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January 31st, 2011

Improve your family dinner and family night with play activities

Posted by Melitsa in Education, language, Memes, play activities, Podcast, Thought of the week

What’s family dinner like in your home? Probably pretty busy. Anytime for play activities?

Family meal times can be a really chaotic time of day with the bewitching hour close by/ clubs and activities/ and the general hustle and bustle of preparing a meal with children underfoot. By the time we make it to the table we’re all a little frazzled. Once we start eating we try a conversation and get mixed results.

Dinner time is a great time to connect and feel that family bond. We’ve had a lot of success with Dinner games and now were extending the fun.

Extending the fun

During the meal we try the conversation starters to get to know our children. Then move onto family night activities.

At the end of each month I’ll be sharing a download full of activities to try over the month for dinner conversation and together family activities.

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Since we’re at dinner I thought I would continue the theme………………….

Appetizer: Conversation starters during dinner

4-6 questions to promote conversation with your under 5s plus space to add your own.

First course: Recommended family game or activity

Games we recommend that encourage team work, participation, conversation and appeals to various ages.

Second course: Book recommendation

These books work really well read aloud or working together as a family.

Salad course: Podcast recommendation

Podcasts for kids or parents to enjoy

Dessert: Music

Start their musical appreciation with some carefully thought out musical journeys.

Cheese course: find some excellent play activities to do for the month.

How?

Combine them in one night and have a playful family’dinnight’ or try different parts over the month.

Download January

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Happy family ‘dinnight’!

January 14th, 2011

Getting Involved With Your Child’s Bilingual Learning

Posted by Melitsa in Education, language, play activities, Thought of the week

This is a guest post co-written by Emily Patterson and Kathleen Thomas. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Traditionally a second language is taught beginning in middle school, or even high school. However research has shown that this teaching can begin at their child care facilities or at home at a young age. The best age to begin is between the early years of 2 to 5.

Studies clearly demonstrate that the optimal period in a child’s life for multilingual education is during the preschool years – at exactly the same time they are learning their first language. While it is possible to learn a second and third language later in life, it has proven to be more difficult, because that neurological “window of opportunity” – when the brain is most malleable – has passed.

Dr. Fred Genessee, Professor of Psychology at McGill University in Montreal, is an advocate of this. Saying that it’s as easy for young children to learn two or three languages as it is for them to learn one. He’s not alone; educators throughout the world (in countries that often have two or even three official languages) have understood this for decades.

Bilingual Future

One of the future trends that has become certain is the existence of a diverse, global society. Almost from the beginning, the U.S. has been a land of immigrants, and while the “melting pot” has been an interesting theory, it has not happened in practice. On the contrary, most major U.S. population centers have become more of an ethnic and linguistic checkerboard; Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and Chinese speakers represent some of the fastest-growing segments of the immigrant U.S. population. More than
ever the ability to communicate to the widest variety of people is crucial.

Getting Ready

The best way for a child to learn a second language is by actually speaking it in a total immersion environment. When they are around the culture itself and people who speak it as their natural language it is easier for them to absorb it. Being active with your child in this learning process is the best thing you can do; take them to local cultural events or have a themed night at home.

Enrollment in a preschool program that offers immersion in other languages is one way to get your child started as well. However either way you do it, at home or a preschool program, it goes without saying that a good education is one of the best ways to prepare that child for the future, and it begins at an early age.

Emily and Kathleen are Communications Coordinators for the network of Austin child care facilities belonging to the AdvancED® accredited family of Primrose child care schools. Primrose Schools are located in 16 states throughout the U.S. and are dedicated to delivering progressive, early childhood, Balanced Learning® curriculum throughout their preschools.

December 23rd, 2010

12 days of Christmas family activity

Posted by Melitsa in Education, language, play activities, pretend play, Roundups, Seasonal play, Sites to visit, Thought of the week

The popular song at Christmas is the 12 day of Christmas .From what I understand, the song was said as a round during celebrations after Christmas. Each person had to remember to add a new verse and remember what came before. If you forgot you had to do a forfeit. Sounds like a fun game!

During the long days of Christmas holiday we’re looking for a together family activity. There’s a lot of imagination at Christmas time with Santa, Christmas movies that many things seems magical to the little ones and perhaps a little far away or beyond them. They are creative too and we can encourage them by providing fun opportunities to be silly as well as use their environment.

It’s that looking at everyday things around us and playing with them in our homes and area that we want to cultivate in our children. Let them problem solve by finding things and using them/seeing them for use in other ways.

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Here is our list in no particular order of family time activities that we make sure we stop and do during the holiday time.

What books do you have that show Christmas around the world?

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