SUMMER SESSION WEEK FOUR
GAMES Some of my favorite memories are of playing games outside on a summer evening. Playing outside on a summer night is a great way to build a family tradition and have fun together. Here are some ideas for games that can be played alone or with other people / family. RED LIGHT – GREEN LIGHT This is a classic children’s game that can be played in small spaces or in the yard. It can be played with several children or just one so it is perfect for our time of limited social interactions. One person is the Traffic Light. The other child, or children, line up some distance away from the Traffic Light Person. The Traffic Light Person turns their back to the children and says Green Light. Everyone runs toward the traffic light until he/she turns around and says “Red Light” which signals everyone to stop. This continues until, while the Traffic Light Person has their back turned, someone crosses over the line by the Traffic Light Person. Then that person gets to be the Traffic Light. HIDE and SEEK Another classic children’s game. Children love to hide. A version of this can adapted to a single child. Have the child play Hide and Seek with stuffed animals. Have the child hide their eyes and you can hide their stuffies all around the room. It is basically a version of an Egg Hunt. Say “Open your eyes” and have the child find their stuffies. Then do it again, and again, and again! Let the child hide the stuffies if they want. RELAY RACES Relay Races can also be done as a solo activity or with a small group. Set up two lines and race between the two points back and forth. ~ Spoon and an Object Race – using a spoon to carry an object from one basket to another basket ~ Water Fill – Put water in one container and with some kind of smaller container take the water from the filled container to the empty container. How fast can you fill the empty container? ~ Bean Bag – Take a bean bag from one container and run to the other container – toss it in that container and run back to retrieve another bean bag. Run back and forth till all the bean bags are in the second container. ~ Clothes Pin Drop – Have a bunch of clothes pins in a basket and a container with a narrow opening. Pick out one clothes pin and run to a container with the opening in it. Drop the clothes pin through the opening. Run back and get another clothes pin until they are all gone. ~ Animal Run – Have a picture of an animal in a basket. Pick out the picture and run/hop/crawl like the animal to the other line. ~ Clothes Race – Have a piece of clothing in a basket. Run to that basket and put the piece of clothing on. Run back to the start and take the piece of clothing off. Mittens, hats, socks, are easy pieces of clothing to use for this race. ~ Water Balloon Race – Have a basket of water balloons. Pick one out of the basket and run to the other line. Have a target to toss your water balloon at. Run back and get another water balloon. ~ Any kind of repetition that your child would like to do makes a great relay race. BINGO GAME Make a Bingo Card with a variety of things to find that your child is interested in. Then go on a walk to try and fill in all the squares on your card. This can be an inside activity, one to do in your yard, on a neighborhood walk or one you do on a hike. ~ Things I See --Different colored vehicles, construction vehicles, animals, colors, numbers, plants/trees/flowers, sounds, etc. ~ Family Bingo Card -- send a family member a card/letter/call them/visit them to mark off their square. ~ Things I Eat – put the pictures of food your child likes to eat (or you want them to eat) and mark them off during the day. ~ Books I Read – like the Summer Reading Programs at the library you can make your own reading program and have them mark off the card as they read the books during the summer. You can do the squares with names of books or categories of books. WHAT IS MISSING Put a variety of objects on a tray. Have the child look at the tray and say the names of the items on the tray. Have them close their eyes and take an item away. Can they remember what item is gone? Start with 3 items then add more as they get better at naming the missing items. A variation of this game is to hide the item under a cup instead of taking it away. OR hide one item under a cup and have them guess what cup the item is under. Play a game with food. Can they guess the food by smelling it? Have them smell different fruit and then make their SMOOTHIE SNACK with the food they guessed. Bananas, strawberries, raspberries mixed together with some yogurt and ice cubes in a blender makes a yummy snack. You can then take the extra smoothie and freeze it for a frozen smoothie popsicle for another day. NECKLACE ART Using beads or colored O’s cereal have the child follow a pattern (or just go free form!) to make a necklace. You can roll a dice made of colored squares to choose the color to add next. EYE SPY This is another classic children’s game that takes no equipment and can be done anywhere. Find an object and say, “I spy with my little eye something that is _____”. Give some kind of clue about the object you are looking at: A red boat in the water, a green car, a yellow rose, etc. After the child guesses it is their turn to spy something. Playing games with your child is a learning activity that is fun and builds family relationships. You can play games that will be a foundation of family activities as they grow up. The Jacobson Family played croquet and we just gave Joel a croquet set for his Father’s Day gift. It will be part of their family traditions to have Ansel and Zoe learn the fun of croquet! Greta’s family plays putt putt golf at the Red Putter every time they go home to Door County. We love the Red Putter! The memories you create playing games with your child can last a lifetime. Have fun playing games with your child this week …. And all of their life! ~Teacher Janice SUMMER SESSION WEEK THREE
