Some time ago I read about a mother who had lots of experience moving.  Her husband was in the military, and she had a system down pat, from boxing up the dishes to getting the kids settled in the new home.  One thing she wrote was that as soon as the bare minimum was unpacked, she took a day off to take all the kids to a pool.  She felt that kids were just more sociable when wet.

That stuck with me.  My family moved quite a bit, although my dear husband was not in the military.   Many of our homes came with swimming pools in the back yard, and it must have been helpful for usually the children did make friends.  Our last address was sans pool, and sans friends as well.  Guess what’s going back on the priority list for our next home?

But this blog post isn’t about how to move as much as the importance of water play. Children love to play in the water!    When I was working in the public schools, never a day went by that some child – usually two or three – wasn’t caught splashing water from the water cooler.  In day care centers, if there is a water play table, it is one of the most popular areas.  And any community that has a public pool knows how crowded it can get in the summer. Is all this play important?  Or a waste of time and resources?

The Importance of Water Play

If you’ve read some of my earlier posts, especially Child’s Play and Sand Play , then you can probably guess what I’m going to say. Water play helps the child develop socially, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Water Play Helps the Child Develop Socially

Look at kids in a pool.  How many scowls do you see?  Usually, not many.  Total strangers become best buddies rather quickly.  Splashing and dunking can be emotional outlets.  Tossing frisbees and balls to a friend requires cooperation.  A raft is more fun when you can push someone off, and play “king of the hill”.  Falling is more fun in the water, because it doesn’t hurt.  Kicking water is much healthier than kicking the wall.

Water Play Helps the Child Develop Physically

Physically, children develop coordination.  At a water play table they may develop eye-hand coordination as they scoup, measure, pour, mix and stir water.  In a swimming pool they may develop large muscles as they learn to swim, dive, kick, splash and jump off the edge of the pool into a parent’s arms.

Children Learn Math Concepts Through Water Play

Children learn pre-math concepts of size, full, empty, volume, measurement, and weight. They can learn science concepts like condensation, evaporation, gravity, sink-float, reflection, refraction, and magnification.  Don’t things look different under water?  Ever lay on the bottom of the pool and look up?  What about sticking a spoon in a glass of water, and watching how the handle appears to bend at the water line?

Discovering The Properties of Water is Preschool Science

Water play, like everything you do with your child,can be used to teach vocabulary.  How does the water feel?  Use words like wet, slippery, cool (or warm), see-through, transparent, clear.  Does it have a smell or taste?  Not usually!  Tell me what you are doing?  How does that feel?  What happens if… if you add some liquid soap to the water and splash?  What would happen if you add some oil to the water?  Try this – shake some pepper on the surface of a bowl of water, then dip a finger in liquid soap and just touch it to the surface of the water.  Watch the pepper run away (disperse)!  Why do you think it does that?  (soap breaks the surface tension of the water).  Try explaining that to a three year old!  He may not fully understand the concept, but he’ll remember the lesson.

Bath time is great for many water play activities, but it is not enough.  Fill a child’s splash pool this summer, and invite another child to come over.  Take your family to a swimming pool often.  Or better yet, to the beach!  Combine water and sand play for a thoroughly enjoyable, educational afternoon!  Just don’t forget basic safety guidelines.  A child can drown in an inch of water.  Don’t take your eyes off your child for an instant.  Bathroom floors become slippery when wet.  Kindly and firmly help your child learn not to splash water on the floor.  Empty the splash pool when not in use.  For more on water safety, check this out.

You Can Begin to Teach Your Child About Your Faith Through Water Play

Spiritual growth is a little fuzzier. Water is the symbol of cleanliness. If your child will witness a baptism soon, you can try to explain that the water of baptism washes the soul clean, just like a bath washes your body. When you go camping, you and your child can observe how a light rain nourishes the earth. While gardening, show how water brings new life to wilting plants. Preschoolers are a little young to understand these concepts, but not to be exposed to them.

