PRETEND

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Pretending fosters:

• social skill development
• vocabulary development
• differentiation between reality and fantasy
• emotional support
• understanding sequence of events

"Have a dress-up box with costumes and props. Save empty boxes or cardboard containers that can become forts, binoculars, or doll houses. And when you can, play WITH your child and enter into their world of imagination. There’s nothing quite being like a kid again – even if it’s just for a little while!" -Theresa Case

You can also help teach values like compassion, respect and sharing to children as you play imaginatively with them. They listen more because it feels like a game!

I am an artist: this is my movement picture

 The best way for your child to learn is through the kind of integration represented by this activity. In this one activity there was an integration of movement, music listening and art (symbolic drawings). Drawings and paintings communicate your child’s thinking and often display early attempts to create symbols, a step toward literacy. This weeks family activity #8 continues this experience by suggesting other movement verbs and other fun art projects. 

Choose a movement word to draw on a 3x5 (or larger card) One nice thing about drawing a verb is that there is no "right or wrong" way to draw it. The child can draw how it feels to them and it will be completely accurate. Write the word on top of the drawing and the child will begin to associate the written word with the movement. When you have a few made, break out your CD and choose a card and get moving!

“A profound connection exists beween experience and ability in drawing and interest in and ability to write. Drawings and paintings not only communicate children’s thinking (when they reach the level of drawing that is representative of the enviornment) but also often display early attempts to create symbols. Some of these symbols may be recognized by adults, but others seem to be unique and represent the world in the child’s own way. Children often want to talk about their work and create stories to accompany graphics (Kane 1982)” Early childhood Experiences in lanugage Arts: Emerging Literacy, by Jeanne M Machado, p 347

Got a rock in my pocket...

In class we pretended to find many different kinds of nature treasures, rocks, feathers, bark and acorns as we sang In My Pocket. This pretend play activity begins with a familiar activity-finding something. Each time the song is sung, the words are changes to reflect the pretend findings of the children. In this social setting of pretend play the children’s interactions are heightened through actions and language. 

Imitation is the first stage of pretend play. As a child imitates activities that may be common life experiences, pretend play starts to emerge. Watch your child as they play. Do they put their stuffed animals in time out for hitting? Do they remind them to say please and thank you. You may find them recreating a recent interaction you had with them, positive or negative. Pretending about and recreating a real life experience helps them to process and learn from real life. 

When two or more children are engaged in pretend play the social interaction is usually characterized by a heightened use of action and language. tHe play activity can become more complex as children reexamine life experiences and add to or change the play experience. 

Patterns

Researchers have found a definite connection between music, patterns, and mathematics; patterns can be heard as well as seen-Grasshopper Park Medley is a wonderful example.
 

This week in Family Activity #4 you will be challenged to find patterns. You might be interested to know that researchers have found that there is a definite connection between music, patterns and mathematics. Our understanding of mathematical concepts can be strengthened through activities that encourage finding and indentifying all kinds of patterns. In fact, some mathematicians have even defined mathematics as the study of the patterns of numbers in space.” “Have you and your child ever noticed patterns in a piece of fabric, in the design of a flower or in the landscape of a field or yard? Patterns can be heard as well as seen. As you and your child listen to the Grasshopper Park Medley on your At Home CD, try to find the music pattern.

Finding your singing voice

Climbing uuuuuuuuuup!

Young children often cannot distinguish between their speaking and singing voices and thus sing in a kind of speaking drone. Children should be encouraged from a young age to explore the upper, or head voice, and to employ their voice for singing tasks as much as possible. One great way to help a child find their signing voice is by practicing using their voice to make a glissando sound. Glissando means a continuous sliding movement from one pitch to another. This extends the pitch range of both singing and speaking voice, developing expressive qualities of the voice

Explore glissando sounds at home and make a recording of different glissando sounds, including family, friends and/or neighbors. Try to include the glissando sound of the Kindermusik Slide Whistle in your recording. The park is the perfect place to practice glissando sounds  as you go uuuuuuuup and dooooooooown on the see saw  and climb uuuuuuuuuup and then slide dooooooown.  What other activities lend themselves to glissando?

Laughter

Laughter increases white blood cell activity and changes the chemical balance of the blood. This is believed to boost the body’s production of chemicals needed for alertness and memory. Laughter reduces stress and low stress enhances the brain’s receptivity to learning. According to researchers, laughing also boosts the body’s immune system for three days. The day of and the next two.

Who knew a box of Kleenex could be so fun!

Attention All Senses!