Music and Dance The 4th of July is the beginning of summer season for most of us. School is over and we should be heading out on vacations and road trips. This year will be a little different but you can still make some fun summer memories by creating you own road trips, parades and summer treats. Music In The Park – or this year at Home Musical Chimes This needs to be a supervised activity. Using thick glass containers – jelly jars, mason canning jars or glasses that are not easily broken. ~ Line up the glass containers ~ Fill them with water - full to empty - in increments depending on how many containers you have. ~ If you use 8 containers you can make a simple scale. ~Using the eraser end of a pencil tap lightly on the glasses and paly a song. Homemade Drum ~Tape a piece of cardstock or cardboard to the top of a bowl. ~Use the eraser end of two pencils as drumsticks Tissue Box Guitar ~stretch four rubber bands with different thicknesses over the opening of a tissue box (or any box with a hole cut in it) ~strum a tune on their guitar Listen to Nature making music ~stop and listen to the birds, bees, frogs as they make their own music. Record your child ~ making music. ~ singing with their instruments ~ humming a tune for others to guess ~ creating sound effects for a story Need a quieter activity? Make a Whisper Tube. Using a long cardboard tube, have your child/children decorate their own whisper tube. Then have them use it to “talk”, in a whisper, to you/each other. Then have the person answer them back, using a whisper, from the other side. Vacation Travel Parachutes 4 pieces of string square piece of cloth large paper clip ~Tie the four pieces of string to the four corners of the cloth ~Tie the loose ends of the string to the paper clip ~Ball up the cloth and throw it high in the air OR drop it from a high place. ~The parachute should pop open and drift slowly to the ground. Paper Airplanes Make several paper airplanes and see which one flies the furthest, makes trick moves, flies the fastest. Road Trip On the sidewalk or the driveway draw a roadway. Take some chalk and draw a road. Depending on the size of your ‘map’ you can add intersections, stop signs, places to visit and “home”. Take a road trip on your scooter, bike or little car. Picnic in the Park Have your child help you make a picnic then go to a park for lunch, snack time or dinner. Read a book while eating your picnic food. Even a picnic in the backyard, or living room, is a fun way to spend the afternoon. It is Parade Time It is going to be a different 4th of July but you can still celebrate this holiday with your own parade. Make you own shakers, a special hat, put on some marching music and have a family parade. Parade Noise Maker Using masking tape, or duct tape, cover one end of a toilet paper roll. Fill it with something that makes noise -- bells, beans, popcorn or combination of several items. Tape the other end of the toilet paper roll. Add streamers to one end and decorate the tube. Make a headband out of construction paper. Cut out red, white and blue (or any color you choose) stars (or any shape). Tape each star to a pipe cleaner. Tape the other end of the pipe cleaner to the inside of the headband. Add decorations to the headband if you choose. The stars will dance as your child marches in the parade. Play some fun March Music and go on your own parade around the neighborhood or your backyard / house. If you have neighbors involved they can sit on their front porches and clap as you march by. Summer is a time when we usually go on vacation, visit family, go to parades and fairs. Food can be a big part of these community and family gatherings. Celebrate summer with this recipe for frozen bananas. Frozen Chocolate Bananas Frozen treats are a summer tradition and bananas are favorite snack so the two together make a great summer snack idea. 6 ripe bananas. Recipe makes 12 bananas 1 cup chocolate chips 1 TBS butter 1 cup crushed graham crackers - optional ~ cut a ripe peeled banana in half ~ insert a popsicle ~cover with plastic wrap and freeze ~melt chocolate chips in the microwave on high for 1-2 minutes. Or use a double broiler to melt the chocolate. ~take the banana out of the freezer ~dip and roll the banana in the chocolate. ~sprinkle with graham crackers or anything you choose while the chocolate is still warm. Eat at once or freeze up to ½ an hour. Have fun! Happy 4thof July! ~Teacher Janice SUMMER SESSION WEEK TWO
