Preparing for Kindergarten: Milk Boxes

Image courtesy of clker.com

One of the things our school district recommended to prepare children for kindergarten was a set of self-sufficiency skills: tying shoes (or wearing velcro shoes to school), buttoning, zipping, and snapping clothing, and opening lunch containers like milk boxes on their own.

I searched for milk boxes at the grocery store but it seems that they can only be purchased at bulk school supply companies or from schools themselves. They might be found at doughnut shops as well, though I haven't looked lately.

The other day I found cartons just like milk boxes filled with Tropicana orange juice. These were at my grocery store.

If you want to give your child practice opening milk boxes, you might look for similar boxes in the orange juice section of your grocery store.

And starting now, have your child open every type of food he or she eats, including string cheese, yogurt, plastic containers, and other types of drinks. The first time I had to demonstrate how to open the juice container, but from now on I will have my child do it himself.

By the way, I believe most of these preparing-for-kindergarten tips apply to homeschoolers as well. Though there may be no rush for a homeschooled child to learn some of these skills, most of them will come in handy for any child.

Three Ways to Do Better in Kindergarten

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Our school district gives out a DVD called Preparing for Kindergarten to families who have a child starting school. According to the DVD, children who do three things tend to do better in kindergarten.

1: Have exposure to games, activities, and books about letters and sounds.

Children's Learning Activities has a fantastic activity for teaching baby her letters that I used with my younger child.

2: Play outside a lot (versus staying in with TV, movies, video games, and the computer).

Think about ways to make your yard an amazing place for your child. Instead of spending a lot of money, you can create a dirt circle or garden, set up a child's picnic table and let them eat outside often, set up a sprinkler, keep children's gardening tools handy, make sure the children have raincoats and boots, or collect a set of water guns.

3: Get an average of ten hours of sleep per night.

In our case, the need is closer to eleven hours of sleep per night. We have more cheerful, cooperative, and happy moments throughout the day when we have made sure he has enough sleep.

Jam Jar Lantern

Here is a simple craft we did from this month's Parenting: The Early Years magazine:

 

The instructions say to have the children use watercolors on watercolor paper, using only two colors for best results. My children really love the water aspect of watercolors, so our colors were not as vibrant as they could be.

Cutting shapes out of the paintings could be done by an adult or a child who knows how to cut, and there is no limit other than time and ability for what shapes to use. The magazine article recommends using hole-punchers for the shapes, but we didn't have any large ones.

We used an empty, clean jam jar instead of a mason jar.

 

This is our finished product, which made my older child very excited. It now serves as our centerpiece.

Here is the link to the full craft article on Parenting's website. You will see some vibrant colors there!

Storybook Week 11: Pete's A Pizza

This week's storybook classic is Pete's A Pizza, written and illustrated by William Steig. In this book, Pete is in a bad mood. Luckily, his dad is there to help.

Image courtesy of clker.com

1. Read the Story
Language Arts
 
Read the book Pete's A Pizza, or watch the storybook video, or both.

2. Cooking Your Child

Story Interest/Dramatizing/Gross Motor Skills

Did that heading catch your attention? The second activity related to Pete's A Pizza is to make a pizza out of your child, of course. Follow along with the book or make up your own process.

In the book, Pete's dad makes him into a pizza by kneading the dough (rolling Pete), spreading it (stretching Pete's arms), whirling and twirling (throwing Pete up in the air), applying oil (water), adding flour (you just want to pretend here - baby powder can be very dangerous for young children to inhale), and topping with tomatoes (checkers, for example).

This is a great activity for children who naturally need more large body movements. It might calm down some children who need lots of physical action. Research shows that it is good for children to have "wrestling" or other physical goof-off time with their parents, especially their fathers.

Babies gain so much - even in brain development - from touch, so this particular activity would be good for babies, too.

3. Drawing Moods

Arts and Crafts/Fine Motor Skills/Music

You and your child each get a piece of paper and drawing utensils. Both of you draw a picture of a sad child. Then a grumpy child. Then a giggling child. If you like, you can play different pieces of music that have different moods (lively classical, soothing lullaby, rock 'n roll, etc.) Try to draw the music or the mood that you hear or feel.

4. and 5. Cooking Your Pizza

Cooking/Fine Motor Skills/Pretend Play

You and your child might catch yourselves feeling hungry for pizza tonight after all this pizza-type activity.

First, set up a grocery store with any play kitchen materials you have. If you don't have kitchen and food toys, see how many empty boxes and containers you can raid from your real kitchen to set up the pretend grocery store. A plastic grocery cart makes this enjoyable, but any bag or basket will do.

Set your child on a hunt for ingredients you will need to make pizza. You can get into the grocery shopping trip as much as you want to, incorporating cash register and money and making change, or just let your child play a bit before making the real dinner.

Second, make the real pizza with real ingredients. Here is a super easy and delicious recipe I often use:

Ingredients:

whole wheat pita bread (2 packs)
pesto sauce
tomato paste (1 or 2 small cans)
sliced vegetables, any you like
shredded cheese, whatever type you like or have on hand

Instructions:

Spread pesto sauce on each pita circle, then tomato paste. Add sliced onions, peppers, black olives, meat, mushrooms, or whatever you like on your pizzas. Top with shredded cheese (cheddar is delicious; mozzarella gives it a lighter taste). Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Take out when the cheese is melted. Allow them to cool and eat them as is or cut into wedges or strips for children.

Since this recipe is all about spreading and topping, children can help quite a bit.

This Week We're Reading...

Growing a Godly Girl is a blog with Montessori-style learning activities which I have just found through another blog that I love, Chronicles of a Babywise Mom.

