Summer Sensory Play

 If your child comes home  from preschool looking picture perfect everyday, it is time to delve into the kinds of activities the class is doing during the day!  Young children learn with all their senses and should have a variety of opportunities for exploration.  There will be times when children may get a little paint on their clothes or play dough under their fingernails, but in the process they are increasing their knowledge as well as developing their sense of creativity.  Children learn by mixing paints to create their individual artistic treasures, by splashing and playing in water to discover which objects sink or float, and by mixing the ingredients of their own special play dough to see how various substances integrate and how the combination changes the properties of the ingredients.   Kangaroo Kids Summer Camp does many  “Messy But Meaningful,”  projects.  

Remember “Silly Putty” and “Slime?”  If you enjoyed playing with either of these as a child here is a homemade version you can make with your child called “Goop” You may encouraging a future scientist!

Goop

1. Two cups glue
2. One cup liquid starch
3. Mix together
4. Store in refrigerator

Too busy for sensory play at home?  Here is one that will give you a sense of accomplishment while your child is having a sensory experience.  Get a big bucket and lots of soap and wash the dog together!  You can teach your child about the fascinating chemistry of how the bubbles form (if you need a little help visit http://chemistry.about.com/od/bubbles/a/bubblescience.htm ), or give your child a lesson in kindness to people and pets to reinforce social skills during the bathing! 

Play dough is a good old standby, even for the toddlers!  Mix the ingredients below and get out the cookie cutters and a rolling pin and let your child explore.   Make a pretend birthday cake or form shapes and letters with the dough! 

Play dough

1. 3 cups flour
2. 1 cup salt
3. 3 Tablespoons oil
4. 1 cup of water

Painting – Be creative instead of just using a paint brush let your child paint with different instruments such as rollers, matchbox cars, or q-tips!  You can even use those old apples to do stamp painting by cutting the apples in half and dipping them in paint.  You never know you might be encouraging the next Picasso! 

Shaving Cream Fun- Here is a fun summer way to work on literacy skills and shape recognition while you are enhancing creativity.  Just put a big squirt of shaving cream on that outside picnic table and let your young artist explore.  You can add to the fun by making the shapes or the letters of their name for them in the shaving cream. 

Give foot print painting a try, but this one is best to do outside! 

Summer Scientists

This week at Kangaroo Kids Summer Camp the theme is Science Sensations!  Here is an experiment we will do at school that you can do at home!

It is called Geyser Blast Off!  All you need us a  2 liter bottle of Diet Coke and a pack of Mint Mentos!

 It is very sticky so make sure you are outside in a open area that won't be ruined by the spray of coke!

Chcck out the link below for details regarding the experiment and to explain the scientific principals of the behind the reaction to your child!

Geyser Blast Off!    Geyser Blast Off

Help Your Child Fall In Love With Reading

Schools all over the world will celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday on March 2^nd.   It is also the start of “Read Across America”, the National Education Association’s annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on March 2, the birthday of beloved children's author Dr. Seuss.

Reading is one of the key components for academic success! 

Help your child fall in love with reading by making it a special time with you!  Here are a few tips to help your child become a reader: 

·      Talk with your child — even infants — this increases language development.

·       Make reading time fun by being animated and dynamic when you read!

·       Role model reading.

·       Ask open-ended questions that encourage a sense of wonder, imagination and creative thinking.  Typical open-ended questions are “How” and “Why” questions and questions that don’t have one specific answer.  They teach children to think and be creative!!  

What you can do to help your child be successful at reading:

1. Babble back to your infants
2. Use “parentese” with your infant (high pitched voice)
3. Encourage conversation
4. Teach site words. e.g., McDonalds, Lucky Charms, Barney
5. Dramatic play and using props such as puppets can be great opportunities for conversation
6. Speak another language you are wiring the brain for a lifetime of multiple languages
7. Encourage drawing and inventive spelling
8. Script – write their story and make it into a book
9. In addition to reading stories, include rhymes, songs and other languages (Frere Jacques)
10. Place labels on furniture and objects in  your child’s environment to create a print rich environment
11. Make shopping lists with your child
12. Read and cook recipes together
13. Look for letters on the Menu when you go out to eat
14. Look in magazines for pictures that begin with the letter you are studying and cut them out.
15. Make an alphabet book
16. Read a book and then ask children a few questions to test their comprehension
17. Glue letters from an alphabet cereal on a piece of paper.
18. Put alphabet cereal on a plate and help children make their names out of the cereal
19. Keep magnetic letters on the refrigerator.
20. Make up silly songs starting with the letter you are studying.
21. Talk to your child
22. Sing with your child
23. Read to your child everyday
24. Make up silly rhyming songs with your child
25. Provide writing materials
26. Limit television watching and when you do watch, be sure to guide your children to appropriate shows
27. Role model reading
28. Visit libraries and bookstores
29. Select a quality child care program
30. Read to children and ask them to predict what will happen next.