Classic Children's Stories and Poems As your child grows there are many skills they will need to learn. One of those skills is learning to read. The best way to create a reader is to instill a love for learning. One of the ways a child learns to love reading is by being exposed to the written word. Children who love to read are given an opportunity to learn about the world around them, develop empathy for others, create their own stories and explore new concepts through the books they read. Reading is a skill that is built on a foundation of pre-reading skills. Your child will need to develop both discriminatory and memory skills that are both auditory and visual. They need memory skills to recognize a sound or image and they need to be able to distinguish the differences between the sounds and images. When we sing songs, do flannel rhymes and read stories children are learning these skills. They want to do them over and over again because they are developing this pre-reading skill and mastering the specific skill needed before they move to the next level of learning. Children need to be exposed to written words as well as hear those words spoken. Seeing the words written on a page or showing them words on signs / buildings / their fishy cracker bag shows them that words mean something and that what is said can be written down in the form of a word. The following activities are ways to enhance their vocabulary, develop their awareness of the written word and create a sense of fun while learning about the written word. WHAT IS MISSING We develop visual memory when we play the Bug in a Rug game during circle time. You can play a What is Missing game by showing your child 3 or 4 objects. ~Name the objects. ~Have your child hide their eyes and take away one of the objects. ~Name the objects again and say “something is missing” when you come to the empty space where the hidden object was. ~Ask your child to try to remember what object is gone. ~Put the object back and do it again by removing another object. CREATE A PIECE OF ART AND LABEL IT ~Have your child draw or paint a picture ~Ask the child to tell you about the piece of art ~Label the artwork with the words they have used to describe it. CREATE A STORY ~Show your child a picture or use a picture they have created ~Ask them to tell you a story about that picture ~Write down the story they tell you. Read their story to the child and other family members and friends. ~If it is a long story you can record the story and have them listen to their story. SILLY STORY TIME When reading a story that is familiar to your child insert silly words instead of the correct word. This needs to be a story that they know and can tell it is not the correct word. You can do this with stories or songs. An example would be: Baby Beluga in the deep blue TREE. Or Is the water COLD They need to have the visual / auditory skills to know that this is not correct that it is: deep blue SEA and the water is WARM For the little ones you can do this with picture books by pointing to the cat and calling it a dog. They need to know what a cat looks like and what a dog looks like to be able to ‘see’ the difference when you call it the wrong name. WORDLESS STORY TIME Find a collection of wordless story books or make up some story cards of your own. Have your child tell you a story using the book or cards. This is a great open-ended activity. It can be the same story they tell you (using their memory skills) or it can be totally different every time (using their imagination) STORY IN A BOX A different twist on the wordless story is the create your own story with some props in a box. Put a few items in a box that are items you child already knows about. Have them pull out an item and start a story. Pull out more items to continue the story. A little boy had an egg for breakfast. After he ate he brushed his teeth with a toothbrush. For the little ones you can have them pull out an item and just identify it. This is an egg, this is a toothbrush, these are flowers, this is a block. RHYMING GAME Show your child a picture and ask them to come up with as many words or sounds as they can that rhymes with it. They do not have to be words they can just be sounds. DOG: frog, log, hog, bog, ogg, mog, sog, wog, rog… The sillier the more fun they will have. ECHO GAME Have your child repeat what you say. Silly words, silly rhymes, words they know, words that are new to their vocabulary. Say the words using a quiet voice, a loud voice, a silly voice. Then let them be the leader and you repeat what they say. Playing with words and voice intonations is a way to learn cadence and rhythm patterns. SNACK TIME Use as many descriptive words as you can when serving up snack. Say words that rhyme with their snack. Make up silly stories about where the snack came from or who would like to eat it. Use snack time as a time to introduce vocabulary words about food, kitchen tools and words to describe what they are doing. You are chewing your food. You are drinking your milk. The banana peel is yellow but the banana is white. DEVELOPING A LOVE FOR READING AND BOOKS IS A GIFT YOU CAN GIVE YOUR CHILD THAT WILL LAST A LIFETIME. LET THEM EXPERIENCE STORIES AS YOU READ TO THEM OR AS THEY ‘READ’ THEIR OWN BOOKS. BY MODELING A LOVE OF READING YOU WILL TEACH THEM THE VALUE OF BOOKS AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO READ. ~Teacher Janice SUMMER SESSION WEEK ONE