Related Reading:
Sand Play
Bath Tub Play
Child’s Play

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Valentina Powers
Middle: photo by Bev Sykes
Bottom: photo by Tiffany Washko

Dr. Suzuki developed a method for teaching little children to play musical instruments. He called his method “The Mother Tongue” method, because of an epiphany that came to him one day. All little children learn how to speak their native language! Tiny little Japanese children learn to speak Japanese!  It is a very difficult language, and few adults ever master it, if they didn’t grow up speaking it.  Yet babies learned it quite effortlessly.  Were babies somehow smarter than adults?  Or is the method of language instruction superior?  He wondered what would happen if he taught children music the same way that they learned to speak, and the Suzuki method was born.

Teaching Children to Have Beautiful Spirits

Suzuki did not want to raise a nation of musicians.  Teaching children to be concert violinists was never his goal.  Teaching them to have beautiful spirits was.  He lived through both world wars.  What a lot of ugliness he must have seen, and yet he was not embittered by it.   His father’s violin factory was bombed, and one brother was killed in the explosion.  But this modest, self-taught musician with only a high school diploma went on to change the world.  In 1991, a the age of 93, he was selected as one of the most influential people of the twentieth century.

The Mother Tongue Method Explained

What is the mother tongue method?  How does a baby learn to speak?  He is first loved.  He is surrounded by language and quiet acceptance.  His parents already love him – he does not have to earn that love by learning to speak.  His parents speak to him, as though he could already understand.  They surround him with words.  They sing to him, talk to him, read to him, and when he utters his first babbling sounds, they praise him profusely.  What parent isn’t proud to tell everyone at the office when his baby son first makes the sound “da-da”!

The baby is making sounds but not intelligible ones.  His parents continue love him and praise him, and model perfect language.  He says more nouns, and later a few verbs.  He even starts to form two-word sentences.  “Wan down!”  “Go bye-bye!”  The wise parent praises his toddler, but continues to model perfect speech.  The parent may repeat, “You want down.  Yes, son.  You want down,” as he reinforces and reteaches correct pronunciation.

By age five, most children have mastered the basics of language.  They speak in complex sentences, and are able to make their wants and wishes known.  They may learn a few more vocabulary words once they start school.  They may even learn to diagram a sentence, but most of what they have learned they learn from their parents, not the twelve years spent in formal education.

Music Instruction May Begin at Birth or Before

To apply this to playing the violin, music instruction should begin before the birth of the child. The same way that expectant moms are known to pat their bellies and talk to their little preborn child, they can also play excellent recordings of violin music. If they play the same one over and over, it may have a calming effect on the newborn, and help the infant sleep better.

When the child is a toddler, often around age 2, the mother then starts violin instruction, but brings her child to every lesson. This is important, for the mother must understand the basics of violin before she can help her child practice. As soon as the toddler shows an interest in imitating his mom, then he begins formal violin instruction. The Suzuki method continues to teach in the same manner as language acquisition, though. The child listens to a recording of the short musical selection he is to learn – as much as ten thousand times! The child learns how it is supposed to sound, and learns to correct himself. Because Suzuki students concentrate so much on building listening skills, they often perform very well in all areas of study in school.

Only Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

Little children continue to attend music lessons on a weekly basis, but it is imperative that a parent practice with them at home. Practice does NOT make perfect! Only perfect practice makes perfect. If you practice something wrong, you learn to do it wrong.

There are many books, blogs, and websites available to help Suzuki parents. There are charts for daily practice,  motivational techniques, and more. Then communities with larger Suzuki programs may also have group lessons and theory classes for their little students. The group lessons are a blast, and often all the motivation that young students need. However, I had four children enrolled in a great Suzuki program, so I basically had twelve half-hour classes a week! It wasn’t far to the church where the program rented space, but it was too far to walk. When two of my four decided they didn’t really want to continue, I didn’t try very hard to change their minds.

None of my children majored in music when they went to college. But they are all musical. They sing in church choirs. They sing when they do their chores or take a shower. My son took his violin with him to Korea when he was stationed there. My oldest daughter plays her violin for her daughter now. And I think that my children do have beautiful spirits. They care about deeply about each other, often calling each other more frequently than they call me! They care about their friends and neighbors. They are considerate, polite, responsible, resourceful young adults. I’m so proud of them.