Here are some tips from the National Association for the Education of Young Children to promote reading at home. Tips to help your child fall in love with reading!

Help You Child Become a Problem Solver

In Today’s fast paced society where everyone is connected at all times we expect immediate answers and solutions.  These demands can cause a great deal of stress for adults as well as for children. 

Teaching children to take the time and steps necessary to become problem solvers can alleviate stress and inappropriate responses to challenges.  Here are some great tips from the National Association for the Education of Young Children to help your child become a problem solver.  

http://families.naeyc.org/child-development/help-your-child-become-great-problem-solver        Problem Solving

Encouraging Creativity

Why is getting messy and creating those lovely works of art that you can't quite give a name to important?  One of the strengths of our country has always been being creative and resourceful.  As we move more and more towards testing and product based projects and worksheet education in young children's programs we are creating rote learners instead of creative thinkers.  If you doubted the value of process based hands on learning and the value of getting messy read this post.  It is a great article by Cindy Rzasa Bess, Ph.D. a Professional Speaker/Trainer, Developmental Psychologist, Education Consultant in her November Newsletter 

Art Smart from the Start

Back when I was a little girl, I always believed that giving my parents a hand made gift was the ultimate expression of love.  I made kiddie-loomed pot holders and clay animals; original paintings worthy of a popsicle stick frame; and, even the ever popular orange juice can converted into a pencil holder.  When we were going through my dad’s things after his passing I was stunned to find a drawer containing fifteen OJ can pencil holders!  He kept everyone!  Apparently my belief about the ultimate expression of love went both ways!  It was a very touching moment for me, to say the least!

Encouraging and supporting the flow of personal creative self-expression in a young child is one of the greatest gifts an adult can give him or her. Providing the chance for a preschooler to dabble in the arts and try new experiences is priceless and precious.  Unleashing his or her inner creativity, which ultimately follows its own path to self-expression, is a precious present.  Acknowledging that he or she is a wonderful and creative individual, capable of making great things that beautify the world is a meaningful message.

Hands-on learning through individual creativity should be highly prized in the education process.  Refraining from demanding conformity from these young hearts and minds is only fair at this tender age.  Imagination should be given a chance to grow, blossom, and flourish before the shackles of compliance are clapped shut.  It is okay for bears to be pink or green; and its fine for bunnies to have five ears.  It is alright for the wheels on the bus to be square; it makes for an interesting ride. Children have a whole lifetime to conform to societal expectations and to eventually admit that bears are black, brown and white.  Why force them to give up their innocent, inventive, and innovative perspective in favor of the old boring one adults share?  Teachers who are in touch with their own inner child know this truth, and do not squelch individual creative self-expression, but instead honor it and give it space to thrive.

Children learn best through doing.  They are by nature curious little beings.  They love to try new things and explore and experience the world, and their place in it. Jean Piaget said that young children construct their own knowledge by interacting with their environment.  They learn by doing solving problems and experiencing their options.  There are so many places in the Early Childhood Classroom where they can explore and experience their creative and inventive self:  The music center, the dramatic play area, the science center and the art center.  Even the block area and the fine motor small building toys allow for the child to create new structures and discover their ability to change the world through their action.  There is nothing greater than seeing the smile of accomplishment as it crosses a child’s face.  They know they have done something valuable and often show you their work with pride, with the accompanying announcement of “I did it!”

How can Artistic Self-expression be included in the ECE classroom?

· Incorporate Visual arts - drawing, painting, sculpting (play dough), making textiles (weaving), creating collages

· Encourage Language Arts - Discuss rhyming and create a group poem, write stories as a class, write a book of tales as a group and add it to the book nook

· Enjoy Performing Arts – Theater (putting on a puppet show, re-enacting a fairy tale);

       Singing (to the group or leading the group in song);

       Dance (music and movement)

Why offer Art?

Creative Art enables:  Self-expression

                                                   Communication of ideas -- without words

                                                   The discovery of one’s self

                                                   Exploration of the physical world and its properties

                                                   Learning to follow directions

                                                   Acquiring new skills, mastering and redefining them

                                                   Thinking “Out of the Box”

                                                   Cooperation and collaboration

                                                   Demonstration of persistence and tenacity

   Expansion of vocabulary

   Extension of experience

But most important of all it says to a child, you do not need someone else to provide toys and produce special things for you, for you are capable of making them yourself to use, play with and enjoy!