ABC’s Welcome to our first Crown Hill Virtual Summer Session. I am excited to see all of you during our virtual classes and I hope you can find some fun things to do with your child in the emails I will send each week. ABC’s are the beginning of letter recognition and reading. Playing with letters is one of the ways to expose your child to the printed word. MOSAIC LETTERS On a piece of cardstock or cardboard write your child’s name in block letters. Let them fill in the letters with a crayon. Then give them some glue and cover the crayon with glue. Add pasta, sand, buttons, little pieces of paper/tissue paper to the glue to make a mosaic out of their name. For the little ones be sure that the items you glue to the letters are not choking items if they are still putting things in their mouth. You can have them decorate DADDY and give it to him for Father’s Day FINE MOTOR SKILLS / LETTER RECOGNITION Roll ropes of playdough and make alphabet letters out of the playdough. Let your child use scissors, or a little cheese knife, to cut the letter you say. Yummy snack idea-- roll out cookie dough or bread dough to make alphabet cookies or pretzels just like the playdough activity. Tastes much better! Another yummy snack idea is to give your child a big pretzel stick and some cream cheese or humus on a plate. Using the pretzel like a pencil they can write letters in the cream cheese / hummus and enjoy a snack at the same time. Write a letter to someone and go for a walk to drop it in the mailbox Point our letters on signs and buildings on your walk. Build a tower with alphabet blocks. As you put the block on the tower be sure to say the name of the letter that is on the block Scrabble Game Tiles are fun to sort and play with. You can match them up, spell their name, stack them, put them in a line. Write their name and familiar family member’s names. While you are playing with the tiles they are learning what a letter looks like and as you say the name they are building their awareness of letters and words. Learn to Sign Their Name A beautiful sign language alphabet book is THE HANDMADE ALPHABET by Laura Rankin. It teaches the alphabet and the sign for each letter with beautiful illustrations. LARGE MOTOR ACTIVITIES Play Alphabet Simon Says Using tape, or chalk, write your child’s name on the floor or sidewalk. You can do the whole alphabet if you want and other people’s names. Then call out a direction that starts with the letter. “Jump on J” “Hop on H” “Laugh on L”. You can let the child call out the letter and directions – it may not be as accurate but it is fun and they love being the leader. Using the letters you have drawn you can play a version of hopscotch. Give your child a bean bag and have them toss the beanbag on the letter you say. For the little ones you can point the letter out for them. Say a letter and see if your child can make that letter with their body. Can they make the letters of their name? Dance to a song and when the music stops make a letter with your body and have everyone guess what letter it is. MAKE A BOOK Using your child’s name make a Name Book. On each page write the letter of your child’s name. Then fill in the page with pictures that start with the letter on the page or pictures of them. You can make the letters a color and find pictures of them dressed in that color or in an environment that has the color in it. Orange letter and pictures of pumpkins / pumpkin farm. Attribute Book Write an attribute that describes them for each letter of the alphabet. Or just use the letters of their name if you want a less time consuming project. Name Alphabet poster Write their name in capital letters from top to bottom on a long piece of paper. Using the capitol letter write a word that begins with the letter of their name. It can be a noun that starts with that letter or an attribute that describes your child. Apple Active Monkey Musical Yellow Young And we all know that singing the ABC song is just the right amount of time to wash our hands! ~Teacher Janice As we finish our first ever Virtual Summer Session I have so many thoughts going through my head. With all the changes in how we are educating little people (and big people) I had no idea how we would do a summer preschool. I was not sure if people would want to spend time in front of a screen during the sunny days of summer in Seattle. We used this summer session as a way to fundraise for additional materials needed for virtual preschool sessions and to expand our outdoor area. We had over 40 families participate in our summer program and the children had a wonderful time. I learned from them how best to communicate with them and how to share information with them on a screen, I watched them as they laughed and interacted with each other (and with me), they shared special treasures with me and they actively engaged during what is now our new Circle Time / Rectangle Time together. I loved every minute of it. It is a summer session I will never forget.