I can’t guarantee that if your child studies the violin he will be a kind, responsible adult. No program of instruction can do that. But I do believe that the time a parent spends actively involved with his child can make a world of difference.  So whether it be in music, baseball, camping, biking or stamp collecting – whatever is your passion, share it with your child.

Related Reading:
Amazing Grace
Three Year Old Music Conductor
J4 – Musical Family Wins Face Off Contest

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Mark Rain
Middle: photo by Paul Byrley
Bottom: photo by Lee Farmer

This week’s lesson plan centers around April Showers. Your child can learn:

• April is the name of the month that follows March
• April is often a rainy month (in the northern hemisphere)
• The rain helps the ground to thaw
• Spring showers and warm sunshine help new plants to sprout
• Leaf buds turn into leaves on trees and bushes
• Grass turns green and starts to grow
• Many animals have new babies in the spring
• Farmers are busy preparing the soil for planting

Many of the activities this week will deal with water, so I hope you don’t mind getting wet! Make sure to locate your umbrellas, so if you get a gentle rain without thunder, you and your young child can go for a walk and explore the magic and mystery of water’s effect on the once-frozen earth.

Nurture a Healthy Respect – Not Fear – For Storms

It is not uncommon for the young child to be afraid of thunderstorms. Perhaps it is because of the loud noise thunder makes, or because an older sibling or relative has demonstrated fearful behavior during a storm. Perhaps it is because whenever there is an evil character in children’s programming, there are thunderstorms and lightning in the background! I have seen this in everything from Disney classics to Carebears and other Saturday morning kid-shows! No matter what the cause, you’ll do yourself and your child a huge favor if you help him through this fear to develop a healthy respect and enjoyment of stormy weather. Yes, we should get in out of the rain – but we do not need to hide under our beds!

If you are lucky enough to have a thunderstorm this week, take time to watch it with your child. Hold him or her lovingly in your arms, and talk about how the rain makes you feel. Be positive. Smile. It’s okay to jump when a loud clap of thunder startles you, but then make a game of it and laugh. Stand in a garage, if possible, with the door open to get a good feel for the powerful rain. Be safe. Remember, that lightning is attracted to tall things, and metal things. Do not stand under the only tree in a clearing, or hold a metal umbrella handle. Get inside out of the thunderstorm.

One young mother tells her daughter that thunderstorms are heavenly parties. The lightning is the pretty party lights and the thunder is how much fun they are having! You can try to explain it to your young child in more scientific terms, but it may be beyond his level of understanding.

This week you and your child will plant some bean seeds, dig in the mud, build moats in the sandbox, make a rainbow collage, go on a picnic and more. Have fun with the lesson plans, but tailor them to meet your schedule as needed. It’s okay if you don’t get through all the activities!

Here are some helps, if you don’t know the songs:
Eentsy Weentsy Spider
Rain, Rain, Go Away
If you’re happy and you know it

Five-Star Picture Books for April Showers:

• Ruby’s Rainy Day by Rosemary Wells
• The Rainy Day by Anna Milbourne
• One Rainy Day by Valeri Gorbachev
• Rainy Day: Get Dressed for Splishy-Splashy Fun from Barron’s Educational Series
• It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw
• Little Cloud by Eric Carle

Quality Recordings and Materials for April Showers week (optional)

• Rainy Day Games: Fun with the Animals of Noah’s Ark
• Healing Sounds of Nature – Thunderstorm, Rain and Ocean Waves. Music for Deep Sleep
• Thunderstorm by Atmosphere Collection
• Rachmaninoff for a Rainy Day
• Disney’s Fantasia
• Small Rain Coats, Rain Boots
• Umbrellas
• Doll Rain Coat, Doll Rain Boots
• Garden Tools, Radio-Flyer Wheelbarrow

April Showers Lesson Plans

Related Reading:
Ten Rainy Day Games for Children
Rainy Day Activities

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Eric Hersman
Middle: photo by GrandmaMusher
Bottom: photo by GrandmaMusher

To really understand how this works, I recommend that you get a copy of Glenn and Janice Doman’s book, “How to teach your baby to read”. The hardcover copy has dropped to $15.61 at amazon.com, and the paperback can be had for under $5.00 used. But to get started, here’s the basics.

