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!

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CONTENTS

1. Hello from Shirley
2. Updates at Shirley's Preschool Activities
3. If I can, YOU can too!
4. Tips
5. Quotes
6. Readiness Activities
7. Article - Get your child hooked on books!

1. Hello from Shirley

Hi

Just recently I pulled out a little booklet from my bookshelf that was written by a school librarian and teacher of over 25 years, who is now still an 'expert' in international literary circles.

Jay Heale's book titled Hooked on Books is treasure trove of good ideas for parents and it has inspired me to encourage you to get your kiddies hooked on books from a young age. If books are fun, then learning will be too!

This issue aims to get you started on a literary lifetime learning adventure.

If you are not receiving this email in html format or you find white gaps where there should be images, then use this link for a much more colorful and easier-to-read version!

2. Updates at Shirley's Preschool Activities

Perhaps this is a time to use the

Free Printable Bookmark

or consider some of these other easy home-made gift ideas

3. If I can, YOU can too!

Until late last year, all I was skilled at on the computer was using the word processor and email. I still can't even use a spreadsheet program BUT look at me NOW! I have built a website all alone and I publish a weekly ezine which gets sent to multiple subscribers at the click of a button.

The package I use, Site Build It takes care of all the technical stuff. I just share what I love and YOU CAN TOO!

If you already own a website, you should consider subscribing to Google’s Adsense program too.

You can learn more here:

4. Tips

Make your bookshelf and inviting place by giving it a vibrant coat of paint. Perhaps let your child choose the paint or help you with the job.
Alternatively, choose black paint so that the books glow with colour on the dark shelves.

5. Quote

Jay Heale

6. Readiness Activities

Would you prefer it if I created a pdf document with a few weeks' activities in one file that you can download and print? Hit reply and say YES if you think so.

Gross motor skills

Let your child climb inside a pillow case. Holding it up with her hands and with her feet in the corners she must take small steps forward. To make it interesting if she finds this easy, place obstacles in her path or ask her to jump forward with both feet together.

Fine motor skills

Encourage your child to draw pictures of whatever she chooses. By now she is at the pre-schematic stage. She will combine different shapes such as lines and circles to represent things.

Visual perception

1. Continue with the color scrap book that you began previously. Encourage your child to cut out different shades and tones from magazines and paste them on the correct color page in her book.

2. Play the hop-scotch-shape game my kids invented this week-end. Using chalk, draw different shapes on the ground at random, a leap apart. Number them in sequence. Your child must name the different shapes as she leaps back and forth from one to the next. Begin with known shapes, like circle, square, triangle, then add a rectangle, oval, hexagon, heart, house, octagon, diamond, star etc. Have fun.

Auditory perception

This game is for multiple players. Blindfold one person. The others must each make a sound. The blindfolded player must name the sound and say who made it. You can whisper, sneeze, cough, giggle, growl, squeek, singing, barking etc.

Language and thinking

Read a book together in which the emotions of the characters are clearly depicted. After reading the story, page through the book again and talk about expressions. Develop vocabulary to describe feelings like sad, scared, happy, glad, shocked, worried, sleepy etc. Encourage your child to use new vocabulary in her conversation.

Some suggestions: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
Books by Richard Scarry
Madeline

Faith building

Honour your father and your mother. The Bible commands children to honour and obey their parents. As parents we know that this is for their own good, but as children ourselves, do we as adults set the example, by honoring our own parents?

I am not suggesting that you should still obey your parents, but by your actions and your tone of voice, when speaking of them, you should show respect - no matter what kind of people they are or were. Your children will learn to honor you by the example that you set for them.

If you are too busy to visit, phone or write to your parents or in-laws, the chances are that the same will happen to you …so this activity is for you and your child – pick up the phone, write an email or let her draw a picture to send to her grandparents. Build family relationships. If your parents have passed on perhaps you could befriend some other older person.

