Spring All Around!

KinderJam hopes that Spring is bringing wonderful weather and the start of many happy warm sunny memories to you and your family.  If your region is warm and sunny or still covered in snow, here is a spring time action rhyme for you and your child to do together:

Spring straight  up 

and side to side

Close your eyes and pretend to hide.

Jump up high

Squat down low

Now spin in a circle nice and slow

Speed it up

As fast as you dare

Fall to the ground

and smell the air

Do you smell flowers? Grass and trees?

Do you see butterflies, bugs and bees?

New surprises, 

The sun will bring

Give 3 cheers

It’s time for Spring! 

(jump in the air as you say Spring)

Action rhymes are a great kinesthetic learning tool. New rhymes like this one can be found in children’s magazines like Highlights, or as  traditional nursery rhymes like Ring Around the Rosie or 1,2 Buckle My Shoe. 

Children naturally love to act things out and use their imagination.  Doing the movements in the poem will not only increase their physical strength but will also help your young child to connect the words and movements, increase vocabulary and expressive language skills.

So get out and enjoy the weather.  Keep moving and Keep Jammin’!

Celebrating Easter, Military Style

Picture found at www.sheknows.com

If your like most military families, your Easter Sunday probably looks different every year. One year, you might be stationed near extended family and spend the day celebrating in a large family gathering.  Another year, you may belong to a strong spiritual group and spend the day with them.  One time, our active duty member deployed on Easter Sunday, so we got dressed up and took pictures at the airport.  As parents, we try to create family traditions for our kids that make the day special, but it can be hard when every year brings new challenges and opportunities.

Both religious and secular people celebrate the holiday, and Easter brings different meaning to each household, much like Christmas.  However, during Christmas, many military families have leave and are allowed to travel, vacation or simply spend a few days with the family.  Because Easter falls on a Sunday, with no leave associated with it, traditional Easter activities such as traveling to see family or having a large celebration isn't always possible.

If you're having a hard time planning your Easter Sunday, here are a few things to do with your children that will make the day special, no mater where you are.

Get involved in a church community.

No matter where you are in the world, a Christian community will most likely have something planned for children on Easter.  This is a time that many people who don’t usually attend services make an effort to go to church.  Don’t worry about attending Easter celebrations if don’t already belong to a community.  Most Christian churches are happy to see new faces and will welcome you and your children.

Organize a neighborhood egg hunt.

If you live in a military neighborhood, you're not the only one who is missing family and big Easter celebrations.  Don’t be afraid to host an egg hunt or Easter picnic.  The rules are simple.  Everyone brings 15 filled eggs for every child they bring plus one pot luck dish to share.  Even if you are not close with your neighbors, you can post fliers on your street.  No need to open your house to strangers, you can plan the event to be at the local park or other common area. 

Easter Skype Dates

Thanks to modern technology, family is just a video call way! Plan to Skype with family during a morning egg hunt.  You can plan for your caller to give hints of where some special eggs are hidden, or just let them enjoy the children having fun.

Decorate your house

Use ideas found on the KinderJam Facebook page or Pintrest to decorate your house with child made decorations.  This will get your children in the spirit of celebrating.  

Visit your Library

If you are new to the area, you might not know where to look for Easter activities in your community.  Your local librarian is a wonderful resource and will direct you to local papers, groups and community activities.  

Where ever you are in the world, Easter is a time to celebrate.  Don't let frequent moves or distance from family keep you from enjoying this wonderful holiday.  Happy Easter and keep Jammin!

St. Patrick's Day Fun

Rainbows, good luck, pots of gold, the color green, What’s not to like about St. Patrick’s Day? There are plenty of things to do with children that celebrates the religious meaning of the day. Many American's celebrate today's contemporary meaning of St. Patrick's Day that focuses more on using your imagination with your kids. 

Get into the spirit! Leave Leprechaun feet around the house with green paint or by mixing flour and green glitter.  You can make small messes around the house like dropping books off the shelf or spilling sugar near the foot prints.  Make green colored food left by the little magical fellow or make a rainbow fruit tray to eat at lunch. Decorate your house in rainbows and shamrocks, go on a treasure hunting geocach (check online or create one using your backyard and a hand made map).  For more St. Patrick's Day ideas, go to www.spoonful.com, Disney's blog page. 

Traditions are a great way to model using your imagination with children. Being playful with your little one is important because according to National Association for the Education of Young Children play is not inert.  Children are born with the desire to explore and discover but play itself is observed and mimicked.  In a world where theme songs are replacing nursery rhymes and children spend hours in a daycare room with children their own age, there are less and less opportunities to observe productive play by older children or adults.