Write first words in large letters in red ink on sturdy posterboard. Think really Large!  Like six inches!  This is because baby vision is not 20-20, and you want them to be able to see it well.  And they are more attracted to red than black.  Try “mommy” and “daddy” for the first words, as these are often the first words a baby learns to say.

Step one:
Show the “mommy” card quickly and set it down.  Play with your baby.  Do patty cake, or kissy games, or “this little piggy”.  Then flash the card again and say clearly, “This says mommy”.  Set the card down and play for another couple of minutes.  Repeat one more time, then the lesson is over.  You spend only a few minutes total, but show the card three times.  Repeat later in the day, several times a day, for a week.

Step two:
Do the same routine the next week with the word “daddy”.

Step three:
The third week is a big challenge.  You flash one card and ask your baby what it says.  If he says the word correctly, praise him!  Get real excited.  Jump up and down, clap your hands, kiss him profusely.  This is a big deal!  But if he is wrong, just go back to step one and begin again.  He’s a baby!  Give him a break!

Step four:
Once your baby recognizes Mommy and Daddy correctly, you can move on to more words.  Now the letters can be slightly smaller, five inches, I think.  It’s been 26 years since I read the book.  I don’t remember the next sequence of vocabulary words taught, either, although I don’t suppose it really matters.  You could teach words as your baby learns to speak them.  If “highchair” is part of his vocabulary, then make a word flashcard for it.

That’s the Glenn Doman approach, in a nutshell.

Teach Your Baby To Read

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baby-knowledge

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He now has other books available, as well.  “How to teach your baby Math” and “How to teach your baby to be physically superb” really caught my eye.  I’ll be ordering them soon, and posting a book review of them as well.

If you’re really interested in early reading, you might want to check out this website. I just discovered it this morning, but I’ve emailed them and asked for a free demo so I can learn more about it. I’ll let you know what I learn! The demo is free, though, so if you don’t want to wait, go ahead and order it yourself.

I think teaching a baby is exciting, but the most important lesson is not reading, or math, or physical fitness. I think the most important thing gained from these activities is the close bond you build with your child.

For further reading:
Early Reading, Pros and Cons
Reading Readiness
Great Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers
My Book Store

Photo Credits
Top: http://www.flickr.com/photos/futurestreet/ / CC BY 2.0

There is a lot you can do to help a child get ready for reading, even if you decide not to teach your baby to read.  Such a child will enter kindergarten eager to learn, and primed for success.  This readiness is not hard to do, and should be included in any manual on parenting young children.

First off, if you want to raise a reader, you must be one!  Your actions really do speak louder than words.  The toddler and preschool child is eager to be just like you.  If you swear when you stub your toe, you can expect to hear those words coming from your child’s mouth at the most inopportune moments.  If your child often sees you in front of the mirror fixing your hair, she may want her hair fixed, too.  Let your child watch you brush your teeth. Hand her a toothbrush and she will try to copy your actions.  This “show and do” method of teaching is so simple!  How else do you think your baby learned to speak in the first place?

Read books.  Read magazines.  Read the back of the cereal box.  Read stories to your child, and read the road signs as you drive.  Have books laying around the house. Library books, board books, picture books, even expensive coffee-table books.  Teach your child how to use books, and don’t allow her to destroy them.  Do expect to lose a few books as she learns.  But when she rips a page, it is not a major offense requiring a time out.  Simply remind her that that is not how we treat books and she has lost the priviledge of using books for the rest of the period.  You decide if that should be an hour, or a few minutes, or even a day if this has been happening a lot.  Then give her a book again after the time has passed and let her demonstrate that she understands the right way to treat a book.

Visit the library weekly.  Many libraries have beautiful children’s sections.  Ours is filled with sturdy preschool toys, puzzles, games, kitchen sets, play houses, and more.  Little ones can play while their parent selects picture books for them.  They even have book sets to check out – a bag of books, puzzles and toys centered on a theme, such as “pets” or “music”. I love the children’s library, but more importantly, so does my granddaughter.

