Tagged with 'moms'

The lazy days of summer have come and gone. It’s time for your little ones to take the next big step as they kick off their upcoming school year. Back to school isn’t just about getting backpacks and school supplies ready. It is the time when parents focus on prepping their kids for success in the classroom.The parent organization Learning Heroes conducted a national survey of K-8 parents, which revealed that peer pressure and their child’s happiness topped parent worries. Most parents said it is most important that their child be happy and free of stress vs. topping their academic class.Nearly 9 in 10 parents believed their child was performing at or above their grade level, while only a third of American students are at the level they need to succeed.One of the best things parents can do to help their kids adjust to the change of pace and perform at their academic peak is to get organized!

Let’s look at the top 10 tips to get your kids off to a great start this year…

1. Multiply productivity with a homework station: Clutter can make your head spin. When you’re heads spinning, it’s not easy to learn. Collect all those pencils, papers, and folders in a nifty homework station. Keep supplies stocked so your kids can jump right in and blaze through their homework assignments – imagine what they’ll do when they aren’t concerned about finding a stray highlighter or needed eraser!

2. Snack attacks = no problem: Give your kids the fuel they need by creating a handy snack station! By organizing foods, you can cut much of your lunchtime prep time or after school bites. Bag apples, carrots and other perishable snacks, as well as premade PB&Js, cheese sticks, yogurt, and other munchables and toss them in a drawer in the fridge. Keep a pantry shelf for bags of chips, juice boxes, and sweet treats. This helps kids to minimalize the process of food selection and eat regular, healthy meals.

3. Dress for success with an organized closet: Take some time on Sunday evenings to plan your kids wardrobe for the week ahead. Make the process super simple by creating hanger labels for each day and pre-select outfits. Young fashionistas can take their time to express their personalities without early morning stress of digging through drawers and laundry baskets to find their favorite go-to items.

4. Make a quick getaway: Keep get-out-the-door essentials where you can actually find them. Every parent knows how last minute rushing around can cause uber stress – say goodbye to the days of rushing up and down stairs to grab a forgotten this or that. By creating a designated place by your main household exit, you’ll be able to find that sunscreen stick or those needed swim goggles. Other items to go here are the day’s lunch money, a pen for permission slips … keeping these items handy in a select drawer or basket will help to keep anxieties to a minimum.

5. Organize books and resources: It’s oh so easy for books to go missing in a bustling household. Keep library rentals and course books in book baskets where kids can “borrow” and return them as needed. You’ll find you won’t be scrambling on due dates. And your young learners will have easy access, which will enable them to study when they need to. They may even find material in there they wouldn’t otherwise explore, which helps to encourage and boost an interest in reading.

6. Screen time guidelines: Wipe away the worry of disputes over TV/game/computer time by setting guidelines before the school year begins. Put your concentration on what is most important for your kids… homework, outdoor activity time, and face-to-face socialization should be considered. Help your kids to make a chart that your kids can check off, outlining what needs to happen before its time to plop down in front of a screen.

7. Organize your street shuttle: How often do you drop your kids off from school and they’re tripping on everything they’ve tossed in the vehicle? Clear their way for fantastic day of learning by organizing a section of your ride for the items they tote. Some ideas include hangers out of suction cup hooks and portable containers for your rear hatch or trunk. Use this practice when you pick them up and you won’t be cleaning out your vehicle when you’re ready to kick off evening fun.

8. The meal of champions: Breakfast provides youngsters with the nutrition they need to get going and sustain through their day. Get them off to a great start, minus the mania! Prefilling Tupperware containers with favorite cereals is a great go-to to turn to on busy days. Keep a jug of milk handy with spoons readily available. There’s no reason to not start your kid’s day off right!

9. Celebrate in style: Parents love to display their child’s school work and awards. Make a special place for such items – utilizing magnetic refrigerator frames keeps these items in order while providing an artistic presentation your kids can take part in and pride in. Or think of a post-it board that is in clear view in a family-centric area of the home. This little trick keeps messy papers to a minimum and provide a special touch to the display.

