Get Your Kiddo Ready for Kindergarten

As summer quickly approaches I am winding down my kindergarten class.  At the same time, I am trying to make sure that my own soon to be kindergartener is ready to begin her journey in the fall.  It got me thinking about all the easy, everyday things that we as parents can do to ensure early school success for our little ones.

Attention

Teaching is broken into small chunks in kindergarten, but it is still very important that your child can pay attention for short (10-15 minute) periods of time.

• Play board games with your child.  Games such as Candy Land require sustained attention.  Encourage your child to stick with the game until it is complete.
• Begin to read longer books with your child.  Continue reading picture books, but try reading a chapter book as well.  Do a chapter or two a night.  Ask your child to make a movie in their head about the book as you read.  Talk about key details from the story to strengthen their understanding.
• Put together a puzzle together.  Talk about strategies such as sorting by like colors or putting the edge pieces together first.

Following Directions

Following multi-step directions is very important as your child begins school.  Throughout the day a kindergartener is expected to follow many sets of directions.

• Play Simon Says.  Have Simon say 2-3 things rather than just one.  Ex: “Simon Says, clap your hands once, touch your toes then sit on the floor.”  Begin with two, then work up to four or even five.
• Give your child multi-step directions.  Ask them to brush their teeth, put on their pajamas, then pick out a story.  Give them specific praise when they do well.  “I love the way you remembered to do all three things.  Way to go!”

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear sounds in words.  In order to help your child be ready to read, play many games using sounds.

• Play “I Spy” using sounds and rhymes.  “I spy an animal that rhymes with ‘now’”.  I spy something with two wheels that starts with /b/.
• Look for books with rhymes, alliteration and other plays on sounds.  Now is a great time to be reading Dr. Seuss beginner books with your child.

Number Concepts

In addition to knowing how to count to 10 and recognize most of those numbers, it is important that your child develop a concept of what numbers mean.  Having an idea of what “more” and “less” mean, being able to see or make basic patterns and working with shapes can help a great deal in math.

• Tell and solve simple number stories with your child.  “If I have 2 apples and I eat 1, how many do I have left?  You can make up stories that are a good challenge for your child.
• Get a set of Standard Unit Blocks and encourage your child to play with them often.  Standard Unit Blocks offer your child opportunity to work with all sorts of math concepts including area, size, number, patterns, fractions, measuring and estimation.

Concept Development

Expose your child to a wide range of experiences this summer.  Museums, shows, nature, and books are all places to build an understanding of our world.  This area is filled with free and almost free opportunities to learn!

• If you haven’t already…check out…
• Your local Children's Museum
• Story Walks and Guided Nature trails
• Small museums maintained by your Historical Society
• Outdoor Concerts
• Summer Reading Programs at the library
• State Parks
• Zoos and Botanical Centers
• Discuss the experience.  Try to remember details, or sequence the events.  Use pictures from the event and create a memory book.  Let your child help write the captions.

Fine Motor Skills
In Kindergarten, your child will do a lot of writing and drawing.  Good fine motor skills help your child do school tasks without getting tired or frustrated.

• Provide many creative materials at your house.  Crayons, pencils, markers, dry erase boards and chalkboards are all great.
• Set up a collage station.  Get a nice pair of child scissors, a glue stick and some old magazine.  Let your child cut and glue to their heart’s delight.
• Provide playdough.
• Make bread and pizza dough with your child.  Kneading is a great fine motor strengthening activity.

Choose Screen Time Wisely

Limit the time that your child spends in front of a screen.  When they are watching TV or playing with your smartphone, use the time wisely.

• Many PBS programs are specifically designed with pre-school learning in mind.  Sesame Street was originally designed to help children prepare for school.  Other PBS programs specifically teach reading, math and science concepts.
• Angry Birds may be fun…but there are thousands of apps out there that will help your child learn Kindergarten material AND are a lot of fun!  Look for apps that teach sight words, letters, basic math skills, memory, logical thinking, and puzzle solving.
• Please put away the screens during times and places that can enrich you child’s concept development, attention span and patience.  Let your child be a part of grocery shopping, teach them how to amuse themselves appropriately and quietly in a waiting room, play car games on road trips.

Read, Read, Read
Reading aloud to your child EVERY DAY is one of the most important things you can do to ensure school success.

What other ideas do you have?

Wordless Wednesday

Ultimate Atkins Birthday Cake

Meatcake.  It sounds dirty...but I promise it is not.

