Environmental Print Game

For my older children, I started a game in which I pay them a quarter for every spelling mistake they find. The boys find misspellings in the books they read, on city signs, and everywhere in between! C wants to play too so I came up with a game especially for him as a beginning reader.

Beginning literacy builds on "environmental print" which is words in the environment that children may know & recognize from repeated exposures. The first that comes to mind is "McDonald's." If you ask them to read the word placed elsewhere like on the packaging, they can probably tell you that it is McDonald's! They may recognize their own name in print. They might be able to "read" the name of their favorite box of cereal. C reads environmental print for his quarters! Once he reads a word, I confirm and point out the beginning letter and sound out the word again. He's essentially recalling stored information and is so proud that he's "reading" like big brothers.

Great places to hunt for environmental print: foods in a grocery store, store names, candy aisle, in a favorite book, advertisements in magazines

I Can Hammer

For motor skills practice, a hammer and nails can be teaching tools. The optimal materials are the real thing- wood and metal! Don't worry moms, pair a hammer and nails with safety goggles. An old tree stump is a good surface. You've never seen concentration until you watch a preschooler use a hammer and nails!

If it is tricky, you can scaffold success by drilling or pounding a few partial holes into the stump first yourself so the nail stays upright, no holding necessary.

*Variation: Let your child practice hammering golf tees into a big chunk of styrofoam or floral foam with a toy hammer.

*Extension: A song

Johnny works with one hammer, (pound one arm)

One hammer, one hammer,

Johnny works with one hammer,

Then he works with two.

Johnny works with two hammers, (add other arm)

Two hammers, two hammers,

Johnny works with two hammers,

Then he works with three.

Repeat with:

Three – add one leg

Four – add the other leg

Five – add head

On last line of verse five say, “Then he goes to sleep.” (put hands under head like pillow)

The Shapes We Eat

Pick a time frame to pay special attention to the shapes that we eat. Pizza is a circle, cut into triangles. Crackers are round or square or even ovals. Graham crackers are rectangles but can be broken into squares or smaller rectangles. Oranges are spheres. Cheese slices can be cut with cookie cutters. Shapes are all around us!

*Extension: Cut out magazine pictures of food shapes.

*Extension: Play this game in a restaurant while looking at the menu.

Juice Can Lid Memory

Save up those metal juice can lids (or milk caps!) for a customized game of memory. Wash with warm soapy water to remove sticky juice residue. Dry thoroughly. Buy two sets of stickers in the theme of your choice and adhere the matches to the lids. Shuffle up and place sticker-side down to play.

*Variation: Get doubles of family photos to glue onto the lids.

Share recycling with your children.

Is this the world you want to leave them?

Bell Ringer

Tie a piece of string to a large bell and hang it from a tree branch at child's eye level. Toss a ball or beanbag at it to make the bell ring. Level up or down by changing how close or far away from the bell the child stands.

Iceberg, Right Ahead!

Fill a few plastic containers with water and food coloring. Put some small toys in the colored water and place into the freezer. These frozen blocks are a fun addition to water play or in the bath tub. Discover what happens as the ice melts.

Farmer's Market

**Next time you hit the farmer's market, let your child choose something new to try. If they are part of the process of selection and preparing, they are more likely to try it. This is how C learned to like spaghetti squash.**

It Looked Like Spilt Milk

Just want to recommend a book that might inspire a few activities this summer. It's called "It Looked Like Spilt Milk" by Charles G. Shaw and published by HarperFestival.

*Extension: Cloud watching.

*Extension: Paint white paint on blue paper and then fold it in half. What does it look like now?

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

**As part of the bedtime routine, you can teach this time concept that will later make calendar skills easier. Talk about what happened yesterday, what you did today, and what to expect tomorrow.**

Ballooning

Start with your arms at your side. Breathe in deeply, and as you breathe in raise your arms over your head. Blow out the air while making exaggerated noises, like a balloon deflating, and wiggle your arms until they are back at your side. Repeat several times.

