Playdough Recipes

I recently found this amazing website that offers a LARGE variety of play dough recipes. Playdough is an amazing material. Children love exploring its texture by poking, squeezing, patting, pushing, rolling, cutting, and so on. Children can develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination by playing with this interesting substance. In addition, think about all the wonderful vocabulary they can learn with proper scaffolding. They can some of the many complexities of language including prepositions like "on top", "beside", "behind", "under", or even labels for their creations like "dog", "table" or develop their understanding of familiar concepts, "What sound does a dog make?", "How many legs do we need on your chair to make it sturdy?"

Check out some playdough recipes here!

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

Fine Motor Skills (3 1/2 - 5 1/2 years)

Below is a list of developmental milestones related to fine motor skills for 3 1/2 - 5 1/2 year olds. Please see yesterday's entry if you are looking for information on younger children.

Your child from 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 years.

Typically can:
- Put large jigsaws together
- Cut with children's scissors
- Paint with a paint brush on large paper
- Manipulate clay
- Draw a person with three parts
- Fold paper

Emerging skills:
- Buttons and unbuttons buttons
- Cuts on line with scissors
- Carries cup without spilling liquid in it
- Strings small beads to make a necklace

Your child from 4 ½ to 5 ½ years.

Typically can:
- Draw a person with most parts included
- Copy, square, circle and rectangle
- Building 10 cube tower
- Do seven- to eight-piece puzzle
- Hold pencil between thumb and forefinger
- Use same hand consistently
- Draw letters and numbers
- Cut and paste
- Wash hands and face
- Dress if he or she has plenty of time
- Print name
- Feed self with little mess using fork and spoon

Emerging skills:
- Ties shoelaces and bows
- Does up buttons and fastners
- Copies triangles

SOURCE: Invest in Kids: What a chilg will be depends on you and me: A resource kit for a child's first five years

Developmental Milestones (Ages 3 Through 5)

Fine Motor Skills (birth - 3 1/2 years)

In order to be able to write, children need to develop their fine motor skills. Here is a developmental continuum which describes a predictable sequence of fine motor development.

Your child from 6 to 18 months.

Typically can:
- Place 10 cubes in a cup
- Grasp items with thumb and forefinger
- Target small objects
- Stack three to four blocks
- Turn page of a book
- Scribble
- Fill and empty containers

Emerging skills:
- Folds paper
- Attempts Simple Puzzles
- Copies simple lines drawn on paper

Your child from 1 ½ to 2 ½ years.

Typically can:
- Take lids off jars
- Fit jars and squares inside of each other
- Draw vertical line
- Build tower of five blocks
- Complete simple puzzle

Emerging skills:
- Clutches pencil with whole hand
- Holds brush and paints on paper
- Uses small scissors to cut
- Strings beads
- Imitates folding paper in half

Your child from 2 ½ to 3 ½ years.

Typically can:
- Copy a circle from a drawing
- Build a tower of nine blocks
- Place round, square and triangular blocks in a form board
- Complete easy puzzle
- Copy bridge of blocks from model

Emerging skills:
- Handles scissors and cuts out
- Copies a cross
- Pulls up a zipper but can not do buttons
- Screws lids on jars
- Carries liquids in a cup
- Puts on shoes by can not tie laces

TOMORROW: 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 years & 4 1/2 - 5 1/2 years

SOURCE: Invest In Kids: What a child will be depends on you and me: A resource kit for a child's first five years.

For activity ideas, explore the websites below.

Developing Fine Motor Skills

Activities for Fine Motor Skills

Activities to Develop Fine Motor Skills

Name printing

The most important word to your child is their name. For this reason, your child's name is a great place to start with letter recognition and eventually, printing. Recognizing and writing one's own name are not only important skills, but they are also something your child's kindergarten teacher will appreciate!

Practice doesn't have to be boring! Here are some fun suggestions on helping your child learn to print their name.

- Start by talking about the letters in your child's name. Does your child know all the letters? Make sure you talk about the sounds the letters make. ("Sarah starts with the sound Ssssss, just like snake. Can you hear it? Ssssssarah...")

