How about eggs for breakfast?

Three boiled eggs should get you around 10 minutes of peace, quiet and total focus from your little one! It is great for fine motor skills, concentration and independence so it is a win for everyone. They will love being able to serve you breakfast 

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Success builds confidence!

Let's start the year by sending our children off to succeed! Remember we want every task that we give the children to be an attainable one, in which they can always succeed and build their confidence.

Another school year is ramping up to start soon, for all of you at Shenton Park, Mount Lawley and Karrinyup we will be starting the school year on the 18th of January, for Swanbourne we will be back on the 1st of February. I know you will be soon starting to get prepared, every year I send out the basic info about what to bring and I know a few parents read it, but since it doesn't seem to be too many I am trying a different tack!

Here is a bit of role playing for the day. I want you to imagine you are a three year old and you are coming towards the end of your day at preschool, time to pack your school bag up to take home. Now you have a lunch box, drink bottle, hat, spare change of clothes, 3 paintings, a page of writing, some sewing, a macaroni necklace, the shoes and socks that you quickly cast aside five minutes after mum left, your jumper and a small, but very important crocodile you coloured and stuck together this afternoon!

Now imagine that your mum had given you the adorable little lady bird bag, that quite literally won't fit a lunchbox in it... Do you think you would be able to easily complete the task, feeling competent and successful at the end of doing so? If you answered that question with a big fat no, then I beg you to think long and hard before sending your child off to preschool with anything resembling this.

On the other hand, faced with something like the snowman bag, your child is much less likely to give up, because it isn’t nearly so difficult. They can pack their bag, feeling competent and successful. Instead of chucking everything they accumulate over the course of the day on the floor in the general bag keeping area, they can easily pop into a bag that presents no resistance. They can learn to look after their things, keep a tidy area and be much less likely to lose things. Their lovely little creations and work don’t get scrunched up, left on the ground to get stepped on or eventually thrown out because no one knows who it belongs to. All round success!

The third photo is of the mess of bags packed to go home at the end of the day last year in Swanbourne. One parent had bought a bag like I had recommended… In a sea of little bags surrounded by mess it stands out, easy to fill with a nice big opening, no fiddly zips and plenty of space. I think this one came from Coles, they have some fruity ones. Best and Less had some last year with all kinds of characters like Peppa Pig, Spiderman etc if you think that would be more up your child’s alley and I know on ebay you can get all kinds of different characters. Cloth ones seem to be less useful than these plastic ones as they seem to be too floppy for the children to keep open and fill. They cost about $2-5, a small price to pay for giving your child attainable success and the ability to look after their belongings…

10 Things to do to make your next car trip fun, educational and entertaining!

     

      Life is busy, I know most of you are juggling school runs for multiple children and locations, football, tennis, dance, music, gymnastics, swimming, the list goes on… Chances are your child is spending a few minutes just sitting in the car or stroller every day. Here are ten games to help your child develop while on the move, whether it is a drive down to Dunsborough or to the park, keep your little one busy, entertained and learning! Remember repetition is needed for all their skills to develop, so don’t just play a game once, if they show interest do it over and over and over and over!

     1.       Animal Sound I spy – ask your child what sound a c – a – t makes. Sound out the letter sounds, not names and if they make the right animal sound, you know they have made the connection between the letters and formed the correct word. This is great practice for preparing them for reading phonetically.

     2.       If they are good at the above game you can ask them what letter sound does a word starts with. I.e. ‘What letter sound does cat start with’. Remember this is sounds, not letter names. The obvious progression, have them sound out short phonetic words. ‘how do you sound out dog?’ d-o-g etc. You can also play the old I Spy game in a simplified version: 'find me something beginning with c'.

     3. True or False: Test what they know and teach them some new facts. You can also test their comprehension and quiz them on a story you read that day or the night before. See what they have understood or remembered, you may hear some interesting interpretations of the story or be entertained by what they have taken away from it! 

     4.       Play ‘What is the right thing to do?’ You can pose all sorts of behavioural/ social questions to them, you probably have a fair idea of what kind of situations your child might benefit from talking through. There is a big range of things that the children go through from the youngest ones lashing out physically when in confrontational situations to the older ones forming cliques, excluding children etc. You can make these pretty leading questions so they know what the obvious answer is and accentuate the point you are trying to make. When they get it right, you can agree with them and point out why they are so right to reinforce the correct behaviour.

E.g.

·         ‘If Sam has the puzzle that you want, do you go and push him out of the way and snatch it or do you wait until he has finished and then ask him if you can have a turn?’

·          ‘If you are playing with your best friend and Sophie wants to play with you as well, do you tell Sophie that you already have a friend to play with and run away from her or do you play all together because it is nice to be friends with everyone and more fun with more friends?’