Clever Clean-Up

**When outdoor toys get grungy and grimy, provide a bucket of warm soapy water with a sponge and a hose. When cleaning up is presented in a fun way, it no longer feels like work.**

Spilt Milk

**Don't cry over spilt milk, or other spills for that matter. Encourage independence by proving a dish of soapy water, a sponge, and some paper towels for easy clean up. Praise your child's efforts!**

Color INSIDE the Box

**Set a large cardboard box in the middle of the living room for their discovery, with a box of crayons inside. Watch what happens next!**

Balance Beam

**Place a stripe of masking tape across the floor for your child to practice walking on. Once that is mastered, she is ready to move on to a curb.**

Build a Fort

**Pull out a few sheets and blankets and build a good old fashioned fort together in the living room. Beyond structure and architecture, climb inside and read a good book together by flashlight.**

Finals Week Notice

I'm getting into finals week for the last time ever. I am one week away from graduating with high honors in the field of early childhood education! Please forgive my condensed activities until I can resume regular posting.

**Find 10 things in your house that are BLUE (or your child's favorite color.)**

Adopt a Tree

Meet my adopted tree, above. At first, I was a little hesitant to jump on this activity as a preschool activity, but I realize it's important to show children change over time. Select a tree nearby that you can observe throughout a year. It can be informal, as in talking about it each time you walk by. Or you can be formal "scientists" taking samples, collecting measurements, researching it, taking its picture, drawing it, and even getting crayon rubbings of the bark and leaves.

A fun book to read with this activity is The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, Harper & Row, 1964.

Mentos in Diet Coke; Cause and Effect

Parents: I recommend your supervision while doing

the following activities with preschoolers.

Here's how I spent 30 seconds of my last science and math class. Have a little fun with cause and effect and drop some mint Mentos into a rolled up paper tube and release into Diet Coke!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_Coke_and_Mentos_eruption

*Variations: Explore the reaction of vinegar and baking soda. Or fill a film canister 1/3 full with water and drop in an Alka-Seltzer. Replace the lid and flip it over, setting it down on the lid. Wait for the POP as it blasts off!

Sun Prints

**Arrange a few interesting items on black construction paper and leave in the sun for about 1 hour. The sun will fade the paper leaving nice prints behind.**

Berry Basket Weaving

**Once you've enjoyed some summer berries (dipped in vanilla yogurt?), recycle the container by weaving pretty ribbons throughout.**

Share recycling with your children.
Is this the world you want to leave them?

Protect That Brain! Eggheads

This format is a bit different because I used it in my math & science class.

Materials: Eggs, newspaper, markers, scissors, tape, various materials to construct with (Examples: fabric, rubber bands, styrofoam, bubble wrap, egg cartons, cardboard, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, straws, anti-slip mat, etc.)

Objectives: Observing, comparing, and communicating. Discover why we wear helmets when we ride our wheeled toys.

Age Group: Preschool

Procedure: Your brain controls your entire body. You brain helps you move and think and learn! Our brains are soft and they are protected by our bony skull, just like the inside of an egg is protected by the shell.

Invite the children to draw faces on the eggs and create various helmets from the supplied materials to protect their “eggheads.”

Drop the eggs wearing the helmets from about waist height. If the eggs break while wearing the helmet you can ask “Was the helmet unsafe?”, “Did the egg fall at an angle so that it was not protected?”, “How would you make the best helmet?”

Scaling up: Challenge children to protect eggs dropped from a higher level.

Scaling down: Have a few egg-helmets ready made for trials. Or cut apart egg cartons for the helmets to eliminate the construction part.

Safety Concern: Raw egg can contain salmonella bacteria. Keep eggs cold until ready to use. Wash hands thoroughly! You could cook the eggs beforehand.

Slide Painting

Today we did slide painting. I covered the slide with butcher paper and extended it about 6 feet out and we dipped various items in tempera paint and rolled them down. I let the kids select items too based on what they thought would roll. Some of the more interesting prints came from a plastic hair curler, a golf ball, and a pinecone. It was a collaborative group effort but you could cut the finished product into squares to save or send home.

Benefits of Play

Play is SO important that the UN High Commission for Human Rights says play is the RIGHT of every child.