Each day during the virtual spring learning months, and each week durning the summer, I sent an email with activities, ideas and thoughts. I will continue to share ideas in August as we take a break from the virtual learning. We will start up again in September with our virtual preschool class. We are adding to our Rectangle Time a small group activity time and small group sharing time. As we adjust to this new normal we will all continue learning from each other. I will learn from the children and they will learn from the activities presented during our virtual time together. We will all learn together in our virtual preschool classroom just like we did in our actual classroom. Together we are problem solving, investigating, laughing, taking risks, developing friendships, sharing our thoughts and growing together. It is a different venue but we are still playing and that is how we will learn together. I will add posts from the spring class emails and from our summer session emails. I hope you enjoy the ones I share. We learned a lot from our time together during Summer Session 2020. This was definitely an end of the year we will always remember. Spring of 2020 at preschool will be one for the record books. Starting in March we went to a Virtual Preschool. I sent out daily emails for the preschool families that followed our weekly themes and we had Virtual Circle Times for all the classes.
I was surprised how quickly the children adapted to "Rectangle Time" and how they responded to having class online. I learned how to use the screen as a tool. I spent my days learning how to read a book without have a glare on the page, how to make sure we had proper lighting and how to add fun into our 'regular' curriculum that was now being presented as online activities. One of the favorites has turned out to be hiding from each other while singing All Around the Mulberry Bush and popping up at the end of the song. I find it ironic that one of my go-to books for our outdoor classroom, 150+ Screen Free Activities, has become one of the go-to books for my online curriculum as well. I have adapted the ideas to use with the children on the screen during our class times. As we move through the 'new normal' I have worked to adapt in person circle time activities, science activities, stories and sharing time to the virtual classroom. The online classroom is different from the physical classroom but how children respond to learning has stayed the same. They are engaged when the learning is something that they are interested in, participate in and have a connection with. Is a virtual classroom the perfect environment for young children? I would say no but at the moment it is one of the only venues that we can safely engage in a preschool classroom environment with the children. So as the children are learning from me as the teacher I am learning from them on how to adjust my curriculum and my new classroom to meet their needs. I am re- learning how to teach my curriculum and how to be a preschool teacher. It is a challenge and a joy to be able to reach these little ones in their own homes as we navigate this new way of teaching on a screen. I will post the emails I sent out this spring and the emails I have sent for summer session. I have more children enrolled in our virtual summer session that we would usually have in our summer classes. Partly this is because we can have as many families as would like to come to class join us and partly because there are not a lot of other options outside of our summer sessions for preschoolers do right now. The online class is: comforting, familiar, consistent and they have fun coming to class with their siblings, parents and friends. I think the key to the success of the classes was summed up by one of the children when we started our online classroom. She exclaimed, "I know this song! I know this!". During this time of uncertainty, with a lot of unknowns, the hour we spend together singing, reading stories and talking is something these children know. This is something they know this. It is an hour during their day that is familiar to them. We have all adapted to our new preschool setting and Rectangle Time. This April is so different from what most of us had expected out April to be like. I know I had not imagined our world turning upside down like ti has. What has given me a sense of calm and hope is watching the gardens bloom, hearing the birds singing sweetly in the morning and know that nature has not changed at all. It is the same as it has been every year. I was looking back at previous newsletters and decided to use one I wrote a few years ago. What I wrote is the same -- gardening brings us hope of what is to come. We have faith that the seeds will grow in to plants, that we will have joy watching our flowers blossom and that there is pride in our accomplishments.
