K-k-kick!!

My two-year-old niece, Charlie, just got a huge alphabet mat for her playroom. Before getting the mat, she’d learned a few letters (C for Charlie, M for Mama, etc.), but within days of having it, she became obsessed with letters and learned them all. I’d like to think it’s because she’s inherited all of her aunt’s genes and is a prodigy, but in reality, she loved learning the alphabet because it was made into a fun game for her.

Rather than drilling her on letters, which is not too much fun for most kids, her parents make the letter-learning exciting. Her mom will say: “Charlie, find the h for hop—h-h-hop.” Charlie locates the h, picks it up, and hops up and down with it in her hands, giggling the whole time. Next, it might be: “Okay, now find the k for kick—k-k-kick.” Charlie hunts down the k, pulls it from the mat, and kicks it across the room. She’ll quack like a duck when finding the q for quack. When she has to find “D for Daddy” or “J for Joey,” her very handsome newborn brother, she carries the letter to the appropriate person and gives it to him.

This fun game, that Charlie LOVES to play, is doing some pretty wonderful things for her growing brain. Letter knowledge is a hugely important pre-reading skill, for obvious reasons. And, research indicates that it’s best to teach the name and sound of a letter together. So, just the addition of the k sound in “k-k-kick” is really beneficial. The fact that she can pick up and hold the letters really helps her learn their shapes, too. In addition, kids learn best when what they are learning relates to them. So, when Charlie can associate a letter with a person, action, or object she likes, it helps her remember it.

If you’ve been struggling teaching your little one letters or are getting ready to start, give this game a shot. If you don’t have an alphabet mat, a letter puzzle or magnetic letters can serve the same purpose. The key is to make it fun and relatable. So, k-k-kick away!

Ribbit!

 

Oh, how I love books about friendship! In this adorable new one, Ribbit! by Rodrigo Folgueira, a family of frogs finds a pig sitting on a rock in the middle of its pond. When the frogs question the pig about what he might be doing in the pond, he replies, “ribbit!” The frogs don’t know what to think. Is he confused? Is he making fun of them? Did they hear him correctly?

When all the other animals hear about this pig who thinks he is a frog, they hurry to see him. They can’t believe their ears! Finally, after some laughing, shouting, and thinking, they decide to go find the wise old beetle so that he can tell them what to do.

The beetle has a hard time understanding the problem, since all of the animals are talking at once. Even so, he agrees to go with them to see the strange pig. But, when they arrive back at the pond, the pig is gone. “Maybe he just wanted to make new friends,” says the beetle. The animals feel a little sad that they hadn’t thought of that on their own.

Sure enough, in the branch of a nearby tree full of birds, was the pig. He wasn’t saying “ribbit” anymore, though. Now he was saying, “tweet!” The book ends with pig and all of the other animals up in the tree, and they’re all saying, “tweet!”

You’ll love this sweet story of friendship and reaching out to those who may seem different, and your kids will love to laugh at the silly animal sounds. It’s a win-win! J

Play with a Purpose!

 

When promoting early literacy, the five practices are key—talking, reading, writing, singing, and playing. Playing is one thing that, as parents, you are constantly doing with your children. Thank goodness, too, because that interaction is incredibly important on so many levels. Even though play of any kind is beneficial, you can target certain areas of development by playing with a purpose in mind. Here are some ideas to reinforce different early literacy skills:

Phonological Awareness (hearing the smaller sounds in words): Play rhyming games with your child. Take turns thinking up words that rhyme with a chosen word. Or, play I Spy, giving clues like, “I spy something blue that rhymes with _______.”

Vocabulary: When your baby’s playing with a toy, use descriptive words to tell her what it is, how it looks, how it feels, etc. Hearing those new words will be a huge vocabulary-booster.

Print Awareness (knowing that print is everywhere and understanding that it has meaning): When you’re engaging in pretend play, make a menu for your restaurant or make labels for items in your pretend grocery store. This will help your child understand that the written words represent something else.

Letter Knowledge: Play with blocks of various color, shape, and size, and practice categorizing them. This will help your child when she starts trying to distinguish between different letters.

Narrative Skills: Act out stories together. You can even jazz it up by adding puppets or props. This is great storytelling practice for your little one.

Print Motivation (interest in/enjoyment of books and reading): Read a book using fun, silly voices. Your child will beg for more!

These activities are not only fun, but they’ll also help your little one prepare to read. So, don’t just play—play with a purpose!

The Clever Stick

In the The Clever Stick by John Lechner, a little stick is able to think up clever things, make up poetry, and listen to the sounds of beautiful music. He has one problem, though—he can’t speak. He has so many thoughts and ideas that he wants to share with the other forest creatures, but he can’t tell them any! One day, as the stick walks up to animals, insects, and flowers in a meadow, he tries to say hello by bowing to them. Instead, he trips and falls on his face. Nobody even notices him. “The clever stick did not feel so clever anymore."