Next, teach your child to recognize her own name.  Do just the first name, or the first, middle and last- especially if there are likely to be other children in school with the same first name.  Print it out, and say it.  Write it on a card for your child to keep in her pocket.  Label every piece of artwork she makes with her name in the corner.  Put it in the upper left corner, so she learns to read from top to bottom and from left to write.  Write her name on all her outside toys if you take them to a public park or playground.  Write her name inside her clothing, especially jackets and outer wear that she might remove and leave behind.  Write her name on a peg where you want her to hang her jacket, if appropriate.  Write her name on a placemat at the table.

And finally, teach your child to write her own name.  Have her form crude letters with ropes of playdough.  Let her draw the letters in wet sand or shaving cream.  Write her name with glue on cardboard and shake colored salt or sand into the glue.  After it dries, she can trace the letters with her fingers.  And when she can hold a pencil or crayon well, help her learn to write her name.

That is the bare minimum of what you should do with your preschool child before she goes to kindergarten.  There are many ways to expand the reading readiness activities, and to take your child to the next level – actual reading.  You can teach her the alphabet song.  She’ll learn the names of all the letters, although she won’t yet know what they look like.  Next you can use flashcards or alphabet charts to teach what the letters look like.  You can play sound games without paper while driving in the car or making dinner.  “Your name begins with a “T”.  That’s the “tuh, tuh” sound.  Can you find something else that starts with the same sound?  What sound does “television” start with?  That’s right!”

If your child enjoys that sort of game, move on to ending sounds.  This is very helpful for the child who doesn’t pronounce the last sound of words.  That is, by the way, not uncommon, but do not let it continue.  If your child says “dow” for down, or “uh, uh” for “up”, then you need to fix that.  Over-enunciate the final sounds.  Pretend you do not understand.  Say something like, “Do you mean dowN?  Downuh?  Say “DOWN”.  You can expect your child to rebel a little, but before long she will be listening for, and pronouncing the final sounds of her words, as well.  If not, then you may want to have your child’s hearing tested.  It is not a bad idea to have both hearing and vision tested sometime before kindergarten.

Readiness for kindergarten and the school experience is more than just letter recognition.  Other skills your child should master include tying her shoes, toileting by herself including washing her hands, cutting with scissors, holding a pencil correctly, able to sit reasonably still on a chair for a minimum of fifteen minutes, listen to and follow directions, and get along with other children.

For further reading:
How to Teach Your Baby to Read
Early Reading Pros and Cons
Great Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers
My Book Store

There is a lot of emphasis these days on teaching young children to read. Many preschools and day care centers focus on worksheets that supposedly “teach” letter and sound recognition. Some children are actually flunking kindergarten! When I was five years old, kindergarten was not something flunk-able. We did calendar activities, played rhythm instruments, colored and fingerpainted, and sang songs. It was an introduction to working in a group, to riding the school bus, to standing in a line and raising your hand to go to the bathroom. That was it. But now some kindergartens teach half of the alphabet and children must be able to read words spelled with those letters before they can pass on to first grade. Is this progress, or is this actually harmful to our children? You decide.

Some of the pros include:

• good readers make good students.  They are far more likely to stay in school than poor readers
• the “Matthews Effect” – good readers get better, poor readers get poorer over time
• the opportunity for learning languages begins to close at age four
• reading is the single most important skill a child will ever learn
• current methods of teaching reading are NOT working for millions of students
• teaching reading earlier may eliminate most reading problems according to a panel of reading specialists and early childhood educators
• children who are taught to read earlier enjoy reading more than children who learn after age five
• children who can read are seldom bored
• early readers tend to excel in other areas of study as well

Some of the cons include:

• poor eyesight.  There is little current study being done on this topic, but former research suggested that early reading was strongly related to vision problems in children.
• early childhood is the time to learn about the world through movement.  To be outside, touching, tasting, smelling, experiencing.  Learning from a book may rob the young child of these important stages
• teaching a young child to read is time-consuming.  Some studies suggest it is far better to delay reading until the child is ten years old or more
• not all children experience success at an early age.  Is it right to set a young child up for failure?

As you can see, the pros really do outnumber the cons.  When I tried to google for “cons” to write this article, it was very hard to come up with any.  And the definition of “early reading” has changed!  The articles on the web are not talking about teaching a four or five year old to read, but teaching a baby!

