Saturday, October 30, 2010

Puzzles


Solving a puzzle helps improve basic motor skills such as hand-eye coordination as it requires the child to manipulate relatively small objects and to place these objects in specific places. This exercise, in turn benefits the thinking and cognitive skill of your little one.

Puzzle solving activities can start at very early ages and continue as children get older. Wooden puzzles are an excellent way to help a child's cognitive and learning skills grow. Wooden puzzles are very beneficial for toddlers. Their fine motor skills are being developed and wooden puzzles are easy to grasp as compared to other puzzle types. Children like the texture and thickness of the wood and are more likely play with the individual parts of wood puzzles before they begin to try to fit them together. These puzzles are designed just for toddlers, with big pieces and durable material.

One of the favorite game among toddlers can be, 'Guess the Animal'. This game helps to build your child's thinking skills, memory, speech, and knowledge about animals.

Tell your child, that you have thought of an animal and mention about one of it's characteristics. Ask your child to guess the animal. Try and encourage her with clues and reward her at the end of the game.

In older children, between the age of 3 to 5, the team member who is able to guess the animal, gets a chance to quiz the other players. Another way of playing this game is to give each player a chance to quiz the other team members.

This game can be modified for older children by making the clues more difficult. For younger kids, clues can be simple and can include colors, size and shape, or whether the animal has wings, scales, or fur.

This is just one example how you can help your child build her thinking skills. This game can be played with other concepts as shapes, professions, places etc. Each game session should end leaving the child well informed, happy and eagerly waiting for a new game to begin.

Take care.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Ar, As and Ax

Let's learn the 'Ar' family. Write down the letters 'ar' in colored ink on a flash card. Then, write down individual consonants as b, c, f, j, p and t, on separate flash cards. After doing so, place the 'b' flash card in front of the 'ar' card and read aloud the word, 'bar'.

b + ar = bar

Now, replace the 'b' flash card with the 'c' flash card to make the word 'car'. Say it aloud several times, till your child is able to blend 'c' and 'ar' sounds to make word 'car'.

c + ar = car

This excercise should be repeated with all the listed consonants and by the end of this excercise, your child should be able to read these words with ease :

Bar
Car
Far
Jar
Par
Tar

Sight words of the day:

Have
Put
The
In
Went
All
There
Some
Bye

Silly story for the day:

I have a car.

I have a bar.

I have a jar.

I put the jar in the car.

I put the bar on the car.

The bar, jar and car, all went far!

There was some tar.

The car went over the tar.

The tar is on the car.

Bye bye, Car.


As

The 'as' family contains the following words -

Has
Gas

Following our regular study pattern, teach your child to read these words -

h + as = has
g + as = gas

Ax

The 'ax' family contains the following words -

Fax
Tax
Wax

Following our regular study pattern, teach your child to read these words-

f + ax = fax
t + ax = tax
w + ax = wax

With this post, we come to an end to the words of the 'a' family. In the coming few posts, we shall read short stories and make worksheets which will include all the words from the 'a' family.

Have a nice weekend.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Thinking skills







Several researches have revealed that within the first few weeks of life, babies become active learners. They get busy understanding their world and achieving milestones by their ability to think and perceive. Whether thinking skills can be taught or not, is debatable, but there is no doubt about the fact, that thinking skills are learned by each one of us, daily. What are thinking skills? It is a procedure of building a well thought-out sequence of connective dealings between objects of supposed information. What can be the various thinking skills? Thinking skills include learning, understanding, analyzing, and recollection of information or action. The ability to think clearly and logically, is perhaps the most valuable skill that we can teach our kids.

Every parent have their methods of helping their children grow. The Do’s and Don’ts to help your little one develop her thinking skills can be;

Do's

Encourage questions.

Use your mother tongue to convey and explain.

Respect your child's observations, even if they are partially correct.

Keep your questions short and direct.

Use a multi sensory teaching approach. T.V, computer, books, toys as well as play dough and clay can be great learning aids.

Dont's

At times, children have a tendency to ask for help and support even for minor things. At such times, restrain yourself from providing immediate solutions. Instead, encourage them to think and solve the problem on their own.

A beautiful story to share

The Butterfly
By: Author Unknown

A man found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly.

He took a pair of scissors and snipped the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily.

Something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and deformed wings. It was never able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the small opening of the cocoon are God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.

If God allowed us to go through all our life without any obstacles, that would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

Not only that, we could never fly.

Teach your child to fly, not with your wings, but of his own.