This post about what she and her toddler are reading was cute, informative, and inspiring. In response, here is what I am reading to my toddler this week:

This is the very edition we have: I am fond of it.

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

I chose this book because I have been itching to read the whole Little House series to my children and I believe my five-year-old is old enough to appreciate it. They both listen very well to it when I read aloud at breakfast time.

The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper

We have had this book forever but my toddler just noticed it and has taken a liking to it. Classic! I guess it goes along with his preference for playing with his train sets every day. :)

Aesop's Fables for Young Readers edited by Laurel Hicks

Everyone has to learn the morals in Aesop's Fables, am I right? These fables are short (bonus), about animals (bonus), illustrated in a way that captures my children's interest (bonus), and include questions at the end of each story that my older child can answer (bonus). Four bonus points!!

Toot & Puddle: I'll Be Home for Christmas by Holly Hobbie

I love the Toot & Puddle books. The illustrations are gorgeous and heartwarming. The stories demonstrate the virtues of adventurousness, loyalty, friendship, love for the environment (both natural and cultural), and domesticity - all without using unnecessary words. The characters' actions and conversations, both written and spoken, are the story.

So I am in love with the Toot & Puddle books. I have to say, though, that my toddler is not as interested in I'll Be Home for Christmas. He loved the book named simply Toot & Puddle. Interestingly, these books are advertised as being for ages 4-8. My five-year-old likes them fine but doesn't ask for me to read them.

My toddler also likes to look at grocery store circulars and magazines with me, because both types of publications show plenty of food. Food is the theme of his life.

Simple Water Table Coloring

A simple spring or summer activity: Transform the water/sand table into an art canvas. This is another activity adapted from the book 2's Experience Art by Liz and Dick Wilmes. A roll of paper is placed over the table and taped to the sides. I simply put the paintbrush markers in one of the smaller water compartments of the table, right underneath the paper but visible and reachable. The purpose of this activity is to liven up coloring time for little ones and show them the fun of experimenting with art venues and materials. In the book, this is meant to be a crayon coloring activity, but in our area I don't think crayons would last more than five or ten minutes outside before melting down.

The book looks very unsophisticated and, in fact, it is. It does not give academic explanations for the different activities. Many of the activities are simple. However, I love this book. It is perfect for two-year-olds, just at their level, yet keeping them learning.

I really like the beginning pages that show some different ideas for displaying children's art. With inspiration from this book, my husband hung a stuffed animal hammock in the upper corner of our toddler's room to which we safety-pin his art projects. I believe displaying children's works has a great impact on them and gives them motivation to keep learning and mastering activities.

Two Ways to Help Children Learn Faster

Some people may be a bit disgusted with Way #1 to help children learn faster. It has taken many experiential lessons for me to accept Way #1, but I have finally realized its worth.

Way #1 to Help Children Learn Faster:

Give them more time.

Most skills that we want our children to learn will be learned in time. Extra struggles come when we try to make them learn things sooner than they are ready to learn them.

Parents are not helped by state and school standards here, or guidelines and rules of thumb from experts and non-expert advice givers. When we see an age next to a skill, we want our child to have learned the skill AT LEAST six months earlier than that age. Right? Am I the only one?

Those standards and guidelines are made for a reason, and they are helpful in certain circumstances. For most children, they should be used only as a guide and not as an age past which your child will never acquire the skill and the world will come to an end.

I recently read a very interesting book called The Way of Boys: Raising Healthy Boys in a Challenging and Complex World. The author, Anthony Rao, Ph.D., seems to recommend two basic strategies to help boys acquire social skills: One is to simply wait for them to grow up a little! Most boys will mature in a healthy way and acquire the skills they need. The problem arises when they don't do it fast enough for their parents or teachers or school administrations.

His second strategy is to use consistent behavioral programs (such as clear rule-setting, slow progression from simple to more complicated behaviors, and rewards like sticker charts).

I'm sure many of us can share stories of working day after day, painstakingly, with a child to gain a particular skill and getting nowhere with it. Then some time later, the same child can "suddenly" do it with almost no effort at all. Laying groundwork by working on particular skills is well and good, and very helpful, as long as it done as slowly as necessary and without high emotional stakes placed on learning something right away.

Way #2: Embrace Your Child's Interests

Here is an illustration: I wanted to teach my older son chivalrous manners, though I wasn't sure how to go about it. It finally hit me that he would be amenable to talking about chivalry and manners through King Arthur's knights of the Round Table. He has an obsession with knights, castles, kings, battles, and good and evil. I began to talk about chivalry and what it meant to King Arthur. 

He said, "Watch this, Mom!" and went down into a low bended-knee bow. It was a perfect example of a knight's bow, complete with hands gripping the hilt of an imaginary sword.

Due to his passion for all things knights-related, he had already absorbed at least that much of a medieval sense of chivalry and honor. This was an easy topic to discuss.

 

Sometimes a favorite stuffed animal role-playing what we want to teach is more effective than words coming out of Mommy's mouth. Sometimes Daddy or an aunt or uncle is a better teacher because our child is able to listen more intently to them at that time.

People have always known it is easier to encourage children to do things if they are related to the children's interests. Diego toddler utensils, Dora toothbrushes, dinosaur stickers on a potty training chart...  We probably all use this method quite often. 

There are some things that family members here are slowly learning to do. I coach myself to take a deep breath and remember that, contrary to what my brain is telling me, there is not a specific date on the calendar that these things have to be perfectly learned. It also helps to look around for examples of things that I myself have taken long taken a long time to learn. And I successfully made it through all my (academic) schooling!