I taught my firstborn to read when she was two years old.  I read a paperback book from the library called “How to Teach Your Baby to Read” by Glenn Doman.   I wrote out the suggested vocabulary words on large sheets of posterboard, and worked with not just my young daughter, but three of the four children I babysat.  Tammy caught on quickly, and I have pictures of her “teaching” another baby as she played with the flashcards.

My problem with Tammy was probably my fault. Glenn Doman’s method is the sight-word method at first.  You teach your baby a lot of vocabulary words, until they are reading their first book.  Then you teach them phonics.  I skipped that step. She had a little difficulty when she went to public school.  She was a very active, kinesthetic learner.  She made quick decisions, without much thought.  For example, she read “comfortable” as “conference table”.  Neither word should be in a primary reader, but it was something she read incorrectly.  If I had followed the rest of Glenn Doman’s method, she would have been spared this.  However,  when I pulled my children out of public school and homeschooled them, I was able to teach her phonics then.  She went on to graduate with honors from public highschool, and was on the national dean’s list in college.  She is my only child (out of four) to wear glasses, though.  She is very near-sighted.  I wear glasses, and I was also reading before kindergarten.

I did not teach  my middle child, Annika, to read early.  I tried at age four, but she wasn’t interested.  I tried again at five, and at six.  She had no interest.  At age seven, she was suddenly ready. I used the “Sing, Spell, Read & Write” program, and she went through it in three weeks.  She went from not being able to read, to reading at a fifth grade level in three weeks.  She is now 23 years old, and reads a thick novel in about two days.

As for those ridiculous little worksheets so popular in preschools and kindergartens, you’ll not find them in my lesson plans.  They may teach something.  They teach following directions or cutting and pasting on the line.  But they are mostly worthless.  A child will not learn that this shape “T” is the letter “t” and that it makes the “tuh, tuh” sound and that “truck” and “toy” start with the “tuh, tuh” sound by doing a worksheet.  Only the child who already knows the letter T can do the worksheet correctly, and why waste his time drilling on something he already knows?  There are so many better ways to teach a young child than with worksheets.

Check out my units, A is for Apple, or B is for Bugs! for a week’s worth of fun activities that teach letter sounds and recognition. Then, take a break and spend a week on the color red. For more fun ideas, visit my Lessons page, or better yet – subscribe to my blog, and never miss another update again.

We’ll explore some of those ways in future posts.  So stay tuned!

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Jessica Merz

During Red Week you and your child will explore color! For the younger child, you should spend the entire week on one color – red. For an older child, or one who knows his colors well, you may chose a different color every day. Just substitute the other color in place of red in the activities.

Color Blindness in Children

It is not uncommon for two-year-olds to mix up their colors. If your child is three or more, and you’ve been teaching him about colors, and he is still making mistakes, you may want to ask your pediatrician about color blindness, which affects approximately eight percent of boys, and a half a percent of girls. Most people with color blindness will only have difficulty differentiating a few colors, or even just certain shades of those colors. Few are totally color blind, where they would see the world in black and white.

Color In Your Food

As you plan your meals and snacks for the week, you may wish to add more red food choices. Some possibilities are listed on the “getting ready” page at the beginning of the lesson plan. You could serve cranberry juice and strawberries for Monday morning’s snack as you introduce the color theme to your child. You could add a beet to your potatoes when you boil them and mash them, to color them red. I don’t recommend food coloring, as artificial coloring has been linked to hyperactivity in children.

Remember, look through the lesson plans several days in advance, so you can gather any necessary materials. It may cost more when you first begin, if you don’t already have a lot of art and craft items on hand. Then once you’ve been doing the lesson plans for a while, you should have enough of a stockpile to keep your costs down. Feel free to delete any project if you can’t find the materials. You can always substitute a project from another week, or repeat one that your child especially enjoyed doing. And you can check your library first for the recommended picture books, then purchase your favorites that you may want to read again and again.

Don’t forget, have fun this week!