Take Care.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Ap

Let's learn the 'Ap' family. Write down the letters 'ap' in colored ink on a flash card. Then, write down individual consonants as c, g, l, m, n, s, and t on separate flash cards. After doing so, place the 'c' flash card in front of the 'ap' card and read aloud the word, 'cap'.

c + ap = cap

Now, replace the 'c' flash card with the 'g' flash card to make the word 'gap'. Say it aloud several times, till your child is able to blend 'g' and 'ap' sounds to make word 'gap'.

g + ap = gap

This excercise should be repeated with all the listed consonants and by the end of this excercise, your child should be able to read these words with ease :

Cap

Gap

Lap

Map

Nap

Sap

Tap

Sight words for the day:

Had
There
Was
Came
Where
Oh

Silly story for the day

I had cap.
I had a nap with the cap.
There was sap on the cap.
The sap came on my lap.
The sap on the cap.
The cap on the lap.
Oh! Where is the tap?
In the gap.
Where is the gap?
In the map.

Try and introduce different punctuations marks that you come across while reading so that the child learns them slowly, but easily and by the time these are introduced in the school, your child is thorough with them.

Take care.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Blocks and Beads


Blocks

Children love learning new motor skills. Get a set of blocks and ask your child to stand up and build a tower, so that every time she needs a block, she has to bend down, pick up the block and stand up again. In the end, you may allow her to kick the block tower down, or just encourage her to line up the blocks on the floor.

Threading the Beads

Threading the beads is a great way to keep little ones busy. It also helps children concentrate, and develop hand-eye coordination. Get colorful beads for your little one, teach her to thread them and once she is good at it, you can teach her colors and then counting at a later stage.

Friday, October 15, 2010

An

Let's learn the 'An' family. Write down the letters 'an' in colored ink on a flash card. Then, write down individual consonants as b, c, f, m, p, r, t, and v on separate flash cards. After doing so, place the 'b' flash card in front of the 'an' card and read aloud the word, 'ban'.

b + an = ban

Now, replace the 'b' flash card with the 'c' flash card to make the word 'can'. Say it aloud several times, till your child is able to blend 'c' and 'an' sounds to make word 'can'.

c + 'an' = can

This excercise should be repeated with all the listed consonants and by the end of this excercise, your child should be able to read these words with ease :

Ban






Can






Fan






Man






Pan






Ran







Van





You may have reading test by asking your child to read these flash cards at random.

Sight words for the day:

The
Have
Has
In
Oh!

Silly story for the day:

This is a man.






The man has a tan.







The man and fan.







The can in the pan.





The pan on the van.







The van ran.





The man ran.






Oh! Ban the van.









Have a nice weekend.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Drawing



Holding a crayon and drawing on paper is difficult for toddlers. It requires lot of muscle control. But this difficult activity can be made easy and interesting for your little one. Equip your child with blank sheets of paper and a set of toddler crayons. Hold her hand and guide her in making marks randomly. Then, let her make marks by herself. Ask her to join these marks and observe what shape it turns out to be! Encourage her to go out in the garden and draw from her own observations.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Am

Let's learn the 'Am' family. Write down the letters 'am' in colored ink on a flash card. Then, write down individual consonants as d, h, j and r on separate flash cards. After doing so, place the 'd' flash card in front of the 'am' card and read aloud the word, 'dam'.

d + am = dam

Now, replace the 'd' flash card with the 'h' flash card to make the word 'ham'. Say it aloud several times, till your child is able to blend 'h' and 'am' sounds to make the word 'ham'.

h + am = ham

This excercise should be repeated with all the listed consonants and by the end of this exercise, your child should be able to read these words with ease :

Dam
Ham
Jam
Ram

You may have reading test by asking your child to read these flash cards at random.

Sight words for the day:

This
Is
On
The

Silly Story for the day:

This is a Dam.

This is a Ham.

This is Jam.

This is a Ram.

Ram on the dam.

Ram on the Ham.

Jam on the Ram.

Jam and Ram.

Dam and Ram.

Ham and Ram.

Good Night, Sam.

Have a nice weekend!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

I like to move it, move it.....

Toddlers love to mimic and move...

Dance is an activity that gives children a chance to move their bodies and imitate creatures they see in their neighborhood.

Sing this rhyme and ask your child to enact the motion. Think of animals in your neighborhood that can be interesting to your little one and try and mimic them with her.

RHYME

I LIKE TO MOVE LIKE A SNAIL....

CRAWL LIKE A CATERPILLAR....

FLY LIKE A BIRD....

WIGGLE LIKE A WORM.....

WALK QUIETY LIKE A SPIDER....

JUMP LIKE A FROG....

STAND LIKE A TREE.....

AND RUN LIKE A DOG....

Have a nice day.