Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Peter Penguin



Meet my friend Peter Penguin. He is a very picky eater and he will only eat things that begin with the sound /p/. Can you help me feed him?

Doing activities like this with your child will help them develop phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is hearing the small sounds in words. In this case, it's the /p/ sound. You can make this activity suit any sound you would like to work on with your child.

Can you think of any other animal friends who are picky eaters?

Monday, December 6, 2010

Letters to Santa


Canada Post is in its 29th year of the Santa Letter-Writing program. This offers a fantastic opportunity for you to practice writing and mailing letters with your child. Please visit the link below to find out how you can write a letter or email to Santa with your child.

http://www.canadapost.ca/dec/santa/writesanta/default-e.asp

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Holiday Baking!


Looking back to my younger days, I fondly remember the time I spent with my aunt making cookies on Sunday afternoons. Baking is an excellent activity you can do with your child to help them prepare to learn to read, among other things.

For younger children, pouring ingredients into bowls and mixing help them understand the concept of cause and effect. They learn to understand the concept of "hot" when something hot comes out of the oven.

Baking helps children learn new vocabulary. Your child can try new foods to expand their palate. Also, baking serves as a fun way to explore mathematical concepts like quantity through measuring and counting. Your child will learn about the concepts "more" and "less". They can learn to read print by matching words in recipes to words on store containers like "eggs", "baking powder", "suagr", and so on.

Bake something special with your child today. The recipe can be as simple as rice krispy squares. Spending time with your child doing something they will enjoy is something that they will remember for the rest of their lives.


Do you have a simple recipe you can share?