a job done and can help them in school to use a system to keep with books and papers for each class.
The kitchen (again) is where we all spend lots of time that can be used teaching organization. Putting away dishes is a helpful task, can be done by most school-age children, and teaches classifying.
Putting groceries up is another helpful task and important for children’s learning about organization systems. Think about cooking in a strange kitchen. We may not all organize kitchen items alike but without understanding the system, finding what you want makes cooking difficult.
Grocery shopping is another way children learn to use systems, and letting them locate items in your list also helps them build skills in visual discrimination, an ability they must develop to learn to read.
Learning to think of the ways you interact with your child every day as learning opportunities isn’t really hard, but is awfully important. Curious toddlers become successful students who will become productive adults. All they need is you.
Darby Kethan has a master's degree in child development, and has experience as a social worker, educator of young children, educational consultant, and as a professional trainer for a national educational foundation providing professional development to teachers. Visit her website at darbykethan.com.
