Preschool Sensory Activities

Do you have one of those children that hates to get dirty? Does he hate to have sand on his hands?

NOT MINE! My kids love the sand box. It is one of their favorite things to do...even on the hot days of summer.

Today, Daddy made it even more fun- he let them play in the hose and they "put the fire out" of the play house. Then they climbed into the sand box, which was now a mud pit. They played in the wet sand for almost an hour, then we hosed them off and put them in the bath.

Sand is a great sensory activity in a sand box or a stand up sensory table. If you do not have a back yard but would like to let your child squish things and play in the water and sand, a sensory table is a great idea. It would probably be best for a porch or outside on a landing, but it could work indoors on top of a plastic sheet or old shower curtain.

You probably don't want to let them play in the wet sand in your house! :)

Preschoolers Need to be Taught to Tell the Truth

A preschoolers brain starts to go into full understanding as they get closer to the 5 year old mark. They now can look at consequences and rewards and understand how to get something good or to avoid something bad. They now purposefully begin to not tell the truth. It is not necessarily lying, but it is. They realize they just might be able to get out of a sticky situation if they make up a new reality.

My preschooler is doing just that. With two, two years apart, I knew problems would begin to develop.

Now when my son hits his sister, he tries to tell me she hit the wall. This is really quite ingenious since she is no where near the wall but sitting in the middle of the playroom!

Our strategy to stop it... encourage him to tell the truth and as my mother always say, don't give them the opportunity to lie. Don't ask "What happened?" They will make up a story to get themselves out of trouble. My daughter is too young to tell us so he thinks he has the freedom to create. Not true.

We are now making sure he knows he will be disciplined, but we give him lots of praise for telling the truth.

What is your strategy?

Slow and Fast Oppositional Concepts

This activity is courtesy of my husband...

Today he was playing the Foo Fighters (not exactly kids music!) while he was folding laundry- (he is a teacher so he is home for the summer, so he has really been helping out around the house)- and he played a song that went slow at the beginning and then sped up. He told the children to move real slow and get ready for the fast part. They did this dance a few times, giggling and laughing and jumping the whole time.

This type of activity help children learn the meaning of slow and fast. This is an oppositional concepts- for examples: up/down, left/right, top/bottom, slow/fast, tall/short, big/small. Teaching your child oppositional concepts is easy with real examples. You may think they should already know what these words mean, but they are harder than you think! Keep trying new ones to see if they can demonstrate the opposite or tell you what the opposite is.

Find your song today!

For more activities on concept development, visit my preschool activities site.

Help for Picky Eaters

My son has been a picky eater since he stopped eating baby food- he ate all the baby food I fed him- even the yucky broccoli and cheese. When he got old enough to realize he could choose, he stopped eating most things.

Recently he started eating some new things. And mostly it is because a Charlie and Lola episode. Charlie names the food Lola dislikes cool names and gives them cool stories. Lola eats them. And now my son loves "green rain drops"- or peas.

Tonight, I made him and his daddy some peas- I don't eat them (wonder where the pickiness comes from?). My son started throwing the peas in his mouth like Lola does. It was quite funny because he could not get the idea of actually opening his mouth, so peas went everywhere.

It was a difficult decision- let him eat the VEGETABLE or make him stop. So we tried to teach him to get them in his mouth. He finished all of them on his plate, at least the ones that were not on the floor and in the dogs mouth!

The help for picky eaters- pick food that they see on movies or shows and let them throw food-

How many of you think I am crazy!?

Reading Strategies for Preschoolers

Many parents want to have their child reading before they begin kindergarten. Truly, this is not ideal for anyone but the parent. It may be you have a child who is a "natural" reader, but most children do not even begin to read until the end of kindergarten.

There has been much debate over how early reading instruction should begin. The book Smart Moves details how brain development does not support teaching reading lessons before the age of seven. Some countries do not teach reading until then and have incredibly low numbers of illiteracy and reading disabilities.

There are some things preschoolers do that are developmental that are beginning ready skills. Preschoolers can begin to learn the letters in their names, some letters of the alphabet, how to recognize store names and brand names, but not "reading" words. As it gets closer to kindergarten, you can read with your child and teach them to read from left to right, find predictable patterns (repeating words) throughout a book (like "Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?") that can teach them the pattern of reading. But do not worry if they do not recognize words by themselves before kindergarten. Children can be great readers without reading at such an early age.

When your child is reading to read, go with it. One great way to start is with Bob Books. Right now, as of this posting, Mom Central is giving away free sets of Bob Books. Bob Books teach reading through phonics with basic sounds and pictures. You can go to their site and register to receive them. Get them now to save them for when they are ready.

Make Home Made Ice Cream

Yesterday our church had their annual Old Fashion Sing and Ice Cream Social. This is the one time a year I make ice cream. And I do not know why, it is not hard and tastes soooo good!

I always search for a no cook recipe, because why cook it when you can dump it. My children were very interested in how those milk cartons were going to make ice cream. Of course I made a no-cook coconut ice cream recipe from Ben and Jerry's (and added some extras to make it better), so they were not really into the coconut. But they saw the process and transformation.

Here is my variation on the Ben and Jerry's recipe to make Almond Joy No Cook Ice Cream:

To make the ice cream, following the Ben and Jerry's Sweet Cream Base II (supper easy and good consistency!)- you get the coconut creme in the drink mixer section (not coconut milk, although that may work too). Then follow your freezers directions- you can get an inexpensive freezer from a discount store- and begin freezing the ice cream. Buy or roast some almonds in the oven and food process them to small pieces. I also added dark chocolate morsels. I tried chopping the dark chocolate morsels, but that made them get a little warm. When the freezers sounds like it is slowing down, add in the almonds and dark chocolate morsels. Keep going until it is done. Then scoop it into a container and put into your freezer.

This is too good to pass up. Fortunately, not many people were willing to try out my Almond Joy ice cream so I had plenty to bring home! Yum!