Let Reading and Writing Be FUN!

Here are some tips for you to use at home to help your child associate reading and writing with Fun!

• Find a quiet comfortable place to read with your child at a special time each day.  Have children’s books around the house.
• Put dry erase boards and markers in the kitchen at your child’s eye level.
• Encourage your child to tell stories to you and dictate them for him/her.
• Put a bulletin board in your child’s room to display important work.
• Have photo albums with comments and labels by the photos readily available.
• Make personalized treasure boxes (shoe boxes work great) and fill them with fun pens, pencils and paper.
• Leave “lovey” notes for your children to find and read.

“What Did You Do In School Today?”:

 Five Easy Ways To Find Out

  “What did you do in school today?” is a question we all ask our children and what is the usual response… “Oh, nothing.”.  As adults we see this as a reasonable enough question, but  then adults can summarize.  Preschoolers can’t.  Adults can survey events and pick our what was important, but your preschooler has not figured that out yet.  Adults can easily switch their thoughts away from what is in front of them.  Not preschoolers.  You can help your child learn these thinking skills and at the same time find out what happened at school.  It is a joint process, though, with you doing most of the work at first.  Here are five tips to help you learn about your child’s day.

1. Wait for a time that your child can think– a time that he/she is not hungry, tired or actively playing.

2. Focus on one small piece of information rather than expecting a summary of the day.

3. Don’t quiz or correct your child when they are explaining something they did or learned about during the day.  Let him/her be the expert in that moment.

4. Ask questions that can’t have a one word answer.

5. Ask what happened first, then encourage your child to organize his or her

Australia Here We Come!

The next stop on our trip around the world has taken us to the land “down under”!  The children will spend the month learning all about Australia.  There is so much to learn about and examine from the difference in their seasons to ours to the amazing animals that live there.  It has been wonderful listening to the children trying to guess what a traditional  Australian Phrase translates to here in America.  “Shrimp on the Barbie” has taken on all kinds of new meanings in Yellow Group!   The children have been enjoying their cooking projects also.  Green and Yellow Groups made Vegemite Sandwiches while Blue and Red Groups took a crack at making Damper Bread!  Australian Meat Pie

and Fairy Bread are next on the lists of foods to be made in the upcoming weeks.  Yum!