Whole Child Development
Everyone knows the excitement and satisfaction that comes from giving a gift you’ve had a part in creating yourself. It’s especially meaningful for children. Not only does it give them the opportunity to create and to find joy in giving, but creating it themselves feeds their self-esteem and self-efficacy as well. And as anyone who has been the recipient of a child’s gift can attest, the smile on a child’s face as he gives, is often as priceless as the gift itself. [Read more…]
This is one of my favorite winter-time sensory activities! Though it’s great any time of year, colder temps outside make it easier to freeze all those ice blocks! Get your kiddos in on all the action by letting them mix the colors (I like to use washable liquid or powder watercolors), and letting them observe the change from liquid to solid…..and then back again! Pop the colored ice into your sensory table, kitchen sink, or even the bathtub, and get building! (Originally posted 12/18/09.)
It has been plenty cold around here, so I thought I’d go back to last year for a re-post of outdoor winter activities! Enjoy the holiday weekend!
If you’re exploring a transportation theme, here’s a fun little ditty about transportation I found years ago. (I didn’t write down where I found it, so if you know the original author let me know!) It’s a fun piggy-back song, to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle:
Who doesn’t enjoy a good snack to take on the road? Here’s a snack activity that fits well in the transportation unit, that not only fills rumbling bellies, but also reinforces math concepts!
Whoever coined the phrase “less is more” certainly wasn’t under the age of six. Young children love piling it all on, especially when doing art. It’s more about the experience than the exhibit, and that’s the way it should be.
I really do love graphing with preschoolers. It makes math concepts like numeracy, 1-to-1 ratio (counting one number for one item), comparing numbers, and sorting objects very visual and hands-on. Graphing does not have to be complicated. We’re not talking parabolas here, just simple T charts will do.
Just recently I did a sink or float activity (because no matter how many times we do it, my boys still think that 20 pound pumpkins will sink) and I used the back of the door for our graph. Just a door and some painter’s tape. Voila! A graph! [Read more…]
If you’re looking for some ways to make this week memorable for your little ones, try serving up some pumpkin! You may want to use pumpkin as an ingredient (as in Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread) or use the pumpkin as the dish! Here are five ways to serve up some fun, originally published on Halloween of last year!
I wrote a while back about a sign-in chart that provides regular practice for name-writing while also providing a record-keeping system to track progress. Some children really thrive with this method — they’ve recently figured out that they OWN their name, and they want to write it everywhere! Others however, are more reluctant. “I already did that,” they may say. Like the parent who’s constantly cleaning the same kitchen, the child wonders, “Why am I doing this again? I did it yesterday!” Sometimes all a child needs is more purpose for the writing. Writing it today so they can write it again tomorrow just doesn’t always cut it. Here are some ways you can encourage reluctant writers to leave their mark. [Read more…]
As I sat in the waiting room of a doctor’s office not too long ago, I flipped through a family magazine and was taken aback by an advertisement. The picture showed a mother with a baby in her lap, both looking enthusiastically at a computer screen as flashcard-like images of apples and dogs and the Eiffel Tower played before them. In bold letters, the advertisement promised a computer program that would make your (otherwise dreadfully average) child a genius.
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