Another reason to create imaginative traditions for St. Patrick's Day and other holidays are the memories they create! Any memory that puts a smile on your child's face is worth making.   So may the wind be always at your back, the sun shine warmly upon your face and your child's giggles be forever in your ears.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

PlayDateJam: Enjoying the Wind

March is in like a lion and out like a lamb.  With the change of seasons, many of us trade our winter wear and snow shovels for windbreakers and picnic baskets.  In many parts of the world, early spring is known for it’s windy weather, perfect for playing with pinwheels, paper airplanes and flying kites.  

Of course, flying a kite is a great way to play with the wind.  You can buy a kite or make one from scratch.  If you find yourself out at the park with no kites in sight, tie the handles of a plastic bag together on a string and viola! you have instant fun. When your out playing, you can always break into song with this verse from Mary Popins:

For more windy day fun, try bubbles. Homemade or store bought, bubbles are a sure winner.  Try chasing down a herd of bubbles, blow one at a time,  or let the wind blow your bubbles for you.  Expand your bubble wand collection by bringing a variety of kitchen and playroom tools (spatula, straw, strainer, butterfly net, wire coat hanger).  Add science to the fun by forming a hypothesis about the shape of your bubbles when using different kinds of wands.

When you’re all done your day in the wind, don’t forget to take some quiet time looking at the clouds.  Windy days are great for observing changing clouds.  No clouds in the sky?  Find some small seeds to blow into the wind.  If March is still to cold where you live to go outside, you can enjoy windy days through the world of books. Check out It looked like It Looked Like Spilt Milk, and The Tiny Seed, during your next Library trip.

AurthorJam: Dr. Seuss

Each year the National Education Association hosts Read Across America week in which thousands of our nation’s schools celebrate children’s literature.  It is a week to encourage reading, create excitement for books and it culminates on Dr. Seuss’ Birthday, March 2 (or the closest school day).

Why Dr. Seuss? Out of the thousands of children’s author’s in history, why do we pick Dr. Seuss as our national icon for reading? He wasn’t the first children’s author and illustrator to create engaging stories.  So why do we single out this one author?

Because Theodor Seuss Geisel’s books changed the concept of modern children’s literature.  

Many of us have grown up with Seuss’ playful characters: The Cat in the Hat, the Lorax, the Grinch, Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Geisel carefully created each character to spread simple yet whimsically told morals.  Seuss’ books teach important and mature themes such as responsibility, standing up for what is right, protecting those who cannot protect themselves and environmental conservation to name a few. But imagine a world without colorfully written text and nonsense rhyming words.  Imagine, if instead of seeing a Wocket in your pocket you could only see Dick and Jane run.  This is the world that Theodor Geisel changed for ever.  The Dr. Seuss revolution opened the door to the engaging, imaginative and socially relevant stories we casually read to our children every night.

So celebrate reading with your family! Even if your children do not attend school, make March 2nd a tradition in your home. Here are some simple Jammin’ ideas for your new: 

Seuss   Day  Traditions

Spend a car ride, or breakfast time rhyming real and nonsense words.

Wink while you drink pink ink, aka Lemonade. (One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish)

 Check out this recipe for  Green Eggs and Ham, or just add Spinach puree to your scrambled eggs.

 Plant a tree or some grass in a homemade green house after reading the Lorax.

 Make up a Tall Tale at the breakfast table like the boy in “To think that I saw it on Mulberry Street.”

 Pretend it’s Christmas in Whoville and exchange gifts (handmade books come to mind)

 Have a family Read-A-Thon.

Go to www.suessvill.com, the official Seuss site.

 Pick 10 words from the dolche sight word list and rhyme them with nonsense words.    

      Make a Seuss-inspired family book.

Create an Oh-The-Place’s-You’ll-Go PCS dream sheet! Have each family member list where they want to move Next. 
Don’t feel the need to limit your list to real bases.  Your 

     little one might want to move to Dinkerville (Hurray For Diffedoofer Day)

Learning to Read Part 3: Reading Strategies

Reading strategies are the tools children use when reading.  The more strategies an adult can teach their reader, the more independent a child can be when reading a book.  Here are a few common strategies.

Sound it out
Phonetic awareness is only one tool a new reader can use when learning to read fluently.  It is often unreliable if your child hasn't mastered phonetic rules and acceptions used in the English language.  In order to use this tool effectively when reading with your children, it is important to know what phonetic rules your child has already learned (like silent E; When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking, Th, Sh and Ch, and so on).  Sound it out is most effective when reading a word that follows the most common phonetic rules such : C-A-T or J-U-M-P.


Picture Clues
Using illustrations to understand words is very useful and increases a child's reading comprehension and fluency.  When your child gets stuck on a word or sentence, instruct them to use a picture clue.  Because most modern children's literature is illustrated in a way that tells the story, observing the picture will give your little one a good idea of what the words say.

