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The Whole Child, Issue #002 -- Building a habit
February 19, 2006

MAXIMISING POTENTIAL

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.

19 February 2006, Issue #002

CONTENTS

1. Hello from Shirley
2. Updates at Shirley's Preschool Activities
3. Opportunities for you
4. Tips
5. Quotes
6. Week 2 Readiness Activities

1.Hello from Shirley

I think the first issue of The Whole Child ezine went out without any hiccups, let's hope I can keep it up.

Each week so far, I have had to learn to manage new functions in the software that I am using, which for someone not very technical is a bit of a challenge - but a challenge that gives me a great sense of accomplishment once I have mastered it!

So, how did your first week of readiness activities go? I have not yet established a habit of doing them consistently each day with my 'littlies' but we are working on that!

2. Updates at Shirley's Preschool Activities

This week I have been building pages on my site that will make the free menu planner that I have written, PREPARED TO COOK available to download as an e-book.

Someone told me where to find a website that converts documents into pdf files free and I succeeded in doing that the other night. Another notch on my belt of technical accomplishments!

PREPARED TO COOK consists of 6 weeks worth of 6 main meal recipes per week, plus the corresponding shoppping list to make meal planning a breeze.

If you need it, you can read more and subscribe at Prepared to Cook

3.Opportunities for you

Last week I asked you if wouldn't like a little extra income each month and I started telling you about our story.

I told you that 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 the link above to preview this book at www.kalahari.net)

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, no longer a guarantee of security or the way to financi*al free*dom and that 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.

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 at Amazon.com.

As a homeschooling mom, I have wanted to share what I have learned in the 8 years that I have been homeschooling with others who are just starting out on the homeschooling journey. As a South African homeschool curriculum provider, I am often in contact with new homeschool parents and I wanted to find a way to be able to share with them the books I have read and other resources that have helped me to educate and parent my children.

In August 2005, changes in South African government legislation affecting business owners led Riaan and I to join Business Warriors, an online community of over 20 000 small businesses, standing together to help one another and have their voice heard. Here, besides a lot of other valuable info about crash-proofing small businesses, I learned a bit more about the importance of a website and internet marketing for any online or offline business…and my mind shifted gears...

(If you are a South African business owner, you might be interested in Crashproof Your Business by Peter Carruthers – this book is a real eye-opener!)

More next week...

4. Tips

I thought I'd give you another tip about removing bubble-gum.

To remove bubble gum from fabric

To remove gum from clothes or other fabric items, harden the gum by applying an ice cube to it. You could place the ice-cube inside a plastic bag to do this, if you don't want to wet the fabric. You should be able to scrape away the hardened gum from the fabric with a dull blade.

5. Quote

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." ~ Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

6. Readiness Activities

Copy and paste these activities into a new document, print and paste where you will see them daily.

Language and thinking – classification

Look around your home and ask your child to name as many things as he can see that are:
Made of wood
Made of fabric
Made to wear
Made to use
Give light
Give heat
Made to store things
Can be eaten etc.

Gross motor skills - balance, laterality

Let your child pretend she is walking a tight rope. Either place a piece of rope along the floor, or alternatively let her walk along a line between tiles, or the around the edge of a mat, or the joins in the concrete on the sidewalk.

As a variation, let her criss-cross her feet on either side of the line: start standing on the left of the line. Cross the left foot to the other side of the line and then cross the right foot back to the left side of the line and so on.

Visual perception & fine motor skills – colour perception, colour constancy

Create a colour-coded scrap book with your child. Make a page for each colour, by writing the name of the colour with a crayon or marker of that colour on the top of the page. Begin with the 3 primary colours, red, yellow and blue, then create a page for the secondary colours, green, orange and purple.

Let your child cut out items in shades of each colour and glue them into her colour scrap-book. Keep this book for future activities. This activity need not be completed in one day.

Mathematical skills

Play easy games that require using dice, like ludo or snakes and ladders.

Faith building

Continue reading a Bible story to your child each day. Answer any questions your child may ask as honestly as possible. If she asks something you are not sure about, then tell her that or tell her you don’t know. Children soon find out when adults are bluffing them! When asked questions like ‘where is heaven?’ tell your child that you don’t know, but that we’ll all find out when we go there!

Auditory perception

Make an effort to expose your child to good quality music with complex musical patterns. Listen to musical stories which you can buy or borrow from the library.

Here are some suggestions:

Peter and the Wolf - preview on Amazon.com

Peter and the Wolf - DVD -preview on kalahari.net

Peter and the Wolf - CD - preview on kalahari.net

Bernstein's Favorites - Classics for Children - preview on Amazon.com

This CD contains the story of Peter and the Wolf as well as The Carnival of the Animals and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

Barbie of Swanlake - DVD - preview on kalahari.net

Barbie of Swanlake - DVD - preview on Amazon.com

Barbie in the Nutcracker - DVD - preview on kalahari.net

Barbie in the Nutcracker - DVD - preview on Amazon.com

Barbie in the Nutcracker - video - preview on kalahari.net

The Sound of Music - DVD format - preview on kalahari.net