FROM April 2017 Ours was an “eating garden” not the “canning gardens” they ran through when visiting the relatives in Ohio. It was there for them to experience the joy of growing something, to see where some of our food comes from, and to be able to taste the goodness of their harvest (if we could keep the raccoons and birds from experiencing it first!) We would take pictures of their two corn stalks and send them to Great Grandpa – I am not sure who was prouder of their corn. When they got to high school they both took horticulture. The teacher came up to me one day and asked if Joel and Nick had gardened when they were younger. I said they had and she replied, “I knew it. They have such a respect for living things.” It is so important to let little ones nurture things from nature. They develop an empathy and a respect for living things when they garden, as well as a knowledge of where food comes from, experience the science of growing seeds, patience while waiting for their plants to produce something to eat or look at, and pride in what they have accomplished. This love for nature will stay with them. Joel and Danielle have been working on the garden at their home Wedgewood. Nick does not have garden space but he likes to read books on gardening and loves planning a menu to eat all the things that Joel is growing! My Grandfather would be so proud of his little gardener. I am glad we had, and are still having, fun digging in the dirt together. Children love to see the plants and see where food comes from before it gets to the grocery store. Take them to a blueberry or strawberry farm and let them pick some fruit. Then let them help prepare the food for a family meal. You know where food comes from but to them this is a new and exciting adventure. Take some time to get dirty with your child – or just visit the pea patch and see what other people are doing in the dirt. Some of the children have already had the opportunity to plant seeds in the garden at preschool. We will all be planting soon. We will encourage the science of gardening while we set up experiments outside and have fun digging in the dirt at preschool. Be sure to check out the garden area when you are at school: the raspberry plants are leafing out, the hummingbird is visiting daily, and the slugs are enjoying our primroses. There is a lot going on in the preschool garden, and more to come! Our Wildlife Habitat Garden has attracted the birds this winter and soon the butterflies will return. The garden is a place that allows the children to experience nature and encourages habitats for the animals in the area. When we encourage children to be a part of nature they develop a caring attitude toward nature that develops their ability to nurture – plants, animals and people. Happy Spring! You have the chance to plant a seed of something very special in the hearts, minds, and spirits of your children as you garden together. ~Cathy James When our sons were young they loved the mischievous fun of the leprechauns. They would wake up to clothes in the wrong drawers (shirts in the underwear drawer and vice versa), green milk, green oatmeal, a trail through the house made by little leprechaun feet (you can use little paper shamrocks instead of painted feet) and at the end of the trail would be a special surprise from the leprechaun with a note. In that note the leprechaun would explain how much fun he had playing tricks on them and making a mess. They would go outside and look for the "little people" in the garden, build little homes for them and leave them surprises. It was so much fun. As they got older they would still wait for the leprechauns to bring the surprises on St Patrick’s Day -- not as many tricks but still little green goodies. We enjoyed playing leprechauns and we have great memories from the tricks they played. The leprechaun visit combined imagination, surprise, tradition, and play all in one day of fun.
It is so important for children to have opportunities to play -- unstructured, open ended, child centered play.We see play as just “fun” but for children play is hard work. It is a child's full time job to play. For children play comes naturally. It is so important to give children opportunities to play -- unstructured, open ended, child centered play. We may see it as meaningless but it is an important developmental activity for a child. Children learn through play. By giving children an opportunity to play we give them an opportunity to learn. Through play they develop social skills, self-confidence, opportunities to problem solve, ways to develop leadership skills as well as the beginning skills for academics. They discover how the world works and how they fit in that world. As we “grow up” it gets harder for us to play as freely as we did as children. We have to work at it. How does play come so easily to little children? They have less outward restraints -- they have less focus on what society "thinks" as well as being less self-conscious about what they are doing. What can we do to enhance their learning while they play? We can give them opportunities to develop their imaginations by allowing them to engage in open ended play. Children used to have toys that were not connected to a product, movie or book. They would use a stick as a doll or train. They developed their own scenarios without adults orchestrating the play. When they had a train it was just a train not a train with a name and a specific role in the play. It is hard not to allow your child to have a Thomas or a Dora but you can help them develop the play without mirroring the story or TV show. Kids are attracted to the same things as when our boys were young but the difference then was that a train was just that -- a train, dinosaurs were dinosaurs, tools were hammers without a specific builder using them. Our first experience with attaching a particular movie/story to the generic dinosaur was Land Before