- Make sure your child knows how to form the letters in their name. Talk about circles and lines in letters. Once they know how to make the letters, practice by having them make the shapes of the letters with their fingers. For example, they can write the letters in the air, on the floor, on your back, in water in the tub, in rice, shaving cream, flour, playdough (using stamps), or by tracing sandpaper letters with their fingers.



- Your child should feel comfortable holding writing implements in his or her hand before he or she will be able to write. This takes strength! Help your child build the muscles in their hands by engaging them in fine motor skills like cutting, playing with playdough,
using icepick tongs to sort,playing with lego, and so on. Once they have build up some strength, encourage them to practice using chalk, paint markers, and smelly markers (washable of course).



- Encourage your child to take pride in their name. Show them it is important. Label their belongings with their help (lunch containers, clothes). Give them plenty of exposure to their name in their world.

Please post any suggestions you have on helping children learn to write their name.

Make Up Your Own Story

Becoming known as an "author" can be a very motivating reason to write. Perhaps that is why so many elementary school teachers have created an "author's chair" in their classroom.

Make your child feel good about writing by:

- helping them talk and write about what interests them
- letting them see that writing is important to you
- praising their attempts to write
- displaying samples of what they write (you can do this on your fridge or by placing their homemade books in your home library).

Shown your child how books often have pictures and words. Something From Nothing by Phoebe Gilman is a great book that nicely separates the pictures and text (see below).



Encourage your child to write a book just like the way Something from Nothing is formatted (with the pictures above and the words below). You can even design a template for them like the one shown below to give them structure. Not only will this be a fun activity for your child, but it will also help build their awareness of print. By separating the pictures and text, the child is called to take notice to the print below.

You Can Help Your Child Learn to Write

Children need experience to have something to write about. To learn to write, children need an opportunity to play and to practice the necessary coordination for hand writing. Writing takes physical strength in the dominant writing hand. Sometimes these activities need parent supervision.

You Can Help Your Child by:

- giving them opportunities for painting, drawing, and using play dough
- taking them along on everyday trips which give them other experiences to write about
- providing them with toys such as puzzles, blocks, pegboards, small cars and trucks
- letting them help you with everyday activities such as setting the table and putting things away
- encouraging them to play house and dress-up
- helping them practice buttoning, zipping, and tying

Idea to Increase Hand Strength:

Sorting cotton balls or pom poms with ice cube tongs (from the dollar store!)

SEEing print

Children also need to see lots of words in print and to watch other people write. You can provide such experience for your children by:

- helping them write their names on their pictures and belongings - "Sandy, you make an 'S' and I'll make the rest of your name"
- reading books to them
- writing messages to them - "Today is your birthday!"
- writing down what your children tell you about their drawings (you can help them make books by writing down a story to go with the pictures they have drawn)
- pointing out letters and words on street signs, food containers, store fronts, etc. - "Let's look for signs that begin with 'S'"
- letting them watch you write letters or shopping lists \

Below are some books where children can see print (aside from the text in the story).



Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells



Chester by Melanie Watt



CLick, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type by Doreen Cronin



More book ideas will follow this week, but be sure to suggest a title if you know of one.

Write on!

The next few posts will be dedicated to writing. Writing is an important literacy skill that develops at the same time as reading. So much of our everyday life is based on print and the written word and it is important for all adults to be able to read and write well.

As children grow and develop they learn to communicate their ideas and experiences. They learn to get along with other children, to take care of themselves, and to use language. Much of their learning in school takes place through reading and writing. Children who have time to make their own discoveries about words are more likely to be successful in school.

How Do Children Learn to Write?

Writing doesn't start in the first grade. Most children experiment with it long before they enter school. Like everything else they do however, children begin to write only when they are ready. While some children are eager to write at an early age, others may not show the slightest interest in writing until they are almost ready to start elementary school.

Children learn writing by:

- seeing words in print
- watching other people write
- using crayons, scissors, play dough, and other things
- trying to write

Are there any questions or specific concerns you would like me to address over the next few days?