7. Article

Get your kids hooked on books

The ability to read is an essential skill for learning, and if a child loves reading, she will become more skilled at it. This lifeskill will give her an advantage: She will gain not only knowledge, but also pleasure from the literature that she is able to read.

The converse is also true. A child who struggles to read, will struggle with conventional forms of learning and will always be frustrated when required to read. This could lead to all sorts of related problems which in turn may affect the child's self esteem and behaviour patterns.

Of course you want to prevent that scenario, so where and when should a parent begin to teach their child learn to read?

Reading with children - babies and toddlers

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." (Emilie Buchwald)

As soon as your baby is old enough to sit on your lap and read a book with you, you should begin getting her hooked on books! At this age children are learning all sorts of things at an amazing rate and so you can use this time of sharing books with your child to create a great first impression, which will never be erased!

Even before she can speak, your little one can learn that reading is a time to cuddle up on your lap and spend precious moments together with you having fun and exploring the images in the books you share.

"You are not reading a book to a child; You are sharing a book with a child."(Jay Heale)

Babies learn by experience, so let reading become a touching, feeling, looking and listening experience for your child. Obviously, you dont want your prize books to undergo the taste-test or get ripped apart, so keep them for use under supervision, but do let your child play freely with board books, cloth books and plastic bath books.

As she grows older, she will realise that these things get paged from one side to another, that the images have to be the right-way up and that recognizable objects can be represented by two-dimensional images on a page. She may still be far from the maturity required to read, but she is already developing essential pre-reading skills!

Your little tot will learn about reading even faster if she has good role models. If she sees you or other family members enjoying books, she will soon copy you when you sit down with one of those booky things! However, remember that initially a book will be just another thing to your child, so expect some damage and limit her contact with books to the sorts mentioned above, but do begin to teach her to handle them carefully and praise her for her efforts.

Some types of books to explore together:
Family photo albums and books with real photographs such as those published by Dorling Kindersley.
Touch and feel books that have parts that are textured or scented.
Pop-up books that require manipulating flaps and moveable parts
Squeaky books and books with holes in the cardboard pages The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a lovely, holey book!

It's an exciting moment when your child recognizes and names a picture in a book for the first time! Her cognitive and linguistic skills have reached the point when she can begin to play naming games. This is not only fun with books, but she has learnt that images in books convey meaning.

There are plenty of books that are aimed at just this naming stage animal books, books about food, transport, alphabet picture books, babys first picture book, etc.

As your child's linguistic ability grows, begin to talk about the actions and events in the story books you read. Ask questions like What is (the character) doing? Where is she going? and What do you think is *going* to happen? etc.

Experts say that until the age of about 7 or 8 years, that many children struggle to differentiate between fantasy and reality, between true stories and fiction, so choose the books you read to your children carefully. I prefer to avoid traditional childrens fairytales with their supernatural or super-evil characters at this stage! Later when the children are older and able to discern between fiction and reality, they may be acquainted with this genre of our literary culture.

In fact, at age 5, one of my children asked me to stop reading The Wizard of Oz as he did not like the parts about the wicked witches. He found it too scary!

From a young age, you should regularly read nursery rhymes and poetry to your children. Poems and rhyming verse will help to develop your childs listening skills as words are used to paint pictures. There are many other Benefits of Nursery Rhymes.

As you and your child share more and more books and as your child matures, she will start to learn that you read a book from front to back, that you read the black and white thingies that are printed on the pages, that you read from top to bottom and from left to right, that the printing is words and that the words convey pictures and meaning. They will also learn that stories have characters, action, a plot, a beginning, middle and an ending.

By now your child should already be falling in love with and getting hooked on books!

Reading with children - Preschoolers

As your children mature you will be able to share books with more complex story lines. Picture books will still be favourites, but they will also enjoy appropriate chapter books that you read aloud. Busy books those books with pictures filled with dozens of characters and objects are also fun to encourage the children to talk about as are text free books, which require you or your child to make up the words and tell the story yourself.

