Sharing Literacy Experiences With Children

Read Across America is a reading motivational and awareness program which encourages every child all across the country to celebrate the joy of reading, and coincides with the festivities around Dr. Seuss's Birthday.

The program also encourages parents to foster a love of reading in their families and demonstrates the values which benefit families who make time to read together.

The celebration took flight in May 1997 when a group of teachers decided to institute a day to get children and their parents excited about reading. Thus was born the largest celebration of reading that this nation has ever seen. Teachers, politicians, actors, athletes, librarians, parents and grandparents have all become active in the endeavor.

Children who are motivated to appreciate reading become better, more accomplished students, and ultimately enjoy greater success in their academic endeavors.

Kangaroo Kids has been an avid supporter of Read Across America since its inception in 1997 and uses each teachable moment as an opportunity to encourage its students to become lifelong reading enthusiasts. 

Here are some fun ways to share literacy adventures with your child:

1. Find things that start with the same letter of their name around the room.  Most children start their enthusiasm for reading with the thing most important to them – their name!
2. Go on a letter hunt - Find something in their room, or better yet outside on a walk that starts with that certain letter
3. Find A’s in a book, newspaper, or magazine!  They will think they are reading like Mom and Dad!
4. Word bank – Keep a list of words your child knows, either in a notebook, on a bulletin board, or in a non-breakable bank that he or she can open and close
5. Have all types of books available - Big books, cardboard books, small books, soft and hard books.  Include fiction and nonfiction in your library collection
6. Play games that involve literacy - Play restaurant and have them write orders in an order pad
7. Look for letters on the Menu when you go out to eat
8. Cut pictures out of magazines that begin with a letter you are studying
9. Make an alphabet book
10. Read a book and then ask children a few questions to test their comprehension
11. Glue letters from an alphabet cereal on a piece of paper
12. Put alphabet cereal on a plate and help your child make his or her name out of the cereal
13. Keep magnetic letters on the refrigerator
14. Make up silly songs starting with the letter of their name
15. Sing with your child!  Singing also helps with patterning and rhyming
16. Read to your child everyday even if it is only for a few minutes
17. Provide writing materials
18. Read food labels
19. Visit your local Library
20. Make up silly rhymes

Remember simply talking to your child not only builds lasting family bonds but also encourages academic development as he or she hears many different words and sounds, increases vocabulary development and sees and hears the beauty of written and spoken language.

Winter Wonderland at Kangaroo Kids

Winter Wonderland at Kangaroo Kids

Boost Your Babies Brain Power During Pregnancy

There has been so much research about the importance of a lifetime of fitness.  Recently, thanks to a story at ABC news, research is now suggesting that exercising during pregnancy can help to boost your baby’s brain power!

 No matter what age you are movement should be a part of your daily health and fitness regimen!  Find something you enjoy doing walking, tennis, dancing, going to the gym and then find a friend that enjoys the same activity.  It is more likely you will follow through if you have a commitment with a friend and if you enjoy the type of exercise you select. 

Hope you find this article informative. It shows how vital movement is for humans from prenatal through old age.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/11/11/exercise-during-pregnancy-can-boost-your-babys-brain/

Handwriting Tips

From worksheets to short essays, there are a lot of assignments for your kid to crank out -- and his teacher has to be able to read them. "Despite the increasing amount of technology in classrooms, a child's schoolwork still is mostly handwritten," says pediatric occupational therapist Jan Z. Olsen, founder of the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum program. "Teachers think good penmanship is crucial for communicating effectively." In fact, less than half of first- to third-grade teachers said that their students' handwriting was fast enough to keep up with classroom demands, found a Vanderbilt University poll.

If your child is struggling to put his words down on paper, he'll have less energy to focus on what he wants to say. Switching to a computer isn't the solution. Second-graders generated more ideas when writing by hand than by using a keyboard, University of Wisconsin researchers report. A sliver of kids who write illegibly, have a hard time forming letters, or find it difficult to complete written assignments may lack graphomotor skills and may benefit from occupational therapy.

Still, many kids with penmanship problems simply aren't getting enough practice. Bridge the gap at home with these clever ways to start off right.

Invisible Ink

Trace letters and simple words on your child's back and see if she can guess what you're writing. Then, swap and have her "write" a letter or word on you. Focus on the letters that are hardest for kids this age. Another Vanderbilt University study found that j, k, n, q, u, and z account for 48 percent of the mistakes when kids attempted to write the lowercase letters of the alphabet. How-to videos at parents.com/handwriting can help you teach your child these tricky letters.

Get a Grip

Kids who don't hold a pencil correctly may get tired of writing. Slide-on rubber grips, sold at school-supply stores, might help. But try a fun alternative: a small pencil, like the ones used in mini golf. Save them for games of pretend. Tell your child to imagine he's a waiter and have him write down your order. Or encourage him to dress up like a rock star; then ask for his autograph.

Picture This

Take out the markers or crayons and draw a single capital letter on a piece of unlined paper. Ask your child to make the chosen letter part of a bigger picture. She might turn a capital I into a butterfly or transform an O into an octopus. As she decorates the letter, she'll also be focusing on its shape.

Outsider Art

Using sidewalk chalk, have your child write a giant note that could be seen from outer space, then a tiny one for ants to read. (Or if your lawn looks like a winter wonderland, ask your glove-clad kid to write letters in the snow.)

Mail Tale

Buy a notebook and ask your child to keep a journal for a week. Send it to a relative to add comments on your child's week, record a week in her life, and mail it on to another loved one. The last person should mail it back to your child. She'll get reading practice too!