10. Schedule downtime: Keeping a calendar is helpful – especially for parents who have multiple kids in different grades with various interests. Do your best to input regular activities such as groups, clubs, athletics, etc. But go a step beyond and take time for NOTHING. Having time to relax helps young students to reboot and reload, and get ready for their next big adventure.

The coming school year offers the opportunity to start your family off on the right step. What are you waiting for? It’s time to get organized and get those kids out the door and onto the school bus. It’s coming soon… are you ready?

It’s no secret that kindergarten today is much more challenging than the kindergarten of your childhood. It’s more academically rigorous, with less play, no more naps and longer days. Is your child ready? How do you know? With my oldest entering kindergarten this month, I share these same questions. So I turned to my mother, a 30 year veteran kindergarten teacher, for her insights on what she expects from kids on the first day of school.

 Let’s Get Ready for Kindergarten

For many children, kindergarten is no longer the first school experience – with most entering students having one or more years of preschool behind them.  However, there will also be kids for who this is their very first time in school, and a kindergarten teacher will be well prepared to teach to wide range of academic and social capabilities.If you are questioning whether or not your child is ready to start kindergarten, use the following checklist for the basic skills they need to succeed in their first formal year of schooling. It’s a perfect guide to use alongside the Learning Resources All Ready for Kindergarten Readiness Kit.

1. Recognize Name

Your child’s name will be ALL over their kindergarten classroom – on cubbies, folders, tables, and more. Help them recognize their written name on sight, name the letters in their name, and write their name to the best of their ability. Need some easy name recognition exercises?

• String Learning Resources Lacing Alphabet Beads (part of the Kindergarten Readiness Kit) to spell out their name
• Use dot stickers for this simple Sticker Name Recognition Activity from Busy Toddler
• Try Name Recognition Soup from Munchkins and Moms, also using Alphabet Beads

 2. Name the Letters of the Alphabet

To be ready for kindergarten, your child should at a minimum be able to name half of the capital letters of the alphabet. The Kindergarten Readiness Kit includes lots of alphabet activities, activity cards and manipulatives. Here are a few more of our favorite alphabet activities:

• Use the Alphabet Marks the Spot play mat for an Alphabet Scavenger Hunt, working on both naming letters and letter sounds
• Play Letter Recognition Games with an ABC Bottle made out of a recycled water bottle and colored alphabet pasta

 3. Determine Hand Dominance

Is your child a righty or a lefty? Hand dominance is determined in-utero before your child is born. But clear, proficient use of one hand over the other may not be fully established until your child is 4-6 years old – right around kindergarten.If your child’s hand dominance is already clearly established, your kindergarten teacher will readily recognize it. If it’s still unclear to you, be sure to let your child’s teacher know as well.

4. Know How to Hold and Use Scissors Correctly

If you haven’t put a pair of scissors in your child’s hands yet, it’s time to start. If you are worried about scissor safety, or they get frustrated because they lack the hand strength or coordination to use scissors properly, this is a great series of activities to teach scissor skills and scissor safety.The Learning Resources Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Kit is also a great resource to use in play and build fine motor skills to support using scissors.

5. Name and Recognize Colors 

Your kindergartener should be able to recognize and name basic colors – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, brown and white. Color recognition helps children with one of the earliest basic math skills – sorting. The Kindergarten Readiness Kit includes manipulatives for color recognition. You can also play one of our favorite games – Color Match – using just colored paper and whatever toys you have at home.

 6. Count and Recognize Numbers to 10

Most preschoolers learn to count, recognize numbers to 10 and understand one-to-one correspondence (count objects) to get ready for kindergarten. If your child isn’t there yet or needs a refresher, this easy counting activity for preschoolers from Busy Toddler is a great place to start. For a more hands-on challenge, try this counting meets simple engineering activity for kids to build a bridge for elephants!