Rhymes or word families
Remember all that rhyming you did with your child when she was a pre reader? It's about to pay off.  If a child can recognize rhyming words, then they are also likely to visually connect word families.  Rhyming words (and word families) all end the same way.  So all words that end in -at should rhyme.  If your child can read cat, then she can read a number of English words.  Cover the beginning of the word and tell her, "This word is in the -at family."  Then cover the -at and show her the beginning of the word. "What does P say?"
Breaking down the word in this way makes it less intimidating and helps your child to connect her rhyming skills with her reading skills.

Chunking

Chunking, is vital to fluent reading.  It is the process of reading more than one word at time, or relying on prior knowledge to comprehend the text instead of understanding each word individually.  Chunking is important to beginner readers because the faster a child reads, the more he comprehends.  

The best way to help your child to chunk words is to repeat what he has read before you turn the page.  A new reader spends a lot of energy phonetically reading  and may not connect how each word makes a sentence.   

Co reading or lead reading
     A major obstacle for many beginner readers is fatigue.  Sounding out words and reading independently takes more energy than being read to and may decrease your child's enjoyment of reading time. This is simply a problem of reading fluency.  When a child hears the words being read to at a fast enough pace, the story will make sense.  If your child is intimidated by seeing a page with more than once sentence, or is just getting tired at the end of a book, you can offer to read it together.
     This strategy is called Co-reading.  The master reader should slow their reading pace to one beat above your beginner's natural pace.  Read the first few words in a sentence and listen to make sure your reader is following along.  You're reading is helping your child to chunk the words on the page, and that is helping her better understand the words being read.
   

Learning to Read Part 2: Picking books for your young reader

Image found on www.empoweringchildren.org

Now that you have identified what reading level your child is, it is time to pick some books.  Because the young mind is always growing, your child’s reading level is always changing.  It is important to model reading at least one level above what your child can read on her own.  This helps to bridge the gap between levels.

   

Of course, when reading to your children, any book of interest will do.  However, when picking a book for your emergent or beginner reader to read to you, look for the following traits: 

Simple, repetitive  sentences

     Your emergent reader just sounded out a word. Great! Now for the rest of the book.  
Many early childhood books have repetitive sentences like, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  Once your child has sounded out a word, you can point to it through out the book, "You know this word.  You read it on the other page." Or she can practice sounding it out over and over again until she knows it by sight. Beginner readers benefit from repetitive stories because the repetition helps to increase their fluency, or speed of reading.
     Prereaders enjoy the poetry of repetitive stories.  They can memorize the story and mimic reading it themselves, an important step to becoming an emergent reader.

Song Books, Prayer books and other familiar stories 

     Because your child may have already memorized the words to common songs or prayers,  she will not have to rely on sounding out every word. Reading books like, Wheels On the Bus, or The Our Father,  may help to improve your child's reading skills and confidence because they already know what words to expect.  When sounding out "round," for instance, your emergent and beginner reader may sound out the first sound, then relay on her previous knowledge of the lyrics to finish the word.
     The illustrations in these books will bring new life to songs and prayers for the pre reader. These children will also practice the mechanics of reading, such as holding the book, looking left to right, turning the pages at the right times and looking for clues in the pictures.

It is important to note that all levels of readers will benefit from both Song books and Repetitive books for different reasons. A pre-reader will be able to recite the words on the page and gain understanding through the illustrations.  The emergent reader will recite the words she already knows, and then connect that what she is saying matches the words on the page. A beginning reader will read these books with a higher fluency because she does not read each word individually, but in chunks like a master reader would.

Repetitive Sight words

     Dolche Sight words are a list of commonly seen words, categorized by grade level.  They are known as sight words because many of these common words cannot be sounded out and therefore must be memorized.  Sight words can be practiced by flash card, by games like Bingo or Memory, or by rote reciting.  Most successful reading programs incorporate a combination of phonics skills and sight word instruction to successfully teach children to read.
     Although sight words are not a factor for pre-readers,  a main difference between emergent and beginner readers are the number of sight words they recognize.  This is because the less time a reader spends sounding out individual words on a page, the more of the story she will understand.  Go Dogs Go, by P.D. Eastman, is a fantastic example of a sight word book.  The text is made almost entirely of Kindergarten level sight words, making it a wonderful way to put the flashcards and rote memorizing into practical learning.     
     Another fun activity would be to use your sight word flash cards to make sentences and then create your own book, where your child is the main character.  

When your child is done reading a book to you, reward them by reading a story to them.    Modeling fluent reading is vital for children.  Proficient readers must model fluent reading for all levels.  Even master readers may need modeling when learning new vocabulary (such as in a Biology text book or a historical character’s name).  And beyond the mechanics of learning to read, the enjoyment of books and stories begins at home.  So make reading a part of your daily schedule.