Another Inside Day

Looks like today isn't going to be so nice outside.  I came up with an activity for my three year old to do today.  But, first I want to be honest with you guys.  Until a couple of months ago my 2 year old was so into television, especially the treehouse channel.  I wasn't stopping him from watching for hours a day because I was sooo busy with the baby that I kind of liked that he was so into television.  He would watch show after show after show.  It seemed like he was learning a lot from tv, especially learning new languages because of Dora and Ni Hao kai lan.  I thought wow, this stuff is really educational.  Who was I kidding?  Now, I let him watch only a couple shows a day, but I watch with him and ask him questions along the way to make sure that he understands and remembers the concepts.  TV is not the answer guys, they need hands on teaching to actually learn and absorb everything.  Anyways, he has this magnadoodle drawing board that hes had for a year now, we've kinda ignored it up until a few months ago.  He seems to be enjoying it these days just by drawing smiley faces and animals on it.  I asked him if he wanted to play school and he jumped up and down with joy.  I wrote a few words on it like, dad, mom and cat.  At first, he wasn't very interested in copying, he just wanted to do his own thing on it.  But, i told him for each word he could copy I would give him a sticker.  Then he actually tried doing it.  After quite a few tries and a lot of practice he managed to write and read Dad and Mom.  Cat seemed to be a bit harder for him, but I told him that we would try that one tomorrow.  He was very happy with himself and so was I.  Moms and dads, all you have to do is dedicate your free time to your children, i know it's very hard to do and until now i was not doing that myself.  Like i said, i was counting on the television to educate my child.  Im glad I figured this out now, so with my nine month old I will not be making the same mistake.  Please feel free to comment on my posts and share some of your own ideas with me please.  Iam open to suggestions on better parenting.  Thank you again for reading guys!