Great Picture Books about Colors

• Red, Green, Blue: A First Book about Colors by Alison Jay
• Butterfly Butterfly: A Book of Colors by Petr Horacek
• Planting a Rainbow: Lap-Sized Board Book by Lois Ehlert
• Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni
• Red is a Dragon by Roseanne Thong
• Red are the Apples by Marc Harshman
• Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins
• Dog’s Colorful Day: A Messy Story About Colors by Emma Dodd
• I Love You the Purplest by Barbara M. Joosse

Quality Toys and Games for Red Week

• 50 Counting Bears
• Lauri Toys Shape and Color Sorter
• Melissa & Doug Sort and Snap Color Match
• Crayola Washable Tempra Set, Primary Colors
• Spill-Proof Paint Cups
• Preschool Paint Brush Assortment
• Colors Bean Bags
• Melissa & Doug Primary Lacing Beads
• Play-doh Case of Colors

Red Week Lesson Plans

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Davichi

A big part of this blog are the lesson plans I provide. My degree is in Early Childhood Education, and I have many years of experience working with preschoolers. When I decided to homeschool my own children, I was suddenly writing lesson plans and teaching four different ages.  If only I had saved copies of all the preschool lesson plans I had written over the years!  But I hadn’t.  So now  that I’m teaching only one preschooler – my granddaughter – I will take the time to do just that. I prepare my lesson plans to share with other parents, whether you homeschool a bunch, or just one. Whether you are a full-time, stay-home parent, or a working parent who can only utilize a portion of the activities. And perhaps if you have a relative caregiver who could benefit from these suggested activities, you might show them this website.

Getting Started

The first step in using my lesson plan is to adapt the schedule to fit your needs. I cannot anticipate other family situations, only what works for me. My daughter leaves for work before my granddaughter is awake, so I go to her house. We do many of the morning activities at her house, but somewhere during the day we usually walk over to mine, then. I have about a half an hour in the morning to work on my blog and make coffee before my granddaughter awakes.

I have learned that if she sleeps past seven, her whole day is thrown off schedule. So I wake her up at the same time every morning. Toddlers are often more dependent on a regular schedule than preschoolers. They don’t read a clock yet, but they understand routines. They know that breakfast comes before lunch, that bath comes before bedtime. If you try to alter their routine, you might be in for a major temper tantrum. Toddlers perceive changes in their routines as frightening, and they don’t know how else to respond. So whether you begin your day at seven, at eight, or at nine doesn’t matter as much as that you begin your day with your young child at the same time every day.

Calendar Activities

Right after waking, dressing, and hair fixing, I have “calendar activities”. I do this because my granddaughter is never hungry when she wakes up. So we spend about half an hour on this activity. I have a large calendar on the wall in the hallway outside her bedroom. We go over the name of the month, the day of the week, and then tape a new number on the calendar. We count all the days from the first to the current date. We talk about the weather, which means running to look out the window. If she’s having fun, we sing a song or two, or go over some vocabulary words. Sometimes I have large posters purchased from a school supply taped to this wall, other times I make my own vocabulary charts. Helping a toddler develop a good vocabulary is the first most important activity! More so than potty training. A toddler who can express her needs and wants is less likely to go into “melt down mode” than one who is wearing “big girl panties” but still babbles incoherently.

If your child wakes up very hungry, switch calendar and breakfast around on the schedule. Or move Calendar Time to right after coming in from outside play. Just pick a time that works for you, and stick with it.

Next I schedule breakfast, then “Table Activities”. Some toys and games are best played at a table, rather than in the playroom.  Things like crayons, puzzles, board games, lacing cards or stringing beads – small toys with pieces that can get lost.  If I keep these toys in the kitchen, and let my granddaughter only play with them at specified times, then she’s usually quite interested in playing with them.  While she’s busy with her puzzles, I can get the breakfast things put away, and do any lunch-prep work necessary.  I unload the dishwasher, and then take a second cup of coffee to the table and join her.  We color together, or work on puzzles together.   If your youngster is full of energy immediately following breakfast, you might want to switch to free play first, and move this quiet table time to before or after snack.

Free play can be the best time of day.  A young child should be allowed to entertain himself for at least an hour a day, every day.  No television.  If he won’t stay in his playroom, it is fine to set up a baby gate over the door.  Keep an eye on him, but do not interfere.  Until he are used to the routine, you might step inside and get him started in play.  Set up the tea table with dishes and dolls, or put the wooden train track together.  Then step out, and let your child play.  The child who can amuse himself is free to develop his imagination.  A child who relies on the television or Game Cube to amuse him will often be bored.