After dragging himself home, the stick notices that he left a trail in the sand. He realizes that he is able to draw lines that look like things, and so he gets busy drawing an elaborate scene in the sand. The stick is so focused on his work that he doesn’t even notice a crowd gather to watch him work. When he finishes his masterpiece, everyone cheers for the most beautiful picture they’ve ever seen. The stick is so happy to finally be able to communicate. Even the rain that comes shortly after can’t get him down. “He knew he could make another. He knew at last he had found his voice.”

Not only would this story be a great one to start a discussion about your child’s gifts and talents, but this is also a book that helps us to see the struggles of someone who has difficulty communicating, even though he may be brilliant. Hopefully this book will elicit compassion and respect for the “clever sticks” we may meet in life.

Show Me the...Talking!

Be honest, have you ever heard someone talking to an infant in that high-pitched tone of voice, the one that people often use with babies and small children, and thought: “Oh man, she has got to stop talking like that?” Well, you’re not alone; I think it crosses all of our minds at times. But, even though it can sometimes sound a little annoying to adults, according to the book Amazing Minds by Jan Faull, that high-pitched, melodic voice--called child-directed speech or parentese--is actually preferred by infants. Research has shown that parentese holds a baby’s attention longer than regular adult speech. According to Amazing Minds: “With babies, it is not so important what you say to them, but how you say it.” And, interestingly enough, a version of parentese is used all around the world, in every language. It’s really an automatic, subconscious change that we make to our voices. If you really think about it, wouldn’t it be weird to hear someone talk to a baby in a normal tone of voice?

Not only does the way we talk have an impact, but the amount that we talk does, too. I know that I’ve brought up the importance of talking a lot to your kids before, but because of its significance, I feel like I can’t stress it enough. In fact, I was watching a webinar the other day that said that 2-year-olds who have a caregiver who’s very talkative have 295 more words in their arsenal than kids their age whose caregivers don’t talk as much. Similarly, kindergarteners whose caregivers were chatty knew 1,500 more words than their peers who grew up without a big talker around! Additionally, since research has shown that children who are proficient communicators are generally successful readers, it is even clearer that the impacts of talking to your little ones are profound and abundant.

Whether or not you already do a lot of talking with your child, try making a conscious effort to do more. Your child will benefit immeasurably, and pretty soon it will become second nature for you.

Ol' Mama Squirrel

Ol’ Mama Squirrel by David Ezra Stein (author of Leaves and Interrupting Chicken) shows kids just how much their moms love them and the lengths to which a mother would go in order to protect her children.

Mama Squirrel knew that there was “no shortage of creatures that would love to snack on a baby squirrel,” but she refused to let it happen. Whenever any type of danger came near—cat, owl, dog—Mama Squirrel jumped into action. She even tried to scare away a kite that flew into the tree! The noise that she would make, “chook, chook, chook!” was so loud and frightening that a dog thought that she was crazy and said: “They must put crazy powder in the nuts around here!”

Mama squirrel was able to scare everything away until the day a grizzly bear came and climbed up her tree. She used her best “chook, chook, chook!” but it wasn’t enough to scare away the bear. So, she pelted him with nuts. Instead of running away, the bear laughed and told her that he could eat her whole family! Mama Squirrel wasn’t going to let anything happen to her kids; she didn’t back down. Instead, she enlisted the help of all of the other mama squirrels nearby, and together they scolded the bear and threw nuts at him until he ran away for good.

Kids, like the rest of us, never tire of hearing just how much they are loved. This book is a great reminder!

Vacation Envy

 

I’m not going to lie—seeing all of these kids coming into the library during Spring Break has made me a little nostalgic for all of those vacations from school when I was young. And for those who haven’t come in, I’m jealous just imagining all of the exciting (and warm!) places they might be visiting right now…

Spring Break (or any vacation/special activity) provides a new opportunity for you to practice storytelling with your child. Whether or not you went on an exotic vacation, she’ll surely have something to share about a fun activity she did during break. Try having her write a story about it. You can do this together, too. If your little one is too young to write, have her tell you her story, and you can write it out for her. Encourage her to give lots of details in chronological order, including how she felt at different points throughout the story. Afterwards, she can illustrate it. In doing this, not only will she be building her narrative skills, but she’ll also be creating a hand-made keepsake from her adventure.

If you need a little inspiration, or you just want to read a fun vacation book, check out one of my favorites, Froggy Goes to Hawaii, by Jonathan London.