The weather is warming up and it is time to get outside with your kiddos!
Definitely allow lots of time for free play, running around outside and playing in the dirt a bit, but today I want to remind you about a GREAT outdoor writing activity. Of course, chalking is a great writing activity, but one that I love equally as much is painting with water.
All you need is a Tupperware (bucket or even an old empty paint can) and a paintbrush!
Kids love to write and watch it disappear. It is also a mini science lesson because they are learning about evaporation! Kids watch the pavement absorb the water and then the heat dry it up.
Talk to your kids during the experiment “What is happening to the letter you wrote?” “Why do you think it is disappearing?”, model different letters and words and see if your child can paint what you paint. Get wild…paint with the water on the brick of your house and remind them that painting with water is the ONLY time they can do this.
This is a great family fun writing activity to enjoy the outdoors 🙂
My friend was telling me the other day that her kids have been getting in trouble at their moms day out for using words like “butt.”
She didn’t want to tell them that those words are BAD words because let’s face it….they aren’t BAD words. They are just not always appropriate in certain contexts and situations.
It is NORMAL for your little boys, and girls, to play around with A LOT of different words and to test their limits. And I agree with this Mommy Teacher….these are not “bad” words just not necessary for a young child, who doesn’t have a filter, to use them.
So, I shared with her one of my old tricks that I came up with when I teaching Kindergarten, and one that I still use when I work with kids.
When kids use words like butt, poop, etc., I call those Potty Talk words. Those are words that belong in the potty or the bathroom. So if a child uses one of those words, I ask them to please grab that word from their mouth (I use my hand to illustrate grabbing from my mouth and then turn my hand into a fist as if I have something in it), and then tell them to go put that word in the potty (I throw it in) and flush please (and flush).
This teaches kids that there is a place for this talk and it isn’t in talking to friends. If I hear them use it again at any point, I ask them “What kind of word is that?” (give them time to say “a potty word”) and then ask “Where does it go?” (“the potty”). And I ask them to go put it in there.
It worked for my friend Megan with her 3 and 4 year old boys too so try it and see if it works for your kids.
Here is a picture of Casey’s little boy putting the lid back down “like a real man” after flushing she says haha.
Another similar trick I use is when kids use a bossy tone or have an attitude I tell them to go throw that tone or hurtful words like “stupid” in the trash where it belongs because bossy tones can “trash” a friendship if you don’t get rid of them for good.
Finally, if kids are too loud inside, I ask them to go throw “outside voice” outside where it belongs.
All of this teaches children how to behave appropriately in an age-appropriate way 🙂
Chatting with so many moms of 3 year olds I realize a lot of moms have concerns about their child’s speech. They say “I can understand her but I know that she doesn’t say everything clearly.” Well, I speak VERY little Spanish but I can tell you, I know I don’t articulate the sounds correctly. There are so many sounds that I say incorrectly and inarticulately, but if I had someone consistently working with me, one sound at a time, for a period of time, I would eventually get to a point where you would think that I was raised in Mexico.
I am NOT a speech expert by any means, but I will tell you that I have seen what skilled speech therapists can do to help a child’s verbal communication grow to a place of confidence, and that is something worth fighting for when you have seen children so frustrated that they can’t be understood.
Not only is speech therapy beneficial for children who might have trouble with deficiencies in their speech, speech therapy is GREAT for ALL young children to develop clear, articulate oral language. And on top of that, the way that speech therapists work with children by “studying” letters is a great way to STUDY letters in line with nurturing brain development like we talked about yesterday.
Okay, okay, I know what you are thinking: are you telling me that I need to go hire a speech therapist?
Not necessarily, FIRST you should READ about one and learn a thing or two from an expert:
So, Today’s activity is to choose one of Mommy Speech Therapy’s “Improving Articulation” letter-sound lessons with your child just to see what fun it can be to focus on one letter-sound at a time in an age-appropriate way. This is such a good pre-reading and pre-writing experience.