I like to do Free Play right away in the morning, after table time.  My granddaughter is full of energy then.  She’s usually in a pretty good mood.  And so am I!  I use this time to work on my blog, or catch up on housework.  Families who are homeschooling can find dozens of things to do with this hour!  Then, if you need to extend the hour into two, you could assign an older sibling to amuse your toddler or preschool child in the playroom a little while longer.

Morning snack is a requirement in licensed day care homes and centers.  I don’t get it – we were told not to feed our infants more frequently than at four hour intervals, but then we’re told to feed our toddlers and preschoolers every two to two and a half hours!  Maybe because toddlers are more active, but most pediatricians tell young moms not to worry about what their fussy youngsters eat, because they will eat when they are hungry.  Maybe the pediatricians and legislators should get together and come up with guidelines that don’t conflict.

I happen to feel that it is best to have mealtimes at about the same time every day, and never allow snacking in between.  I don’t mean to eliminate the morning and afternoon snack.  Only that these snacks be part of the structured routine, offered at the table, at the same time every day, and not spur-of-the-moment empty calorie fillers purchased at the checkout counter or fast-food drive-through.  Keep snacks small and nutritious, so your child will be hungry at meal times.

I schedule outside playtime from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m., and again in the afternoon from 3:30 to 4:30.  I find that two one-hour play times are better than one long play time for younger children, but if you have older children too, you might find one longer playtime fits your family.  I choose later in the morning, so the dew is off the grass, and later afternoon, so she isn’t playing outside at the heat of the day and risk sun burn.  Later, when the swimming pool is open, I won’t have to change playtime to fit the pool schedule.

We have naptime immediately following lunch.  This is a fairly common time for naps among day cares and kindergartens.  All young children need nap time, even if they don’t sleep.  They are so active, and their bodies are growing.  They need some “down time” to rest, and so do you! Allow them a book or two, but they must remain on their bed until you give them permission to get up.  If your child isn’t used to this yet, you may rub his back, rock him in a rocking chair to help calm him down, or sing a lullaby.  But do not stay with him for the entire nap time.  Go get a cup of coffee, put your feet up, and take fifteen minutes minimum just for yourself.

Then, after nap, snack, and the second playtime, I have another project.  I think it gives kids something to look forward to.  The hours between 4:00 and 6:00 are often called “the witching hour” in homes with young children.  They are cranky, hungry and demanding when moms are equally cranky, tired, and busy.  Not a happy picture.  And into this time frame, husbands and school-aged children are coming home, the phone starts ringing off the hook, the dog needs to be walked and fed – anything you can find to break this cycle would be its weight in salt!   So I plan a project.  I get it ready during naptime, so I don’t have anything more to do except oversee it, and work on getting dinner ready at the same time.  My granddaughter is in the kitchen where I can keep an eye on her, and she is happily involved.  It works for me.  If it doesn’t work for your family, move this second project to another time slot, or skip it entirely.

My granddaughter has clean-up, then free play until dinner.  About this time my daughter gets home from work and I’m no longer needed.  She helped me develop her daughter’s schedule though, so she knows that next follows dinner and clean-up, then quiet playtime together, followed by a bath, stories, and bedtime.  She’s a single parent with no other children.  In your situation, you may need to make changes.  Maybe you can’t fit in a nightly bath time.  Or maybe you need to cart older children to soccer practices or ballet lessons.  If you’re a single parent, then you can’t put your toddler to bed until all the older kids are home.  Maybe you’ll need to allow your toddler two naps in the day, with a later bedtime.  That’s okay, too!  Just find out what works for you, re-arrange the schedule to fit your needs, and then, stick with it!

I hope you’ll find these lesson plans helpful.  If so, please leave a comment at the end of this post, or send me an email.  Let me know what sorts of things you’d like to see covered in an article or lesson in the future.  And thanks for reading!

Related Reading:
Bedtime Routine: Hassle-Free Bedtime
Naptime Routine: Mastering the Nap
 

Photo credits:

Girl reading by Roy Costello
Table Toys by author
Train Wreck by Woolley Wonder Works
Bubbles by Clarity