Pictures Tell The Story

After a week long vacation at the beach, there are plenty of memories to recall. If you took pictures, they can be a great way to talk about the wonderful event to secure those memories. You can also use them to make a personalized book for your child to read and improve word recognition. Snapfish is a great website to help you create a simple book.

Pictures are great to encourage self-esteem and help with memory. There are many ways to use your pictures to help your preschooler.

One way is to make a book. I used Snapfish to make a small 4 x 6 spiral bound book of my son's birthday party. You can add backgrounds and captions under each picture. If you use simple captions with names, words to label the major object, or places, your child will begin to associate the picture with the word. Try not to write too many words if you are using it for reading recognition. This is to encourage reading, but not "teach" reading.

If you are interested in trying it out, here is a way to get free prints. The book is a different purchase, but it all works together.

Special Promo: 30 FREE prints plus free shipping with coupon code SNAPYFRSH07

Vacations Improve Reading!

Vacations are always a good idea- for relaxation, for exploration, and for information. Vacations can be elaborate or simple. Whenever you leave the town or city you live in, no matter how big or how small, you are giving your child's brain more to absorb. This is particularly important in reading. When children read a story, they have to connect it to something they already know. The technical word for this is "schema." If you hardly ever leave your house, your neighborhood, or you town or city (especially if you live in a small or rural area), your child will be a less likely to put words to pictures of ideas that are new to him.

Vacationing helps build new ideas and new discoveries. If you cannot afford a long or far away vacation, take a trip to the nearest city (driving distance) to you, even if it is smaller than yours. Small towns are good to teach big city kids about rural life so they know why country mouse was different than city mouse.

So try to take a vacation. Find a relative to visit. Find a new place to explore.

And on that note, I will be vacationing for a few days at the beach!

Listening Walks

Tonight we went on a listening walk. We went out when the sun was about to go down and walked for about 20 minutes. We listened for any sounds. We heard locust, sirens, birds, dogs, and motorcycles. It helped us use a different sense than seeing- and there were less noises at this time of night.

And one benefit... the youngest fell asleep!

Learning in the Kitchen

I love to cook (but not dinner!). Cooking is one of the best things you can do for teaching: it is fun, it uses math, it uses reading, it uses science. You cannot go wrong if you let your preschooler help out in the kitchen- unless they (or you) catch something on fire!

I was cutting up veggies tonight and my son came over and asked what the yellow pepper was. I showed him the seeds and told him that is how more yellow peppers grow.

He actually moved on quickly, but it reminded me of how great the kitchen is... plus, maybe he will be the cook someday!

It Doesn't Hurt To Splurge Every Once in a While

Today was the first born's birthday, so we went to Sea World. It is a fun place to play and a fun place to learn. We saw the sharks, the dolphins, the sting rays, the penguins, and played in the water. You can learn a lot of things from theme parks, even the ones that are seem like just "fun".

So every once in a while, if it is in your budget, splurge a little!

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

Actually it is just one bug.






Today we were walking out to the mail box and I walked through a spider web. Lovely! The spider (which really does not look like a spider, but did make a spider web) got caught on me and I quickly got it to the ground (and off my head!). My kids were so fascinated, they did not even go to the mail box. I remembered we got some bug containers at the dollar store a few weeks ago. We went and got it and then captured the spider. We named it Sydney (I think it is the spider on a Charlie & Lola episode) and gave it some plants and a stick. It climbed all over the cage. My son gave it some more flowers for his home and let it go within the hour.

It was so much fun watching the bug. A cheap, fun science activity for the day!

Finding Shapes

This one is straight off Barney!

Finding shapes is a great way to increase shape recognition. Start with a shape your child knows. If they do not know any shapes, start with a square or circle. Walk around the house and find things that are that shapes- for a circle, the pull on the cabinet, a plate, a the doorknob. For squares, a book, a tile on the floor, a window. Make sure you are not labeling rectangles as squares. And don't start with rectangles, they are too confusing for most children- stick to squares. Make sure if you use a sphere for circles (like a ball) you talk about it being "like" a circle- because it really isn't a circle.

Extend this activity to outside and find shapes all around you. You can also take about the "attributes" of the shapes: squares have four sides that are the same size and four corners; circles do not have any sides or any corners.

These real life math skills will help your child grasp what the different shapes are rather than looking at them on a piece of paper. This activity will also help them remember shapes better than a worksheet.