February 12, 2006
The Whole Child e-zine brings you free preschool activities each week to maximize your child's potential, build skills and parent-child relationships in just a few minutes per day. Useful tips, quotes, resources, opportunities and articles will added for extra value!
If you enjoy this e-zine, please pay it forward and send it to a friend. If you received THE WHOLE CHILD from a friend and you would like to subscribe, please sign up at Shirley's Preschool Activities.
12 February 2006, Issue #001
CONTENTS
1. Welcome from Shirley
2. Updates at Shirley's Preschool Activities
3. Opportunities for you
4. Tips
5. Quotes
6. Week 1 Readiness Activities
7. Article of the Month
1.Welcome from Shirley
HiIt is with great excitement that I am launching this e-zine, but also a little anxiousness as the technicalities of doing so is all new to me. Hopefully there will be no blunders!
These readiness activities are as much for me and my children as they are for you. I am also a busy mom, a homeschool teacher and I have some sideline businesses that I run from home as well as being my husband's PA!
I have subscribed both Riaan and I to THE WHOLE CHILD e-zine, so that in the busy-ness of our lives, we will also spend just a few minutes a day helping OUR preschoolers to maximize their potential too! Of our five children, three are aged five and under.
You can read more about us on my website Shirley's Preschool Activities.
2. Updates at Shirley's Preschool Activities
My website is still very new and there is much I still plan to add - more craft activities, preschool theme pages, reviews of multi-cultural books, art and music appreciation and more. As I build these pages I will use this e-zine to keep you updated.
This week I will mention the Free Kids Games This page will also grow in time, but I'd like to make special mention of Little Kids Games Online as the webmistress, Claire, kindly created the picture that now appears on my site, for The Whole Child e-zine. Take a look at her site at www.littlekidsgamesonline.com for all kinds of kids' games.
3.Opportunities for you
I am sure you wouldn't say “No” to a little extra income each month and you might be just the person to consider an exciting opportunity that I have just ventured into.
It is not another 'get-rich-quick-scheme'.
It is not a network marketing business.
It is not a pyramid scheme either.
Its not for anyone who is desperate for more money right now!
There is no face-to-face selling.
It is an opportunity for serious people who are prepared to initially invest a bit of time and effort into building what can become a continuous source of passive income. All you need to succeed is brains and motivation!
But let me back up a bit and tell you about the chain of events in my life that led me to the place where I am now.
As a Christian, I do not believe that this was a co-incidence, I believe it was God's plan for my life, being played out in His perfect time. And while I am about it, let me also say that I believe that this opportunity is a way for me and you to multiply our talents according to the Bible story in Luke 19:12-24. Our financial success will enable us to have more to give and will be a compelling testimony of God’s blessing in our lives, after we have shown ourselves to be faithful with what we had to begin with.
But let me share my story:
In December of 2003 my husband and I read a book about planning to be financially fre*e that changed our outlook on life forever. The book was Robert Kyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Use this link to preview the book on kalahari.net Rich Dad, Poor Dad
In fact, Riaan, who being dyslexic, had not read a book since leaving school, was motivated to read 13 more books on business and finances within 6 months after that and I scored almost as well!
We realised that the old ‘get a good education, so you can get a good job’ story that we had heard all our lives is, in this century, no longer a guarantee of security or the way to financi*al free*dom.
Since Riaan has always been self-employed and I am a stay-at-home-mom, we have no hope of a pension nor do we have any retirement fund to provide for our old age. We know that we have to build something in our young years to provide a comfortable and secure future for ourselves in our ‘old’ years! I believe that we should work with our hands (and heads) so as not to be a burden to others!
Anyway, we realised that we need to find and build sources of PASSIVE INCOME – where our money works for us, so that we don’t have to work for money for the rest of our lives.
Riaan had always been aiming at something like this, but Rich Dad, Poor Dad and a few other books by Kyosaki and others gave him (and me) a bigger, clearer picture of how to achieve this.
Use this link to preview Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Next week, I'll continue sharing about our journey towards financi*al free*dom.
4. Tips
We used this one, just recently in our home and it worked!
To remove bubble gum from hair
Rub cooking oil and/or peanut butter onto the bubble gum. The oiliness makes it easier to remove from the hair. Remove as much as you can manually, then comb the rest out with a fine-toothed comb. Wash the hair well with shampoo to remove the oiliness afterwards.
5. Quote
"Every student can learn. Just not on the same day or in the same way." ~ George Evans
6. Readiness Activities
Copy and paste these activities into a new document, print and paste where you will see them daily.
Fine motor skills
Let your child trace the outlines of a pair of shoes onto newspaper to make about 10 footprint shapes. Help him to cut these out to use in this week’s gross motor skills activity. Make sure you have both left and right feet and talk left and right (laterality).
Gross motor skills-foot-eye co-ordination, balance, laterality
Place the footprints you cut form newspaper on the floor and let your child walk on them. When she steps with her right foot, she must swing her left arm forward and turn her head to the right and vice versa. Vary the distance between the footsteps to make it more fun!