7. Make Rhymes

Nursery rhymes have been the beginning of literacy development for generations. Recognizing words that rhyme is an important first step to get ready for kindergarten and in learning to read.

If nursery rhymes are not part of your family’s repertoire, you can play a simple rhyme game. Say any word (“Cat”), and ask your child to say a rhyming word back to you (“Hat”). Take turns until you run out of rhymes (“Sat, Mat, Pat, Rat, etc.)!

8. Play and Share with Peers

Kindergarten is as much about laying the ground work for academics, as it is about social development. To get ready for kindergarten, encourage your child to play and sharing with peers and siblings.  Remind them to “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” Schedule playdates with peers at home, the park or playground, or you can play this simple sharing activity to role-play this important social skill.

 

9. Take Direction and Accept Disappointment

 

Your child’s kindergarten class will likely be the largest class they have been a part of to date. Students will be expected to follow directions from teachers, and may not always get their way. A great way to get ready for kindergarten to practice both taking direction and handling disappointment is by playing games as a family.Focus on following the directions, playing fairly, and help coach them through disappointment when they lose. For great game options for kindergarteners, check out Math Marks the Spot,and Riddle Moo This!

 

10. Basic Hygiene and Self Care

 

To get ready for kindergarten, your child will need to be able to use the bathroom independently, including wiping themselves and washing their hands. They will also be expected to eat lunch and snacks, largely independently as well, including clearing their places and properly disposing of trash. Be sure to review school lunch options with them, or send food they can and will eat.If they don’t already do these basic self-care skills independently, it’s a good idea to work on it before school starts at home.

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Is your child ready for kindergarten? Many kindergarten programs will have entry screening to aid the school in placing your child during the registration process. The screening will examine many of these basic skills, and often alert you at that time if they have concerns over your child’s readiness for kindergarten.

 

Remember as you start the school year that your child’s kindergarten teacher is a tremendous resource and your partner in your child’s education.  Teachers always welcome open communication, and encourage you to share both your and your child’s concerns, desires, and personal preferences.

 

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Do your kids like to design cities or build towers? Building is one of my kids’ favorite activities. They love using a variety of materials to see what they can create. Today I’m sharing how we incorporate pretend play into our STEM building projects.

Engineer a City

We used the City Engineering and Design Building Set to begin our play. Aiden (age 7) started by building what was on the front of the box.

The set includes activity cards with design challenges and engineering problems to solve. Building a zip line was the first challenge Aiden selected. The activity card has you build two buildings. It states that you are at the wrong build and must quickly get to the other building. “Can you design a zip line to carry you across?” The back of the card includes possible solutions to the challenge. It also poses questions about the design. “Which of the solutions above would provide a faster ride?”

Aiden designed his own zip line after seeing the suggestions. He modified the ideas shown and came up with the zip line below.

Incorporate Pretend Play

Next, we added in the Snap-n-Learn™ Counting Elephants. I challenged Lily (age 3) to help the elephants get from one building to the other using the zip line. She thought it was a lot of fun watching the elephants zip down the line.

While she was playing with the elephants, I took the opportunity to ask her about the numbers on them. I asked questions like:

• What number is on your elephant?

• Can you find the number 7?

• What color is the elephant with the number 2?

• Can you count the elephants?

This activity was a great way for my kids to play together. The City Engineering and Design Building Set is recommended for ages 5 and up. Aiden built the city and then he and Lily played with it. They took turns moving the people and elephants around the buildings. They made up stories as they played.

Keep it Going

The next challenge Aiden undertook was to build a crane.

After he built the crane, he and Lily got to work lifting elephants.

There is so much learning going on along with their play. Building the set works on lots of STEM skills - problem solving, following directions, sequential thought, critical thinking, spatial relationships, creativity, and early engineering. Fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, number recognition, and counting are also being developed here.