Since your childs concentration span will be increasing, she may also enjoy listening to stories on tape, especially when traveling in the car.

By now, your child may begin to recognise letters and numbers and you may be tempted to begin teaching her to read. Some children have been known to read as early as age 4, but these are the exceptions. Before you rush to give your child what you think is an advantage, be sure to read Better Late Than Early or at least my article based on their research and my own, Dont Start to Early http://www.shirleys-preschool-activities.com/worksheets.html!

And at the risk of self-promotion, read the review of my preschool teaching manual, ABC Fun & 1-2-3 which will give age-appropriate learning activities that you can do with preschoolers to prepare them for learning to read. (It will soon be available in e-book format. Email me for more info.)

Picture books that my children have loved to read over and over:
Richard Scarry books
Kalinzu and the Oxpeckers
How it was with Dooms
The Story of Ping
Mama, Papa and Baby Joe
Fly, Eagle, Fly!

Chapter books

Grandmas Attic
Granny Hans Breakfast
Twenty and Ten
Mr Poppers Penguins

Search for them on Amazon or Kalahari, by using the links below:

Children that are Ready to Learn to Read

"Kids need to see their parents reading, and they need to be read to themselves as early as possible. Young school-aged children benefit from responsive reading of stories with their parents. Such literacy-nurturing activities have been shown repeatedly to foster optimal language development." (Mel Levine, A Mind at a Time, p 148)

There are probably plenty of websites or books available claiming to be able to test or tell you when your child is ready to learn to read, but if you have been sharing books with your child since babyhood, she has already been learning to read for a long time.

As a mom I have noticed that my children are ready to learn formal reading when they themselves begin to show an interest in deciphering the letters they see around them or show an interest in writing. Usually one of the first words a child learns to read and write is her own name and this seems to me a more logical place to begin than at the beginning of the alphabet. This is why the first words in my manual ABC Fun and 1-2-3 are "Dont start at the beginning!"

Once your child has become familiar with the alphabet and the sounds that letters make (rather than the names of the letters) she will be ready for more formalized phonics. A great resource for parents is Ruth Beechicks The three R's.

Even when your child has learnt to read alone, you should continue to read aloud together. Not only does this enhance family relationships as you have a store of shared memories and stories read together, but reading aloud at any age also results in the following benefits:

(These were written by a homeschooling dad and educational expert Leendert van Oostrum of the Pestalozzi Trust, the South African Homeschool Legal Defence Association in an email communication I would like to add that reading GOOD literature (of the kind you present in your programmes ) to children does much more than that:

"a) It teaches them to focus and develops concentration.

b) It develops auditory perception - to hear what is said.

c) It builds their vocabulary. Almost all writers will use words that your family and friends do not. We have found that this helps a great deal when the children start reading - they read familiar words with much greater ease than strange ones.

d)It develops their grammar, in similar manner.

e) It gives them ideas to think about. Ideas are what the mind eats - "mind food", in other words.

f) Due to the above, it develops their cognitive ability (i.e. it improves their IQ) In fact, there is evidence that it actually improves brain capacity - especially if you read in more than one language.

g) It develops their imagination. Imagination is the ability to produce many scenarios from one set of facts. That is creativity. Creativity is the basis of effective problem solving. Effective problem solving is necessary for entrepreneurship and every other endeavour that can not (easily) be computerized.

h) In conjunction with narration, it teaches the ability to distinguish the important ideas in a text from the less important and to place the important ideas in a logical sequence (analytic thought / logic). It teaches the ability to formulate and articulate their thoughts about those ideas (synthetic thinking / rhetoric)."

So before you reach for the remote, grab a book and get them hooked!

"For hours when children are lost in a book, you know they are in the best hands. They are wandering the riverbank or jungle, exploring Narnia or Dickens's London. Unlike television, that does their imagining for them, reading fills children's minds with faces and place they must picture for themselves. It enables them to create their own imaginary adventures, even to understand someonw better, or see things differently." Lesley Garner.