Innovative Toddler Curriculum

Here is a guide to creating your own toddler curriculum guaranteed to improve your toddler's problem solving skills; your own will be exercised as well. For the "Toddler Blockade," find a spot that your toddler likes to access but you would like for him to stay away from. A flight of stairs works well for this; they are irresistible to children who can barely walk on a level floor. Using just items around your house, block the stairs to keep the toddler from climbing them. The temptation to buy a baby gate to block them is easier to resist if you live in a country where they are considered luxury items, demonstrated by the exorbitant price tag. I must not forget to mention that you must be able to navigate the barrier while holding a basket full of wet laundry in one arm and the toddler in the other. Bonus points if the three year old sister can also get to the stairs without too much difficult. The more ways the stairs are accessible to the toddler, the better. For example, once we put chairs in front of our stairs, Simeon squeezed through the banister rails. We managed to thwart him there, so he slithered through the gaps between the steps from underneath, demonstrating the effectiveness of this curriculum. (Please excuse the dust in the photo above; the "Dusting Toddler" is next on the syllabus.)

Another component of the curriculum is the "Kitchen Chair Game." Begin this once the child starts climbing chairs to reach things. The first sign that Simeon was ready for this was when he began bring stools to the kitchen chairs so he could climb from the stool to the chair to the table. For awhile, we just hid the stools, but then he learned to climb the chairs from the floor. For this game, any chair that is not actively being sat in needs to be pushed away from the table. It should also not be near any counter or cupboard that would be reachable by the toddler standing on the chair. The time that it takes for the toddler to push a chair to a location from which he can "get into something" will gradually lessen. Items of particular interest or danger to the toddler should be kept high enough that he would not be able to reach them even by climbing on the back of the chair. Before pushing the chairs to the table for a meal, the toddler should be placed in his highchair.

This curriculum can be adapted to many areas of the house including the heavily wired area around the computer and the space around a hot oven. (We attempted blocking these in another house when Eris was a toddler.) If you'd like help customizing the curriculum to your own home and toddler, write me a comment. All advice is free, although if your toddler has amazing results with this curriculum, I do accept donations (just send a check in my name to my parents'). Some things will be impossible to render off limits such as the propane tank, the pipe underneath the kitchen sink that when pulled allows the sink to drain straight onto the floor, living room fan, and the buttons on the washing machine. With extreme patience and perseverance, the toddler will eventually learn to leave these alone. In the meantime, the "Mommy Curriculum" teaches me to act in love when water splashes all over my feet and to be patient when I head to the washing machine planning to hang up laundry only to find it paused mid-cycle.
 
*I have used "he" throughout the post because my own current toddler is a boy. It is simpler than using he/she each time. This style of curriculum worked very well with my girls, too!