Process versus Product Art

Believe it or not there is a place for both in the early childhood classroom.   However the rule of thumb should be Process Art always available, Product Art occasionally incorporated.  Children can benefit from having an activity that requires active listening and following directions.  Examples can be replicated every one in a long while. But, these projects should be done rarely and be used as a means for assessment. Although parents like to see the standard choo-choo train made from colorful pre-cut paper shapes, or the duck made of glued yellow feathers come home, it is not the best way to teach a child about art and the true creative experience.  Real art comes from within.  Children should be encouraged to be the artists that they are within their own being.  Art should not be a method for assessment. Refrain from doing “product art” too often, after all they have a whole life time to bend to society’s will.  This is the time for active, unencumbered fun, and self-expression.

Whenever you work with a child, encourage imagination and creativity wherever you can. Refrain from asking young children to conform to a preconceived idea of who they should be, what they should be doing and encourage freedom of expression in language, in art and in play (Of course, within limits.)  When a child is allowed to produce original work there is a greater process going on.  They are able to define their own area of interest and way of interacting with the materials.  They are able to define and develop their own plan of action and are able to solve problems in unique ways as they happen.

When children are encouraged to be creative in their pursuits they:

· Learn to work through events                     

· Recreate things they know or situations they have encountered

· Make sense of the bigger world                 

· Grasp the importance and value of symbols through representation

· Enhance their self-esteem                           

· Increase motor skill development and refinement

· Become more independent                         

· Develop new cognitive skills and learn new concepts

· Feel more competent                                   

· Develop stronger social skills

· Understand qualities or properties of materials (sticky glue, runny paint, etc.)

Also, when they are encouraged to try new things and create something that comes from their own brain, we are encouraging innovation and invention in later development.  When they are forced to conform to predetermined and preconceived patterns, their own creativity is squelched.

However, children can make their own space ships and cars from simple classroom materials, and these can be constant reminders that they can make significant contributions to their own world.  By making children aware of their potential as creators and producers, we empower them to break free of the consumer role that the business community would gladly have them fill.

Please be respectful of a child’s art work and realize the value it holds for him or her.  There is nothing sadder than to see a child deflate as a teacher writes directly on his or her picture.  If you as an adult really NEED to note it is a picture of a house and of Mommy, do so on a post it note that can be peeled off, rather than on the child’s actual art work.  Just because you are bigger than him or her, doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to “graffiti” his or her work.  Showing respect for a child’s efforts is vital and also considerate. Encourage, acknowledge, and offer the chance to be creative, constructive and productive.

Please also realize that there are many children who are dissuaded from painting and using messy materials in the home.  If they don’t have time in the early childhood setting to discover the different textures and tactile experiences that come with messy art, a whole part of the self-to-be might never come to fruition.  Doing is the key to learning.  Being with the materials is the key to understanding them in relation to the self.

Hopefully when the beautiful masterpieces come home, they are given a prized place for display and are not relegated to the 3” deep with artwork refrigerator museum.   Nothing sends a stronger message to a young child than to see his or her parents frame a piece of artwork and display it prominently in the home.

Holding Back Your Child?

Kindergarten registration has begun! In most school districts, children must be 5 years old by October 1, 2012 to enroll in Kindergarten. Many parents are faced with the dilemma of determining when his or her child should begin school. Today, parents are becoming more aggressive in determining what is in the best interest of their child.

A new phenomena, however, is taking place among many families. According to Preschool Director Mary Innocenzi, parents are opting to keep their young child out of public school an extra year, even if their child’s age falls within the guidelines for school entry. Why? Parents say “I’d rather keep her in preschool an extra year, so she can have an extra year to mature. What’s the rush?” “I don’t feel my son is as mature as the other children. I feel it’s better to keep him out an extra year. Also, he will have more of an opportunity to do well in sports—he won’t be the smallest kid in his class.” “If I keep my child out of school an extra year, he’ll have a decided educational advantage over the others in his class.”

And so it goes…

In the past there were always a few parents who would opt to “hold back” their child, for various reasons. Today, however, many parents feel that they are giving their child a head start by keeping their child out of school an extra year.

It is a difficult decision and some of the social concerns, physical concerns regarding sports, and academic challenges do not often show up until the higher grades. Many parents make the decision solely based on academics. But it is also important to consider social skills, confidence, organization skills, and physical size, as well as family preference. These are important considerations, especially when the new trend to hold children back makes some August and September birthday children almost 2 years younger than their peers. One of the reasons I feel this decision is so important is that the stakes are much higher at 17 years of age, when you want your child to be a leader, not a follower.

If you have any questions where we can help, feel free to stop by the office at Kangaroo Kids to discuss your options and some creative solutions.