Birthdays are a big deal here at the Mountain View Mama household.  Anyone out there who knows us has heard of "Clay-fest", which of course has now expanded to include "K-fest", "Zoe-fest" and "Monster(I mean Sam)-fest".  Birthdays are a little bit like Hanukkah, with 5 days of celebration.  Little presents, parties, special activities and cake are spread out throughout the fest and it makes birthdays really special and really fun.

My husband is the originator of the fest, so you can imagine my predicament when he told me, "No cake this year.  I'm serious."

He started doing the Atkins diet right before Christmas and it works really well for him.  He didn't want to screw it up.  "Make me a bacon cake", he suggested.

A bacon cake.  No carbs.  No sugar.  My family does not make things easy.

As I wandered through the meat department of the local supermarket...inspiration struck.  A meatcake!

The Ingredients:

• Preformed Burger Patties (I got Angus beef, 90% lean)
• Bacon
• Bleu Cheese
• Frozen Cauliflower
• Butter
• Sour Cream
• Frozen Broccoli
• Cracked Black Pepper

We didn't use any sauce with it, but we thought it would be good with some A1 or au ju.

To start off, fry the bacon on a cast iron skillet.


Then pan fry 2 burger patties in the bacon grease.

While the meat is cooking, steam the cauliflower.  When the cauliflower is soft(ish), drain the water, add 2 tbsp butter, 'bout 1/4 c of sour cream and a hunk of blue cheese.  Mash it up with a potato masher then add cracked black pepper to taste.  Keep warm on low heat while everything else finishes cooking.

When the burgers are just about done, melt some blue cheese on top of one patty and top with bacon.

Cook the broccoli in the microwave as everything else finishes up.

To make the meatcake, spread a bed of the mashed cauliflower in the certer of a dinner plate.  Top with the stacked burger patty.  Frost with more mashed cauliflower.  Surround with broccoli.  Top with a candle and serve!

It may not be a traditional birthday cake, but the meatcake was really, really good!  I made a smaller one for myself with only one patty and it was tasty too! 

If your husband is on Atkins...or is just a regular old meat loving man...try out the Ultimate Atkins Meatcake.  He'll be a happy guy!

App of the Month: Presidents vs. Aliens

Presidential fever is rampant here in New Hampshire this week, with the primary only a few days away.  As I sit here in my living room heckling the debaters I thought I would spend my time a bit more productively and let you all know about a very presidential app that you can get.

Presidents vs. Aliens!

Reading skills are necessary for this one, so it's not for the little guys.  The big kids will love it, and the grown-ups will too.  Learn Presidential facts, nicknames, parties and more.  Collect Presidential flashcards and learn about them all.

You might still have no clue who to vote for, but you'll be an expert on those who have already been there.

Presidents vs. Aliens.  Have fun!

Wordless Wednesday

LEGO=leg godt "play well"

On January 1 of 2012, LEGO is releasing a new line targeted specifically towards girls and it has started a social media frenzy.  Princess Free Zone and PBG (Powered by Girl), two amazing Facebook pages have urged their followers to take a stand against the gender biased marketing of LEGO by re-posting a vintage LEGO advert on the LEGO fan page and urging them to "Bring back beautiful."

I did, and think it would be a great idea if all of you did too.  But not because LEGO is wrong.

Eight years ago LEGO was close to bankruptcy (Harvard Business Review).  According to Bloomberg Businessweek the company turned itself around by creating a product line and marketing strategy that catered specifically to boys.  Alien Conquest, Ninjago, Hero Factory, and Star Wars are the products lines that jump out when you visit the official LEGO website.  The company became one that targeted 50% of kids and the strategy was a winner.  Their revenue increased 105% in six years.  I am certainly not an economist, but that seems pretty impressive.  LEGO might be a great toy, great for every child.  But it is also a billion dollar company that is out there to make money.

LEGO Group Chief Executive Officer Jørgen Vig Knudstorp says, “We want to reach the other 50 percent of the world’s children.”  To do so, they have created "LEGO Friends" a line targeted towards girls ages 5 and up.