Time and the dinosaur characters in the movie. We had to drive to a Mercer Island Pizza Hut to get Sharp Tooth. I never thought I would have allowed an advertiser’s scheme to manipulate me to buy pizza in order to get a toy. I was though -- through my children's big, pleading eyes. We drove across town to buy a pizza in order to get the last dinosaur in the collection. Advertisers have found a big target population to sell items to – our children. It is important to give your child a chance to use their creativity when they play not just copy what they see or hear. One way to help your child develop their imagination is to give them opportunities to think and play "outside the box" that society puts their toy in. A prime example of how children enjoy the open ended "toy" is watching a child play with the box and wrapping paper the toy came in instead of with the toys that came in the box. If you allow children to have items that they can use to create their own play scene -- things that do not already have a story line attached to them—you allow them to engage their mind in their play.. Giving them opportunities for open ended activities will encourage your child to develop their imagination and enhance their cognitive skills. Our sons played for hours with wooden blocks, animals and cars. Often they built towers, towns, boats, roadways -- the start of each project was new and changed as they developed the idea for that day. It was the same set of blocks yet used to create different outcomes, scenarios, stories. Toys are the same, yet different, now -- Legos used to be an assortment of colored building blocks but now they have a theme or specific story line attached (Pirates of the Caribbean) that pre-determines the outcome of the play, many books have a show or movie that sets the visual imagery, dolls/trucks/trains have a pre-determined personality or story line. The play is less imaginative and creative if the child is just re-creating what they have already seen or knows about the characters or materials they are playing with. It is important to help the child create his/her own story line or scenario rather than just mimic one that has already been determined by a toy manufacturer. A natural arena for open ended play is the backyard. Give them time to be outside playing in the yard -- they can dig in the dirt, play with water, use animals as they make their own zoo or farm, plant a garden, watch the clouds, read a book. Being outside is something that is important for developing empathy for living things. They learn to respect living things -- both animals and plant life. Children need time outdoors -- unstructured time to play in natural surroundings. They experience the world through all of their senses. It gives them opportunities for leaning balance, eye hand coordination, cause and effect, visual discrimination, depth perception, enhances their hearing, creates associations with sound/sight to the knowledge they have acquired while reading books -- and you just thought they were playing outside! As they get older they can organize group play. The older kids set up the scenario and the younger kids get to play the parts. It is through this kind of multi-age play that they can develop social skills, problem solving techniques, leadership skills and self- confidence. Allowing the children to govern the play gives the child opportunities for developing abilities to manage their bodies and emotions, express their opinions and feelings, and create an environment of cooperation. They learn how to play together with rules and how to deal with their feelings when the outcomes of the group play are not what they want them to be. When you are inside the house you can set up open ended activities that allow children to use household items for activities that encourage academic learning through play -- measuring and pouring develops spatial awareness (science, math, verbal skills), sorting items like buttons, nuts and bolts, food items (sensory awareness, verbal skills, visual discrimination), using socks for puppets, scraps of cloth for art projects (visual discrimination, 5 senses, creative problem solving). There is a place and time for both open ended activities and playing with beloved characters. We had Snow White and the Seven "DORFS" memorized – I could not miss a word or page - ever! While on a trip to Ballard I had to stop at a toy store and ask permission to put the "dorfs" that were on display in the window in the correct order (Doc to Dopey). Winnie the Pooh and Mickey were part of the Disneyland play, Beatrix Potter was played out with their stuffed animals but they also made magic brews in the backyard, set up wild safaris in the garden and just laid in the grass and looked at the sky. Give your child a balance of activities so they can develop creative thinking skills, cooperative play, and problem solving skills. Through play your child is developing many new skills that will be the building blocks for a lifetime of learning. February is a month we think of those we love. Love is expressed in so many ways: a hug, a kiss, a kind word, a smile and the list goes on. Each day we have many opportunities to show people how special they are to us. From the way we greet our family in the morning to the way we respond to the not-so-friendly neighbor, we are modeling love to our children. They will learn a lot about love and kindness by watching how we respond to them, and others, during the day. They will also learn about forgiveness, patience, understanding, relationships and conflict resolutions. We are not perfect, and as hard as we try, we do not always show the “best” to our children. But this is a perfect opportunity to model how we respond to those we love, or those we have relationships with, when we haven’t reacted in a kind or appropriate manner. Some-times how we make amends is a better model of love than our hugs and kisses.
