ABC’s and 123’s

It’s no news flash that children learn and retain more in positive, hands-on environments. But we confess that coming up with fun, interactive ways to teach new skills regularly can be daunting. So to alleviate the parental pressure, we’ve found two great local companies that provide the innovative tools for parents and children to learn together at home.

Notch Hill Educational Products, a Vancouver-based mom and daughter company, has been developing educational learning programs for kids since 2006. Joan Thornton, a very savvy mom and retired teacher with over 30 years of experience, and Nicola Lott, her daughter (and savvy mom as well) know first-hand about the challenges of learning to read and write because Nicola is dyslexic.

This past year, Notch Hill launched their first GamePak, The Nogs of Notch Hill. Through this play-based, multi-sensory learning program, children learn to read, write and sound lowercase letters in a relaxing, fun environment with no pressure (a new uppercase letter GamePak is due out this year). We like that the GamePak gives you a pre-planned, interactive activity to do with your child with no prep work before getting started.

Four Quarters Literacy is a local mom partnership of savvy moms Ruth Kewin, Dorthe Davison, and Jane Gibson. They know that children as young as six are receiving money as part of a gift or an allowance, and Four Quarters believes there are some simple concepts to help them gain a solid grasp of money early on. To address this, they developed an easy-to-follow, step-by-step process for teaching children money management.

Their product range includes kids, teens and young adult programs. The Four Quarter$ Kids program, for grades 1–4, comes complete with a silver bag for incoming money, a manual to walk the children through the process, a package of four empty jars and a set of sticky labels to choose what each jar is for (i.e. pay myself first, giving, saving for something special, my spending money). This program creates the opportunity for children and parents to have concrete conversations about money. So when the next toy store meltdown occurs, the discussion can move from “I am not buying you that toy” to “How much is in your spending jar?”.

Whew! We don’t need a degree in Education to have a positive impact on our child’s learning. A few well-designed tools and some time with the kids should do the trick.

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