Play enhances every domain of a child's development- gross and fine motor, language, cognition, social and emotional development.

Children are not passive learners. Children learn best when they play- being actively involved, engaged, free to explore in safe and supportive environments, and using all of their senses- sight, taste, touch, hearing, smelling.

To reach children the best way we know how, we must expose them to a variety of rich learning experiences in multiple contexts.

Parenting a Prosocial Child

Ways to encourage Helping, Sharing, and Caring behaviors in your child

1. Children are the best copycats! Model caring behaviors for your child. Help other people out of the kindness of your heart and let the child participate when possible.

2. Make time for group play, whether it be a planned play date or casual interaction at the local playground. Play time is a perfect opportunity to develop social skills- making new friends, sharing, teamwork, starting and holding conversations, manners and more.

3. Label feelings & emotions expressed during play. Feelings are complicated! By putting a name to a feeling, the child gains some control over the emotion and may eventually be able to say “That makes me jealous!”

4. Help the child see how their behavior affects others. Ask “How do you think Margie feels when you color on her paper?”

5. During a social conflict, involve the child or children involved in problem solving. Gather ideas and examine how each might resolve the problem at hand, pick one together and proceed!

6. Giving the child age-appropriate chores will give them a sense of contribution to the household.

7. We all make mistakes. Let the child see you make apologies. Apologize to your children too. They are learning forgiveness.

8. Be gracious. Count your blessings together. Send Thank You notes. Show appreciation to the people around you for what they do.

9. Point out facial expressions in illustrations of books you read together. Talk about what feelings it might be expressing as well as what might make the character feel better. The child gets the benefit of gaining “emotional scripts” through reading, something they can act out next time they need the skill.

10. Praise your child’s acts of empathy, or attempts at such. Praise is powerful!

Using a Visual Schedule

This is a visual schedule I created to show a bedtime routine. Cards can be flipped over once completed.

Q: Why do we use visual schedules?
A:
1. To reduce anxiety/frustration! In order to communicate successfully, we need to know what is expected of us. Young children especially thrive on predictability!
2. Provide motivation to work through a less favored activity knowing a favored one follows.
3. To promote independent behavior.
4. To teach skills required for daily learning.
5. To reduce the possibility that challenging behaviors will occur.
6. To reinforce time organization and sequential memory.

Q: Who benefits from using a visual schedule?
A: Almost everyone can benefit. Consider the child’s ability to UNDERSTAND rather than the ability to speak. A visual schedule is especially important to children that may have difficulty understanding oral language and directions. Children with autism show strengths in the areas of rote memory and understanding visual information.

Q: How do I indicate changes on a visual schedule?
A: Once is in place, stick to the schedule as much as possible. If life interferes, return to the schedule as soon as possible. If a change must be made, a question mark can indicate a new activity.

A visual schedule should be:
Left to right, as in reading or top to bottom
Child manipulated
At least two items at a time so children learn events aren’t isolated but happen in sequence
Taught and practiced
Used with consistency

Most of us learn objects and actions through the following common levels of abstraction
Actual objects and actions
Photographs of objects and actions
Black and white line drawings of objects and actions
Written words which describe objects and actions

Use whatever makes the connection for the individual, decreasing the level of abstraction if the individual seems confused or frustrated.

When designing, ask:
1. Will the child understand or recognize the pictures or words?
2. Is the activity represented by the visual schedule obvious to the child?
3. Can the schedule be made clearer by the use of words, more images, or objects?
4. Does the child know and have available the tools required to successfully complete the activity?

Patternpillars

Pattern + caterpillars= patternpillars! Glue pom poms to a craft stick in a pattern. C's pattern was A B C A B C. Add wiggly ears and antennae if you'd like. The kids made so many of these today it was like a visit to the butterfly gardens, well before butterfly season.

*Variation: Glue on beans or buttons.

*Extension: For a chrysallis you can slip the caterpillars into a sock, and before the kids see them next, you slip in and add some wings of cellephane, tissue paper, or gift wrap so when they pull out their caterpillar it is no longer. Suprise, beautiful butterflies!