Visual perception –shape perception, shape constancy
If you don’t have a loose mat in your home, use a piece of wool to create a large rectangle shape on the floor. Your child must first walk along the edges of the shape and then crawl around the shape. Encourage her to make sharp turns at the corners of the rectangle. Ask her to jump from side to side over the rectangle. Talk about the two long sides and the two short sides. Both of you (or two children) lie down on the floor together and use your bodies to create a rectangle shape.
Auditory perception – auditory discrimination & conceptualising
Choose five objects from around the house that will each make a different sound when dropped onto a hard surface like a counter or table top e.g. a teaspoon, a wooden block, a plastic cup, a book, a pair of scissors. Show them to your child and then let her turn her back towards you and listen carefully as you drop each item in turn. She must try and tell you which item was dropped after each time.
Mathematical skills - numerical conceptualizing, counting skills
Teach your child to count to ten or higher if she can. Let your child count real objects. On average, a four year old will be able to count to ten, although she may only comprehend the numbers under five. Remember, not every child develops at the same rate.
Faith building
Establish a time when you will read to a Bible story to your child each day. Explain to your child that these stories really happened, they are not made up and that we can learn lessons about life from them.
If you are not Christian, then skip or substitute this activity with an appropriate activity, according to your faith.
7. Article of the Month
So as not to make this e-zine too long, since I know that we are all busy people, only once a month I will include an article to encourge or challenge.This one is to challenge. I hope it will not offend anyone - my heart is for the children to have what I believe is best..and to help make this possible for moms!
This article is already posted on my website under Homeschool Help
The Best Mother, the Best Preschool
As long as a child is young enough to need mothering, she needs her mom.
“How would you feel about taking home a different child every night?...Well, if you don’t want any child but your own, why should he or she want any mother but you?” Mary Pride, The Way Home
If daycare is better for children than staying home with Mommy, this means that total strangers make better parents than the child's natural parents.
The humanistic, hedonistic and materialistic society in which we live today repeatedly broadcasts the messages that women need to find fulfillment and financial independence in the workplace and that paid caregivers make better ‘parents’ than a child’s own mother.
‘They’ also tell us that our babies need to become independent and that they need the stimulation of being with their age-mates or they will be lacking in social skills. However, the evidence continues to pile up that the role a mother plays in the life of her child during the first years of life has a crucial, lasting effect on her intelligence.
Consider the following media snippets:
Mothers May Have to Weigh Job VS Tot IQ
Joan Beck, Chicago Tribune, 11 April, 1978
…Newest bits of evidence linking a young child’s intelligence with the quality of mothering and the amount of mental stimulation in the home comes from the Journal of Educational of Psychology …Most important elements include the mother’s involvement with the child, the verbal and emotional responsiveness of the mother and the provision of appropriate materials, this research shows. Also important are opportunities for variety in daily routines, the avoidance of restrictions and punishment, and the organization of learning opportunities in the home. These finding on the effects of early learning and mothering back up other continuing studies on babies and toddlers at Harvard and elsewhere. All show consistently that intelligence, competence and creativity develop best when a young child has plenty of stimulating things to do and a mother nearby to keep feeding him appropriate words almost continually.
Research Indicates Adverse Effects of Daycare, Preschool
Jim Brown, Agape Press, November 14, 2005
Two new studies indicate parents might want to reconsider sending their children to daycare or preschool. In one study, Stanford University and University of California researchers found that children who spend more than six hours a day in center-based care outside the home showed poor social skills. According to the researchers, the children in the investigation showed "diminished levels of cooperation, sharing, motivated engagement in classroom tasks, and greater aggression.
And in another study, this one conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a researcher found that kids who spent long hours in daycare and preschool exhibited "poorer work habits and poorer social skills through third grade." These children, according to the study, tended more than others to have trouble concentrating and completing their school work.
The Universal Preschool reports:
“Children who have been in extended daycare and preschool programs have:
In fact, Mary Eberstadt, research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, offers hard evidence of this phenomenon in her book, Home Alone America, and warns that institutionalizing young children can damage them psychologically, emotionally, socially and physically. That damage to children extends to the society at large."
( www.universalpreschool.com)
Who is Best? A Day Mother or You?
The Bible tells us that “God sets the lonely in families.” Psalm 68:8.
As long as a child is young enough to need mothering, she needs her mother.
“Even the best, most humane and personalized day-care environment cannot compensate for the feeling of rejection which the young child unconsciously senses when he is unnecessarily sent away from home for care by others.” Martin Engel, former director of the US National Demonstration Center for Early Childhood Education (DCE) in Washington, D.C.