Permanent Learning: Brain research shows us that the more you child can experience activity through all his sense and across all learning domains, the stronger and more permanent will be his learning.

You can talk about weather and storms but experiencing the "perfect storm" will be an experience they will remember. In the bathtub squirt some shaving foam on the wall or the side of the tub, feel it's texture and lightness. Now chant "Wild Storm" and create the story just like in the chant. When you're done just turn on the water and take a bath!

Just a swingin'

Your toddler may not allow you to rock them much anymore but most everything you do with them at a playground stimulates their vestibular system. Swinging, spinning on a merry go round and going down twisty slides is not only good exercise for their bodies but their brains too. 

"While in motion the brain acts like a flight simulator, constantly inventing, moving mental models to project on a changing world. This synthesis of proprioception, timing and sequencing, and kinesthetics is an extraordinary mentally complex operation and it builds thinking skills."

{Arts with the Brain in Mind by Eric Jensen}

Filling in the Blanks

Your preschooler probably asks lots of questions and you may get tired of constantly answering them. If you are feeling like these question and answer sessions are a waste of time, think again. Watch your child closely and you may see this information coming out as they make up stories or substitute different words in a familiar song.

Your child is using this information to make sense of the world and their immediate surroundings. Watch them during play time, is their dog getting a time out for hitting others? Are they explaining to their baby brother why the sky is blue? 

Here's one way you can encourage this kind of thinking and information processing:

Build a "Where Box"

Take any kind of box (the closer to square the better) and put a picture on each side of a place in or around your house. Once that's done pick an activity (you could put different activities on another box and roll it or just pick one out of the blue), let's say making a sandwich. Now roll the where box... the garage! Go to the garage and pretend to make a sandwich. Your child will laugh at the absurdity of it. They know you don't make sandwiches in the garage... out there you might have to have a bicycle tire and greasy rag sandwich. Now pick another activity and roll the Where box... you get the idea.

By singing a song and allowing your child to fill in the blanks, you are developing their sense of inner hearing as related to pitch and melody. Singing a song in your mind is akin to thinking a story or making a plan without speaking out loud. Remembering the sequence adds an additional level of complexity. It is a necessary life skill.

Just singing in the rain!

Today was beautiful and sunny outside...

but inside our classroom we put on our homemade rain hats

lunch bag rain boots and splashed in the hoop mud puddles!

Imagine That!

Rain Dance

Just for the record, we're not actually trying to make it rain 

and cannot be held responsible for an precipitation that may or may not fall.

Make a pretend rain hat this week.

It can be made out of fabric, paper, a disposable bowl

whatever you have one hand.

It can be practical, imaginative, funny or whatever floats your boat.

Will it tie under the chin, fit tightly on the head?

Will it be see through or covered with buttons, glitter, paint?

Will it make noise when you dance in it?

Let it reflect your own likes and personality.

As your child listens to the pitter patter of rain drops or jump in puddles they are learning about the rhythms found in the sounds of nature as they explore their environment.

"Creativity in movement is an important key experience because it gives children opportunities for individual expression. Children learn more about themselves and their environment..."

{Round the Circle by Phyllis S. Weikart}

I can hear the rain

We have been playing a lot with staccato/rain sounds.

 

We drew musical raindrops on the chalkboard wall while singing:

drip drip drip drop, drip drip drip drip drop

and pitter patter pitter patter I can hear the rain...

I managed to get one video of the earlier class playing their homemade rain shakers:

 

With any luck I will get a video of the other class with their rain hats next week...

Cock a doodle doooo!

 {picture credit}

Did you know that animal sounds are different all over the world?

Well - not the way the animals make the sounds but they way different cultures interpret and express them?

Here are some sounds of a Rooster (crowing)

• Danish: kykyliky
• Dutch: kukeleku
• Finnish: kukko kiekuu
• French: cocorico
• German: kikeriki
• Greek: kikiriku/kikiriki
• Hebrew: coo-koo-ri-koo
• Hungarian: kukuriku
• Italian: chicchirichi
• Japanese: ko-ke-kok-ko-o
• Portuguese: cucurucu
• Russian: kukareku
• Swedish: kuckeliku
• Turkish: kuk-kurri-kuuu
• Urdu: kuklooku

Try them all and then ask your child which one is the closest to the one we sing in "Morning Sun Has Risen"?

 Playing with sounds of words, experimenting with consonant and vowel placement are important foundations for phonological awareness. Learning to recognize, differentiate and reorganize sounds is a prerequisite for learning to read.

You can find the rooster sounds here along with other animal noises.