If you have toddlers and haven’t heard of Preschool Prep Company, I would recommend you take a look. They make DVDs and apps that are aimed at helping teach children basics like shapes, colors, letters and numbers. They’ve worked very well for us.

Their method uses repetition and animation. For example, an octagon will be on screen as an animated character jumping rope and swinging on monkey bars while the whole time repeating “Octagon. Octagon. Octagon. Octagon.” Then the octagon will become just the shape and again “Octagon. Octagon. Octagon.”

The child learns to recognize the shapes along with their names. Strangely, for the adult in the room, the words start to lose all meaning and just become strange sounds.

“Octagon. Octagon. Octagon. That sounds funny. I wonder who first said that. Oc-ta-gon. Octagon.” I can only imagine the effect would be enhanced with a little extra inebriation.

Our kids learned most of their shapes, colors, numbers, letters and a lot of sight words, thanks to Preschool Prep. Pick these up if you have a kid about 1 – 3 years old in your life.