·         If you need help or want to tell me something while I am speaking to someone else, do you wail like a baby and tug on my arm or do you say “excuse me Mummy, I need help’ and wait for me to finish what I am doing?

     5.       A bit of counting practice at the lights. ‘Let’s see how much we can count to before the lights change to green.’

     6.       Singing! We really believe that singing things makes it easy to remember. Heck, before I was a preschool teacher I would have had to think long and hard to tell you all the planet names, now I can list them all in order without a second thought, all thanks to a little song! Teach them what you know and I will make sure to get some videos of the children singing our favourite songs up soon!

     7.       Once your child knows a few songs, hum the tune and have them guess what the song is. In the class we play the song on the keyboard and have them guess what the song is. They get pretty fast with a bit of practice!

     8.       One for children who have insecurities being left: On the way to school talk about what they would like to do first. I had one little boy last year who would decide in the car on the way to school with his mum, what flag he would like to colour in.  He started the day confidently with a clear idea of what he wanted to do. If asking your child what they want to do first is too broad a question, figure out something they like to do like flags, puzzles, sewing, making an animal, drawing, writing etc. and just ask them what variety of this they will start the day with.

     9.       For the way home: Ask your child what the best thing they did at school was, what made them the most happy? Studies show that reflecting on the things that we are thankful for or have enjoyed make us happier people. It is also more likely to give you an insight into what they have done and get them talking than asking ‘how was your day?’ or ‘what did you do today?’ If they struggle to answer you at first, tell them what was the best part of your day and why. They may copy your answers at first, but with time they should start to give it more thought over the day and remember little things to tell you.

    10.    In the morning, quiz your child on what day of the week it is, what month, what season it is, what the date is and what the weather is like. Start with the easy ones like the weather and give them hints like what the day before was if they need it. If they remember what they have talked about with you, until they do the days of the week activity at Smart Start, they will be sure to impress their teacher!

Top Ten ways to get a little counting practice into your child's day

      Practice makes perfect, but it really seems to be hard to put five minutes aside every day to practice things like counting or numbers. Here is our top ten ways you can integrate a bit of counting/number practice into a busy life on the go!

1.       Count each step as you go up or down stairs or every step as you walk across the road, over a bridge, across a park - you get the idea!

2.       If you are walking with your child and another adult, play 1, 2, 3 whee! Both adults hold one of their hands and when you get to a certain number you lift them up and swing them ahead. Instead of just counting to three give them a number to count to each time that you think will be challenging for them! 

3.       Whenever your child wants to have a snack tell them a number of whatever they are having that they can have, then get them to count out the crackers/ raisins/ tiny teddies/ apple slices etc into a bowl.

4.       Go old school and play ‘Snakes and Ladders’ or other board games that involve dice and counting. Have your child count the dots on the dice and then count each step out on the board too. You can have them ‘help’ you count your dice and moves as well for extra practice.

5.       Collect a bunch of shells at the beach/ little nuts at park/ rocks or pebbles and count how many you have found

6.       Counting backwards is great too! Every time you need your child to be somewhere do the count backwards from ten. I.e. I need you in the bathroom to brush your teeth, ten seconds till lift off! 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BLAST OFF!

7.       Do some exercise! Getting their body involved really helps children remember and develop. Have them or you give instructions like ‘Do five star jumps’ or ‘clap nine times’. Get creative, we play Simon Says in the classroom to practice the teen numbers. A different child gets to choose the amount each time and they come up with how to act out all the animals, rainbows, sunshine, flowers etc!

8.       One for entertaining them in the car, quiz them on what the next number is each time. Birthdays are always a good focus point because they are instantly interested! ‘You are two now, how old will you be next?’ Your brother is five, what number will he have on his next cake?’ etc.

9.       If your child likes playing with blocks, duplo or lego give them the challenge to see how many blocks they can get before it topples! Have them count as they build and I am sure they will want to do it more than once, they all seem to think a good crash is hilarious!

10.     Do one of our counting sheets 

    Open the link to print our Happy Australia Day sheet! Have your child cut out the numbers, count the pictures and then stick on the corresponding number.

      https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzunNaHHgjpb2pzcGI0UkpqN2M/view?usp=sharing 

Reasons why we need to teach our young children to read

I thought this is a really interesting read - great to remember why we are doing these things with our children. I don't feel like I have come across any dyslexic children in the preschool classroom, so I found it particularly interesting to read that neuroscientists have found that the preschool brain is malleable or able to reorganise dysfunctional or dyslexic reading circuitry if we intervene 

early.https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/raising-readers-writers-and-spellers/201107/the-top-10-reasons-teach-your-baby-or-toddler-read