Whole Child Development
Here’s a fun math activity that combines counting, one-to-one ratio, numeral recognition, color recognition, sorting, graphing, number comparison, and well, sugar! That’s a lot to do in one activity, but I promise, your kiddos will enjoy it nonetheless. And it’s only partly because of the sugar part.
Charles Barkley is notorious for saying he is not a role model. While this provided for an interesting campaign, and has the best intentions (implying parents should be a child’s primary role models, not athletes) it’s still a bit flawed. (Sorry, Chuck.) The truth is, any adult in view of a child, is to some degree a role model. I mean, break down the word. A role model is someone who demonstrates how a role is filled. They are modeling behavior. This is contingent upon a child being able to observe you, not upon your willingness or objection to being considered such. Children are watching all around them and picking up cues on how to navigate social situations. They are looking for social behavior to emulate as references for navigating their own social situations.
I have a friend who has made a tradition of giving books to her children on Valentine’s Day. (No, she’s not the one named Stinky Face.) She tries to find some kind of love themed book to give to each of her children. I love this idea, and as I thought about my favorite love themed children’s book, particularly from the perspective of a mom, my hands-down favorite is “I Love You Stinky Face” by Lisa McCourt.
This is a great story about a child who keeps asking his mother “what if” questions to test how much she really loves him. Questions like, “What if I were an alligator with big, sharp teeth?” or “What if I were a green alien from Mars and I ate bugs instead of peanut butter?” Of course the mother answers in perfect, funny, unconditionally loving fashion
Ahh, February! The kiddos have just gotten over the withdrawal symptoms caused by the sudden drop in blood sugar levels after Christmas, so of course it’s the perfect time for another confectionary holiday!
Now, I’m a middle of the roader when it comes to holidays and preschool. I don’t quite agree with the notion that they should be completely abolished from school. They are what kids are interested in, and I believe curriculum should emerge from the child’s interests. Though, I also don’t agree with the idea that a holiday is an appropriate curriculum theme in and of itself for an extended period of time. So I like to take the holiday and find connections to other social or science based themes. As I think of Valentine’s Day, I think of friendship and writing and sending notes and letters. I think of the social skills involved in creating and maintaining human relationships. These are skills children need to develop. (While we’re at it, there are plenty of adults who could use a course on those skills as well!)
I’m rushing to finish up the posts for the Arts and the Senses unit, so that I can start posting the next unit I’m excited about! Check back on the unit theme page, where I’ve explained several activities in quick notes and links rather than a full post! This activity, however, warranted a little more explanation!
Have you ever frustrated or angry? I mean really frustrated or angry? Almost beyond words? Doesn’t that just add to the aforementioned frustration? Well, imagine being a child. (It shouldn’t be too hard, I’m pretty sure you were one once.) Young children are bombarded with emotions just as intense as our own – if not more so as they are not tempered with the same reason and justification we can sometimes muster. These little ones feel just as frustrated and angry as we ever could, but have even less of an ability to verbalize it. Too often, that results in some other manifestation or communication of the emotion. This is when we usually see the tantrums, the biting, the hitting, the kicking, etc., etc., etc. How do we as adults usually respond? We swoop in, console the victim and cite the offender, lecturing them about that behavior. We see it as a failure to behave properly, when often, it is a failure to communicate properly.
Here’s a quick, easy, and inexpensive way (music to a teacher’s ears, right?) to create a great tool for incorporating music and auditory discernment. Whoa, back up the truck, what was that? “Auditory discernment” is the ability to hear the differences and similarities between two sounds. It can be as simple as hearing the difference between a bell ringing and a horn honking, but it’s also the groundwork for hearing the difference between the sounds in words, like the short e sound and the short i sound. Phonemic awareness is a critical reading skill, and it is completely auditory. So building auditory skills actually paves the way for reading skills. OK, so back to the project at hand!
I try to fit a nursery rhyme, fable, or fairy tale into each unit. As I’ve mentioned before, these are the literary classics of childhood! When talking about the arts and the senses, I like to introduce the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin!
You can check out a book to read out loud, create a flannel board story, or use the coloring pages from this website. Whatever your method, get familiar with the story and bring it to life in your storytelling. After the story, talk about whether or not the children think it could really happen. Probably not….at least not exactly (though the story’s historical roots are actually debated). Nonetheless, listening to music can make us want to move in different ways, depending upon the way it sounds. Play a few samples and have the children suggest what type of movement the music makes them think of. Choose samples that remind you of a lullaby, a dancing tune, a quiet tip-toe song, etc. End with a march and have the children march, parade style, to your next activity!
Teachers and parents of young children are notoriously good problem-solvers. When discontent arises, we swoop in, assess the situation, and set timers, create turn-taking lists, grab another item for sharing, or utilize some other method from our bag of tricks. We are so good at problem solving because we get so much practice! This is all well and good, and at times a skill of survival, but to truly benefit children for the long run, it is ideal to involve them in the problem solving process. It may slow things down a bit, but eventually you will find that you are “swooping in” less and less as the children build their own sets of social problem-solving skills and become more independent.
I love cinnamon scented playdough, which I listed here, but I also love the fruity scent of Kool-Aid scented playdough! Adding an extra appeal to the senses could hardly be easier! Start with the Classic Playdough Recipe. Add a packet of Kool-Aid to the water before adding it to the pan. Ta-da! Simple, right? Now, if you already have a batch of playdough made up, you can also knead the powder right into the dough. It takes a bit of time to get it mixed through, but because it hasn’t been cooked, the scent may actually be stronger that way. Just be sure that the powder has been worked in completely. You may even want to let it sit overnight to be sure that the powder has been fully absorbed.
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