After a hard day we are not as fresh as we were in the morning, or for some of you, who are not morning people, evening may be the best time of day for you. Whenever you are running low on those warm-fuzzies try to give your children a clue that this may not be a good time for you. I used to look at the boys and say, “look at this face, do you think this is a good time for this?!” As they get older you can use humor to release the tension and maybe get a laugh out of the situation. I was on the phone with my sister-in-law when her son (now 21) was having a playdate. I was reminded that timing is everything. She was at her wits end, the children (Joshua, then 5, his friend, Brandon, and the 2 year old brother, Carson) had returned to the house covered in mud (again), she would have to change their clothes (again), she would have to mop the kitchen floor (again), and she would have to wash them and their clothes (again)! As she was talking to me I could hear little Carson talking to her about what she had for him to wear. His sweet little voice brought back the images of chubby little people who used to bring dirt, mud and assorted other “fun” into my life. I would have given anything to be sitting in her kitchen cuddling with that little two year old or better yet sitting outside watching them giggle and laugh as they played in the mud. Of course, 30 years ago when my little cherubs were riding bikes through the “hugest” mud puddle in the campground, in the only clean clothes left in our cabin, after a week of non-stop rain and after I had told them “absolutely no more riding through that puddle!” I wasn’t in such a warm and fuzzy mood! Like I said timing is everything! Just remember that the day will soon be over but the lessons they learn will be theirs forever. Teach them love, compassion, humor, and let them know you will always be there for them and, remember, these memories of toddler-hood and preschool will always be there for you. There are many ways you can show love to your children and in that expression of love they will feel honored and special. My guys loved it when we left little surprises at the end of a “treasure hunt” around the house, story books with pictures of them as the main character, allowing them to make the menu for the evening meal and then eating whatever is on their menu and sitting around the table listening as they shared about their day. We had special adult friends that also showed them they were important. The friendships with those adults are still in place to this day. It is important to have adults in their lives that are not “the parents”. Grandparents, aunts/uncles, family friends can be there for your child when they need to bounce ideas off someone but they don’t want it to their parent. Joel and Nick would tell Aunt Elysia things that they would not have told us. These special adults can say the same thing that Mom and Dad say but it somehow is different coming from them. I cherish the times I have with the “kids” in my life that are my friend’s children and the conversation we can have because I have known them all of their life. Take time to show the people in your life how special they are to you. Cherish the time you have with these children and remember what a blessing these little people in our lives! Happy February! As we start the New Year some of us may have taken time to review what our families have done this past year and/or start planning the activities for the coming year. When you have little ones running around the house you are lucky to have a chance to review the last hour let alone the whole year! It takes some planning just to have time to think! These little gems that are running around your house, and running your life, give you a new outlook on life as well as your thoughts for the year to come. How much will they grow this year, what will they learn, what will I learn, where will we be next year, when will they learn to……??? There are lots of questions and a new year of adventures ahead of you. When you have a moment of quiet time, try to review what you did in 2019. Take time to reflect on what you did that you would like to do again and add that to the list of new things you would like to try this year. Some of the “things” you do with your family/child may be big things but a lot of the time the memories you keep with you are from the ordinary things that make up everyday life. Did you have time to laugh with your child, did you feel the awe of wonder-ment when your child experienced something for the first time, were you amazed when they learned something new -- did you really enjoy a day in the life of your child?
Sometimes you need to get away and have some R&R so you have the energy to have a positive attitude about being a parent. Give yourself permission to have time just for you. Give yourself permission to pamper yourself. If you take the time to recharge yourself then you have the opportunity to be the best for your child. ~ Take a walk ~ Go on a date ~ Read a book (that does not have pictures and a soft, fluffy animal, a truck, train, or builder as a main character) ~ Have a cup of tea and finish a chapter without being interrupted. Then you will have the energy to enjoy all they have to share with you … a hug, a sticky-jelly-kiss, a worm, a laugh. In our family I treasure the laughter more than anything else. To hear children laughing brings such joy. Even though Joel and Nick are grown they will always be my “children” so their laughter will always bring a smile to my face and warmth to my heart. And now we can enjoy the laughter of our grandchildren! Curt and I walked by a playground the other day and were drawn to the sound of children playing and laughing. What a wonderful sound that is. It is the sound of joy and wonderment. Often it is the everyday memories that mean so much as your child grows up. The day you sat on the porch in the sun and read a book, that early morning sleepy look as they tumble out of bed, a smile just for you, the excitement of a making something all by themselves. These little snapshots of everyday life with add up and become the history of their childhood. You can hold onto these mental pictures of your little one as you watch them grow. Sooner than you think (or want) they head off into the ‘big’ world -- grade school, high school and then off to college or their new job. Remember -- it is as important to take the pictures in your mind as it is with your camera because you can always look at the pictures in your mind. |
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June 2021
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