What’s your child’s favorite building activity? How can you add in some additional learning to the play?

About the Author: Trisha

Trisha is a science educator and stay at home mom to three. She’s the creator of Inspiration Laboratories, a blog dedicated to encouraging learning through creativity and play.

In a medium-sized saucepan, mix the water, oil, salt, cream of tartar, and a few drops of food coloring. Stir over medium heat until the mixture is warm and the salt is mostly dissolved, then remove from heat and blend in the flour. The better the flour is blended, the smoother the dough will be, so take your time. Then drop the mixture onto a sheet of wax paper and knead until smooth and soft. Now sculpt! This batch will last for several weeks, if not months. If it begins to dry or crumble, mix in a few drops of vegetable oil. Adding texture to your dough creates the perfect substance for tactile play. To make a textured dough, follow these Traditional Dough instructions, adding glitter, sea salt, or even sand to the saucepan before mixing with flour. 

This version uses KOOL-AID to add color and scent to traditional dough. Whisk together the flour, salt, KOOL-AID, and cream of tartar in a saucepan, then mix in the water and oil. Heat over medium for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. The mixture will start out really runny, but will begin to clump as it heats up. When the dough is mostly stuck together, dump the mixture onto a sheet of wax paper. Allow it to cool, then knead, play, and sniff your scented dough!

This simple, 3-ingredient recipe is totally kid-friendly – no heating on the stove! Pour the lotion into a bowl and mix in a few drops of food coloring. Next, blend in the corn starch with a little at a time,  adding more corn starch until the mixture is silky smooth and not at all sticky. You may have to play with the ratios, adding more lotion to make the mixture less crumbly and then more starch to be less sticky, but this super soft, super smooth dough is worth the trouble. Added bonus – your hands will be silky soft after every session!

Technically, all of the recipes we’ve shared so far are edible, they just might not taste very good. Made with marshmallows, this recipe is not only edible – it’s delicious! Don’t let the corn starch fool you – when finished, this dough tastes just like taffy. In a pan, warm your oil over medium heat. Add about 30 large marshmallows, stirring until they’re completely dissolved. Add a few drops of food coloring, then move the mixture to a bowl. Quickly add the cornstarch and knead until soft. If the mixture still feels sticky, knead a bit more corn starch in until it’s smooth. This may take a bit of back and forth work – knead, corn starch, knead, corn starch. But once you’ve got the consistency just right, it’s time to play – or eat!

Playtime is out of this world! With so much in the news lately about NASA’s latest missions, not to mention the first ever image of a black hole recently released, space talk is certainly on the rise. How about making some play dough sure to spark otherworldly conversations about our galaxy?

Our home galaxy is called the Milky Way, and it contains hundreds of billions of stars that burn just like our own sun. That means there are most likely billions of solar systems out there just like ours. The Milky is believed to be 13.51 billion years old.

The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years in diameter. A light year is the distance light travels in one year. But according to scientists, the Milky Way is small compared to other galaxies. M87, another elliptical galaxy, is 980,000 light years in diameter. 

Adults only: get the water boiling on the stovetop. Have the kids mix the flour, salt, and cream of tartar Once your water is boiling, turn it off and remove it from the heat. Add the black food coloring. To get the deep, galaxy-black color, be prepared to use lots of food coloring, about half and ounce. The kids will love to see the food coloring billow into the hot water. Next, pour in the glycerin and baby oil. These two ingredients will prevent your dough from being too sticky. Adults only: pour the water mixture directly in to the bowl of the flour mixture and stir. Be aware of splashes since the water mixture is hot. Add glitter of your choice, and once again give it a good stir. Next, knead the dough for several minutes, really working it through. Dry hands work best. You might find that the dough is a little sticky. Throw the dough back in the bowl and sprinkle a little flour over the top and re-knead. This Milky Way dough is a blast to pull a part, twist, and pound out.