October 24th, 2008 What type of play do you encourage? Posted by Melitsa in Articles, Good reads, Thought of the week

Convergent or divergent toys? Which do you regularly choose for your tot?

And what are all those expensive educational toys like on the market today? Most are convergent in nature; they usually look for a single, correct answer to a problem because they are busy teaching skills. Yet the research…suggests that [one] group was not only more creative in their problem solving but showed more perseverance and enthusiasm. These are the the behaviours and attitudes toward problem solving we want to cultivate in our children, not a a penchant for looking for the one right answer. They’ll get enough of that at school. We want our children to know how to find the right answer when there is one, but we also want them to be able to think outside the box. Where does creativity come from? From play- good old unmonitored, unstructured free and open play.

Source: Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn–and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less
Kathy Hirsh Pasek Ph.d & Roberta Michnick Golinkoff Ph.d pg. 224

You’ll need to read Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn–and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less to find out more about the differences and compelling research evidence about convergent and divergent toys.

Let me know what you think…

What type of play do you encourage?

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Technorati Tags: play, Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn–and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less

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October 10th, 2008 5 things to take to the playground Posted by Melitsa in Articles, play activities, Seasonal play, Thought of the week

Bubbles

Alternate who has them. When you have them you’ll find other children gravitate towards you and it helps to facilitate friendships. At our local park it’s always a little windy so  we get so many more bubbles for little effort- a big bonus for the Middle guy who’s learning to blow.

 Snack + drink

Bring something nutritious to keep up their energy and head off the, ” I’m hungry! Let’s go home”. Or worse food envy from the other parents with their snacks. Keeping hydrated is so important too.

Ball or Frisbee

Something that can be shared. Kicking a ball is no fun by yourself or with your sibling…again. But having a toy can be a great way to meet new friends at the playground.

Camera

This is a tricky one. I love taking pictures. But try very hard to take them just of my kids as many parents don’t like it. I get my camera out and make a big deal of it so parents who don’t want their child in the frame will either move away or say something. That’s fine by me. Catching those smiles and pure play excitement on camera is the best.

And one for the parents…………. your attention.

Catching up on email, voicemail, calling back folks and generally multitasking any of those things mean you are not 100% present.Going to the park has become to some like sitting the kids infront of TV , a way to get things done. Although this is a better solution than TV, it’s no fun having your parent there but not, head down typing.Nor is it fun hearing kids yelling constantly to get parents attention..

Plan more trips to the playground without the phone or laptop than with.

Join in and run around with your child like this family. Playgrounds are a lot of fun for both of you to connect with laughter and strong memories.

………forgot my camera as Big guy made it across the Monkey bars for the first time. I wish I had captured that expression of absolute surprise, delight and triumph. The inspiration for this post.

*What must haves do you swear by to take to the playground? *

** Don’t forget what you can win in the celebration contest open until Wednesday 29 Oct 2008. **

Other great playground posts

Pinpoint public playgrounds along your road trip route

Save grungy socks for indoor playgrounds

Upper playgrounds

Playground at Kew Gardens, London

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Technorati Tags: Bubbles, friendships, park, playground, play, TV, Monkey bars

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July 15th, 2008 Playing with Granny Posted by Melitsa in Articles, play activities

My children will be lucky enough to have their granny here to stay for an extended stay this year. We don’t live near either set of grand parents so it’s always a great cause for celebration when we can visit either set or they visit us.

Granny plays with the kids in a different way than I do and similar ways too. It’s great to see another way of doing things with the same old stuff we have here. She has all these ideas to try and gets right into the play. She’ s much better at distracting the toddler and redirecting the big guy who’s developed a huge appetite for bingo and snakes and ladders.

Since she’s retired she’s able to spend an extended time here but she’s away from husband, home and her normal everyday life. Grannies really are special.

Then I read this report
Grannies fight back: Let me be a grandmother, not an unpaid childminder and wondered if as a generation we take too much of an advantage of them.
Our Granny is fit and well enough to come stay and play when the rest of us are flagging. She can whip up a great meal from the measly contents of the cupboard in minutes and still remember songs I’ve forgotten from my childhood. She has this never ending patience that we, mum and dad, run out of come the evening but never slows like recently helping both kids plant out a garden.

For more ideas about planning a garden with kids listen to this great podcast from my friend Cara of the Household Helper.

The boys are loving her here.

So am I.
The big difference between us and this article is distance. We can’t take advantage of her even if we’d wish to as we live on different continents. I totally see the catch 22 of families that work outside the home and needing to rely more on Grandparents.

Although sometimes grandparents seem to get the raw end of the stick with children dumped on them- because there’s no one else etc they are great resource……..well, usually, for the family.

The big guy has 100 questions it seems for her everyday about her house, job, garden, weather, what’s Grandad doing? etc
The play they have between them is different. The cuddles they share special. The things they allow them to do…..sometimes scary but totally safe.

Whilst they are often seen as just a childminding service- sometimes we have to encourage them and remind ourselves to just let them be Granny.

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July 8th, 2008 Letter scavenger hunt Posted by Melitsa in Articles, play activities, Education, Homemade

Once your child starts having print awareness try this fun game. It combines movement, creativity and concentration.

We generally use our names to play but other familiar words work just as well. With Kindergarten starting tomorrow for the big guy I felt it was appropriate to use the word “School”.

This form of pretend play is exciting as it encourages them to see ordinary objects in different ways. They get to appreciate the straight parts and curvy parts of letters when they try to reproduce them.

How to play

1. Write out a familiar word on a piece of paper.
2. Sound it out, look at the letters, let the child guess, allow your child to choose are all options if you wish to extend the activity.
3. What’s the first letter? “S”
4. Can you find me something from( around the house, this room, the kitchen, toy chest etc) that could make this letter? You may need to encourage them or even show this one yourself.
5. Continue for all letters.
6. Encourage your child to check the letter order and make sure it really does spell what you expected.
7. Take a picture of the end result.

Ways to extend the game

• by making the letters lower or upper case.
• introducing a time limit for each letter. ( 10 mins or more)
• reducing the scavenger hunt to just the garden or two rooms.
• adding more words
• using the same material ( string, spaghetti, scarf, playdoh, etc) to make the entire word.
• limiting the word size to the common 2 letter or 3 letter words only.

Why we like it

• Expends a lot of energy running around the house getting in that gross motor movement trying to find the items.
• Great rainy day activity.
• increases alphabet awareness.
• encourages creativity by looking at one thing that can be used as another thing.
• Focus is on a letter at a time and skills of discrimination, ( That won’t work!) trial and error( maybe if I try this for the bendy bit- no! that’ doesn’t fit right)
• Fabulous for heavily pregnant mum who needs to sit down a little more than usual
• Another activity to try to add to the arsenal of tracing and copying letters
• The significance of the word usually means they are happier to do this than the rote book/worksheet.
• It’s fun to compare different photographs of the words.
• your children will start to see letters in things like clouds, notice them drawn on the pavement, patterns in the grass etc.

Some children are naturally creative and some can’t see beyond the concrete. This activity is great to encourage creative play in your child by giving them something familiar ( a letter) and getting them to reproduce it in a visual way that anyone will recognise. We don’t have to say is it right or really critisze you can just show them the original you wrote and ask them to compare it.

Does it look the same?

How can we change it?

Do you need some help? I

have an idea can I show you?

What would happen if you moved this part down?

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Technorati Tags: movement, play, Kindergarten, pretend play, letters, scavenger hunt, rainy day activity, alphabet

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