My four year old had a playdate a few months back with one of her best friends.  A best friend who happens to be a boy.  They have known each other since before they were born.  They were working with LEGOs, a DUPLO set that included a fire truck and rescue vehicle.  My lovely girl created a barn for a family of farm animals, her self talk sounding a bit like, "Here is a bed for the mommy cow and her baby calf, and here comes big sister horse and friend sheep for a visit."  When the lovely farm animal barn home caught fire (remember this is a Fire House set that is being played with ) the rescuers came to help, put out the fire then had hot cocoa with the cows.  Her fabulous friend, with wonderful parents that get him a wide variety of cross gendered toys, was playing right next to her.  His LEGO creations kept smashing together and when the rescuer came to help the ambulance would also explode in a ball of flame.  Luckily the rescuers were able to climb bookshelves and dive bomb the disaster site with parachute fire hoses.  All was well.  I don't believe any cocoa was served.

Two very different scenarios in my living room of parallel play.

Both these kids have pretty progressive parents.  We shun cheap toys, we shop at independent toy shops, buy gender neutral Melissa and Doug toys.  My husband wrestles with my kiddos, they've been skiing since they could walk.  Bruises are a sign of a good time and mathematical skills are valued.  Her friend has a baby doll that he loves and a toy kitchen that he cooks in daily.  We are not parents that actively encourage gender stereotypical play.  Yet it happens.

And it is not a bad thing.

LEGOs create spatial awareness, provide patterning practice and fine motor skill development opportunities. Children work on sorting skills when they look for just the right piece and play with LEGOs allows for three dimensional creativity.   Play with LEGOs can improve mathematical skills as well as engineering and architectural abilities. (education.com)  I know this and my house will always be filled with LEGOs.  The plain brick ones with enough doors, windows, characters and vehicles to create the framework of a story.  But I am not every parent.  Each week nearly one-third of the American population visits a Walmart.  One-third.  EVERY WEEK! (wikipedia)  I am willing to bet that some of those visitors shop for toys.  I don't know about your Walmart, but mine has two kinds of aisles.  The boy aisle and the girl aisle.  Is this right?  No way!  Is it reality?  Yup!  So thank you LEGO for putting something in the "girl" aisle of the department stores of America that promotes what the early brain needs to succeed in higher level math. Girls are more than Tutus and Tiaras.  Unfortunately many American consumers have forgotten this.

The shame lies not in the corporations.  Making money is their job.  The shame is on the parents of America for forgetting that open ended play is enough.  Blocks, multi-colored LEGOS, animals, people, tracks, trains, living spaces, dolls, real life play.  That is what kids need.  A princess or two for a girl who loves to play family...not a terrible thing.  Trucks for a boy who likes to smash things together...great. 

It's all about balance.  Parents, it's your job to create it, not the company's job to provide it.

Bring back beautiful.  For your kids.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Merry Christmas Mamas!

Merry Christmas to all the beautiful Mama's out there.  Wishing you happiness, health and sanity this holiday season!

App of the Month: BOB Books!

I''m pretty sure that as parents of my students shop for Christmas I am not their favorite person.

We have an iPAD in my classroom now.  And they are all asking Santa for one.  Wait...all but one.  One is asking for a beard.  But back to the point.  My kiddos are asking for iPADs.  And so are a huge number of American kids.  According to a Nielsen poll, the iPAD is on 44% of kid's (ages 6-12) Christmas lists.  iPOD touch is on 30%, and the iPhone (keep dreaming, kid) is on 27%.  This seems so high, but I'd be willing to bet that if Nielson polled Moms and Dads about their Christmas lists the results would be the same or higher. 

Since it's a pretty good bet that at least 44% of Moms and Dads would rather play with an iPAD than a Let's Rock Elmo, there's a lot of kids who will have a new techie toy.  Santa will probably leave it for Mom or Dad, but everyone will get a turn.

My wish for Christmas is that parents recognize the value in using their child's inevitable screen time wisely.  I know the argument can be made that Angry Birds is an excellent physics lesson.  All sorts of velocity and acceleration calculations can be made about the silly things.  But for your little ones?  A waste of screen time.  There are so many wonderful educational apps out there!

One that I love for my four year old and for my beginning readers in my kindergarten and first grade class is BOB Books Reading Magic and BOB Books Reading Magic 2.   Based on a popular series of easy reader books, this engaging app helps children develop phonemic awareness practice essential phonological skills.  In order to successfully learn to read in the early grades children must be able to hear and manipulate sounds in words.  The BOB Books app allows your child to practice at home a piece of what they will be learning in school as a beginning reader.

Download BOB Books by clicking the link below and watch your child learn!