Start listening carefully to your child’s speech and try to observe if they are omitting any sounds and where in the word the omission occurs (beginning, middle, or end). For example, I was recently working with a three year old that had a hard time saying the “L” sound, another who was having trouble saying the “P” sound (but only as the end of words), and many kids that have trouble with the “S” and “R” sounds. Mommy Speech has activities for all of these sounds 🙂
I was talking to Casey the other day about the reality of reversals that children have when learning letters, learning to read, or writing words like their name. I know, how many people talk about this kind of stuff on the phone? I can name two.
But the truth is that when children are writing their letters backwards when they already “know” the “right way”, it can be very frustrating for parents and even teachers who are not aware of typical brain development. Reversals such as writing “b” when trying to write “d” or writing the name Jessica “acisseJ” or some form of mirroring the name is NORMAL. Why is that normal? Because the brain makes some of the greatest changes in children throughout their early years. The brain has a lot of maturing to do in the way that children process information, store it into their brains, and recall the info from memory.
But there is hope…here are some of the ways that you can help your kiddos get through this process: 1) teaching pre-reading skills in sequence, 2) teaching letters and numbers using hands-on forms of the letters so children can use more than one of their senses, 3) repetition of one letter at a time instead of introducing “d” and ‘b” together, etc., 4) NOT getting frustrated when they make mistakes or have reversals 5) helping the process of maturing the brain through exercise and interactions.
You want your little one to enjoy the process of learning and a big part of their brain development includes your POSITIVE GUIDANCE. I want you to imagine if you were in China tomorrow, with no one who spoke English. As different as the oral and written language is from your own, can you imagine if your teacher was getting frustrated with you while you are trying to learn such a foreign language. You will naturally have to study the basics over and over again, and even after studying, you will still mix things up a bit when you are writing.
So, I hope this gives you a little more insight into your child’s learning struggles that are natural and normal and all that good stuff.
Today’s “assignment” is to be gracious as you practice the basics today!
*This article shares about some typical writing behaviors to expect from a young child. but if you have serious concerns about your child’s learning abilities then consult a specialist.
We are overdue for some math chat, and if there is one thing I ALWAYS harp on it’s that math concepts begin through hands-on learning. Reading has a whole lot more listening activities: playing with words through rhythm and rhyme or listening for sounds in a word, but math uses tangible objects so children can wrap their hands, and their minds, around the concepts.
So, let’s learn another math activity that uses objects around the house.
Materials: You can use unifix cubes or blocks, but whatever you use, the rule is they need to be the same size. And an extension of this activity will use dice (with dots or numbers).
Spread the blocks all over your learning space, and make up a story about why Barbie (g.i. joe or whoever) wants to go to the top floor of the mall (or building or fort). “Can we build her a staircase to get there?” Take one block and show your little one “Okay here is the first step, and if I want the next step to be a little taller then I will need one more than this, so I will need two blocks” (build two blocks and place them next to the first step). Okay, the next step needs to be even taller than the second step so I need one more than 2. What number comes after 2?” (3) “Great! So let’s attach 3 together to make the 3rd step.” Build 5-10 steps. Then take it apart after a bit of playing and let your little one help you make it again. Finally, see if your little one can make the steps on his/her own.
A lot of skills are being taught here. Your child is visually seeing how numbers grow so he/she is learning what numbers represent. You are exposing your little one to language like “more” and “taller,” ordinal numbers like “second” and “third,” and you are teaching about numbers that come “before” and “after.”
Play this game again tomorrow except this time use a dice (dotted or numbered), and each time you roll the dice build a step that tall. Try to help your little one put the stairs in order each time you build a new step by asking questions like “Is this one bigger or smaller (taller or shorter)? If you roll the same number, figure out if you already have a step that tall and explain to your little one that you already have a stair that size and you need one that is taller or shorter to make the steps “grow” taller.