Pick a Winner

Designate one night a week as activity night. Help your child write down stuff he'd like to do on slips of paper and place them in a jar: Suggest games (board, card, or sports), movies, or whatever interests him (building with Legos or baking muffins). When it's time, have your kid choose one and ask him to add a fresh idea to keep the jar fun-filled.

Love Notes

Leave surprise messages for your child -- on her pillow, the bathroom mirror, or in her backpack. End each one with a question, and ask her to write an answer on the back and leave it for you in a surprise location as well.

Minute Man

Get into the habit of asking your kid to write things for you. Dictate shopping lists, have him address envelopes, and jot down reminders on the family calendar. The more practice, the better.

Tools of the Trade

Stock up on office supplies. Collect awesome writing tools (gel pens, scented markers, funny-shaped pencils) and all sorts of paper (lined sticky notes, doodle pads). Stow them in strategic spots around the house. She'll also be more psyched to scrawl if her pencil has a cute eraser.

Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Parents magazine.

Pumpkins provide many learning opportunities

Children at Kangaroo Kids only need to step out their back door to experience the enriched learning experience of growing their own pumpkins.  The pumpkin garden is providing a wonderful opportunity for the children to learn about nature, life cycles, agricultural and science.   Kangaroo Kids children no longer answer the supermarket when teachers ask where do pumpkins come from??? 

Visit Kangaroo Kids Child Care Facebook page for some ideas of how you can use pumpkins for a learning experience for your preschooler or visit http://handsonaswegrow.com/40-pumpkin-activities-for-kids/

12 Teacher Terms Demystified

If you ever wondered about some of the terms your preschool teacher uses here is a great explanation from an article in Young Child...

Developmentally appropriate? Scaffolding? Your child’s teacher might use language other educators understand but may be new to you. This list of commonly used early childhood terms can help you understand what the teacher means when she talks about what and how your child is learning.

Approaches to learning: How children become curious about learning new things. It is also how children respond to learning situations. Curiosity about the world, initiative and problem solving, and focused attention and persistence are just a few approaches to learning teachers and families hope to foster.

A teacher might say: “Your child has some wonderful approaches to learning. She’s very persistent when working on puzzles.”

Cognitive development: How children learn to think, make decisions, and solve problems.

A teacher might say: “We want to build the children’s cognitive development, so today we conducted a science experiment, and the children tried to predict the result.”

Constructive play: When children use blocks, LEGOs, or other materials to make buildings or towers.

A teacher might say: “Rebekah made a pretty complicated castle during her constructive play today!”

Developmentally appropriate practice (DAP): Teaching strategies that are based on knowledge of how young children develop and learn, what makes each child unique, and the child’s community and family culture and home language. DAP activities are neither too difficult or too easy, but just right. For example, in most cases it is developmentally appropriate to introduce a 4-year-old to the letters in his name, with the expectation that over time he will learn to write his name on his own. On the other hand, it is not developmentally appropriate to ask 4-year-olds to write letters over and over again on worksheets.

A teacher might say: “In this classroom, we don’t believe that worksheets are developmentally appropriate.”

Dramatic play: When children pretend to be someone else, such as a firefighter or doctor, and they make up scenes and dialogue.

A teacher might say: “We’d love to have you bring a few items related to going to work for the children to use in their dramatic play.”

Exploratory play: When children discover how materials work. For example, when playing with water or sand, children explore how to fill and empty buckets.

A teacher might say: “Today Andre discovered how to use a bucket to build a sand castle during his exploratory play!”

Environmental print: The words that are all around us, such as store signs, a menu board, or a poster with the daily schedule.

A teacher might say: “Your child can learn a lot about reading and writing just by seeing environmental print.”

Physical and motor development: How children use their bodies to make large movements with their legs and arms (gross motor) and small movements with their fingers and hands (fine motor). Children learn with their legs and arms when they run, climb, or ride a tricycle. They learn with their fingers and hands when they cut with scissors, use a pencil, or construct a puzzle.

A teacher might say: “We need to support children's fine motor development so we are using playdough to strengthen fingers.”

Print awareness: When children understand how print works. For example, after listening to lots of stories, children notice that letters make words, words make a story, and reading goes from left to right in English.

A teacher might say: “Maritza’s print awareness is developing. She’s picking up books right-side up and is starting to turn the pages of the book herself.”

Self-regulation: How children learn to control their feelings and their bodies. For example, if a child wants to play with a toy her friend is using, she asks for a turn rather than grabbing it.

A teacher might say: “I've seen so much grown in children's self-regulation. At the beginning of the year children sometimes just take a toy they want even if another child is using it. Now I hear them ask if they can use it..”

Social and emotional development: How children learn about feelings. It helps them feel good about themselves and helps them understand the feelings of other people.

A teacher might say: “We are supporting children's social and emotional development by reading books about friendship.”

Scaffolding: When an adult helps children learn at a faster rate and more than they would on their own. For example, when an adult holds a child’s hand as he goes up the slide ladder, the adult is scaffolding his learning to climb.

A teacher might say: “Robert is almost ready to climb up the slide ladder on his own, but not quite. I’ve been helping him by holding his hand and scaffolding his climbing skills until he’s able to do it without my help.”

- See more at: http://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/music-math-more/12-teacher-terms-demystified#sthash.jpQ7aOH9.dpuf

Source: Adapted from “Talking About Education With Families” by Angel Sancho Passe, Teaching Young Children 6 (4): 6-7 - See more at: http://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/music-math-more/12-teacher-terms-demystified#sthash.jpQ7aOH9.dpuf

Positive Discipline

Discipline is on an opportunity to teach not to reprimand!  This statement says it best:

Watch for upcoming tips on positive discipline!

A torn jacket is soon mended. But harsh words bruise the heart of a child.

                                                                                               Henry Wadsworth Longfellow