Dr Jack Raskins, psychiatrist at the University of Washington, Seattle says: “The key is the child’s close, unbroken attachment in the early months is to the people who care for him. Too much disruption of this imbeds in the personality traits that can be disruptive for a lifetime. People are hyped up over adolescent drug abuse, pregnancies, suicide and the cults children join. But the same roots underlie them all. The roots are depression and emotional deprivation. These are laid down in the personality in the early months of life. They grow out of poor attachments and inadequate affection and contact for the child in the first months. Attachment to the people who love him and who respond to his needs is nothing less than the foundation of the child’s personality.”
Ann Robinson, a mother, pastor’s wife and author of Mother’s Teach Your Babies and Toddlers the Bible (aka Babies Bible Class) writes: “The statistics on teenage suicide, depression, drug and alcohol abuse, pregnancies and promiscuity tell a sad tale about the lack of that desperately needed emotional bond.
Experts agree that as much as 85% of a child’s character traits or personality is developed by the age of five. At the age of about two, when a child’s will becomes assertive, it is crucial that it be shaped by continually teaching obedience, submission to authority, control of temper tantrums, sharing of toys, love and forgiveness, resolving conflicts and developing sensitivity to others.
The way a child is raised in the early years accounts for at least twenty points of his IQ. Emotional stability from loving secure relationships related directly to intellectual capabilities.”
Would mothers of very young children be willing to work full time outside the home if they knew it could lower their youngsters’ intelligence measurably?
Tim la Haye, says in his book The Battle for the Family: “I predict that this trend will produce millions of future adults who have problems with self-image, emotional security, depression, and hostility – a high price to pay for working, unless it is absolutely necessary.”
To go back to the opening question: Should your child have any other mother but you?
I hope by now, you will have agreed that staying at home with you, rather than attending preschool or daycare is the best option for your child, now what about YOU?
Stay-at-Home-Mom?
- Does staying at home seem like a hard decision to make?
- Are you afraid of losing part of your identity, your salary, your independence, your second car or having to move to a cheaper neighbourhood?
- Does staying at home sound boring and less stimulating than an outside career?
- Do you fear you won’t have the patience required to be with your child/ren all day? (Do you really think that an overworked and underpaid caregiver will be more patient and loving than you?)
- Is the potential damage to your child’s self-image and emotional development worth it? And what about the guilt you will carry now that you know the effects of a mom’s career on a child?
- Or, in your mind, does SAHM still spell SLAVE and does JOB spell FREEDOM?
“Feminists have foolishly claimed that woman’s role as a homeworker is the result of male patriarchal bias. The opposite is true. Non-Christian male patriarchal societies have always enslaved women outside the home.” Mary Pride, The Way Home
I know that many married women say they HAVE to work, but do they really? I think many just can’t stand picturing themselves as ‘just a mom’ with no other job description, no paycheck, no independence, no economic or social status and very little respect from society in general. Motherhood is hardly considered a glamorous career, yet it is a highly challenging and rewarding vocation.
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." Sir Winston Churchill
“We must wake up and look ten or twenty years into the future. What will we wish then that we had done today? Many mothers over forty hanker for another baby – because their nest emptied too soon. They experience regrets for letting years with their children pass by without savouring them to the full.” Ann Robinson, Mother’s Teach Your Babies and Toddlers the Bible.
The Bible has the ideal option. Titus 2:4-5 says that younger women are “to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home…” It is not a question of whether wives work, but where we work!
Once you enter the season of motherhood, you become a teacher. This is one of your primary tasks and God has chosen you to be the mother for your little one. You are the right instructor for your child. Even though you may feel inexperienced in this field and ill-equipped, God has chosen you to be your child’s parent, teacher and life-coach. As you take on this role, you will soon realise that you also need to take on the role of student.
You are an amateur parent and so you need to learn as much as you can about what you are required to do in this season of life. Not only do you need to learn about early childhood development and education, but you also need on-the-job training in patience, compassion gentleness, kindness and don’t forget self-control!
Like many other stay-at-home-moms, you are bound to find studying this relevant and much needed subject matter stimulating, rewarding and beneficial to both your and your child/ren.
The information, THE WHOLE CHILD weekly e-zine and other resources on MY website are intended to help you and equip you for this high calling.
It goes without saying that a SAHM is also a Work-at-Home-Mom (WAHM) in charge of home management. Most job-holding wives are too, only they do it part-time, after hours.
I have Good News. There is more to staying at home than just doing laundry and scrubbing bathrooms! There is a way that you can be a full time mom without sacrificing your self-worth, your need for mental stimulation and your need for fulfillment, but this Work-at-Home-Mom (WAHM) option also needs careful consideration as it is also presents a cost to you and your family. The pro’s and con’s must be weighed.
You could start a home-based business. With the birth of the internet, this option is becoming easier and easier and it presents some exciting options for a creative and determined woman wishing to contribute to the family finances and to use her gifts and talents. BUT, first you need to decide to do what is best for your child, no matter the cost.
Will you be your child’s daymother, as well as her night-time Mommy?
Henry Ward Beecher said: “The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.”
So where is your heart?