International Mud Day 2014

Mud Day.  I’m not sure many people realize it exists.  But it does and it sounds like fun.  I spent my childhood puddle jumping, tree climbing, and playing in mud.  It seems like a lot of children today do not have that opportunity.  And, I must admit, that as I looked through suggestions for mud day, I was concerned about the dangers associated with some of the ideas.  Some of the mud puddles that I saw looked deep enough to be drowning hazards and, of course, mud is dirty.  But, with appropriate care and supervision, mud activities can be safe and fun.

Here are some possibilities for celebrating International Mud Day on June 29th (and perhaps all week).

• Make muddy footprints.  Put a large piece of paper on the ground, get mud on the feet of plastic animals and ‘walk’ them across the paper, leaving a trail of footprints.
• Make mud bricks in ice cube trays or muffin tins.  Bake in a 250 oven for about 15 minutes to dry the bricks (if you don’t want to wait for them to air dry).  Use additional mud or plaster of paris as mortar to build with the bricks.
• Create mud sculptures.  Add sticks, leaves, rocks, etc.
• Paint with mud.  Paintbrushes or fingers on canvas, cardboard, wood, or the side of your building or fence.
• Build a mud puddle for some free play (make sure it’s not too deep and that children are well supervised).  If, like me, your local soil is clay, bring in a few bags of topsoil to make the mud.  If a full-on mud puddle is too much, you can do your mud play in a dishpan.

Have a hose ready for rinse-off, some clean clothes ready for the little adventurers, and enjoy your muddy day!

Misty

Summer Learning

Summer break!!  I think I was almost as excited as my sons were once school was finally out for the summer.  No more rushing them out the door every morning, no more struggling to get hours of homework done, and just being able to spend more time doing what we wanted to do instead of what we had to do.

For other parents, summer break is a new kind of struggle in figuring out how to keep their children properly cared for over the summer.  Regardless of what summer break means to you, one thing is a given.  Classroom teachers often spend the first month of each new school year reviewing information learned in the previous school year.  Summer “brain drain” or “summer slide” are real and happen every year.  Children lose, on average, 2 - 2 ½ months of grade equivalency in math reading during those 3 months or so of summer break. 

The good news is that it doesn’t take a lot to stop this drain from happening.  Regardless of whether parents are home with their children for the summer or working full-time throughout, they can set a plan to keep their children learning.

Suggestions for summer learning:

• If a vacation is in your plan for the summer, see what kind of learning activities you can build into it.  Going to Boston…walk the Freedom Trail.  Going to San Francisco…check out the Exploratorium. 
• If you can’t get away for a full vacation, how about a day-trip to a local attraction?  Check out a local zoo, aquarium, museum, or other fun place.
• If your child doesn’t already have a library card, this is the time to get one and use it.  Many libraries have free summer reading programs.  (Make sure you have lots of reading materials available at home.)
• Heading to a ball game?  Find a book about that sport or an athlete that plays it or help your child keep stats during the game.
• Write notes to family and friends.  If you can get away, send a postcard from your destination.  If you are staying home, just a note about what fun things you are doing will be enjoyed by the grandparents or a pen pal. 
• Let your child help you in the kitchen.  Shopping and cooking provides a ton of learning activities, and can be a lot of fun.
• Plant a garden…even if it’s just a window box with a couple of plants.  Your child can help select what to plant and care for the garden.

Have a great summer finding fun ways to learn!

Misty

Reading for a Better Vocabulary

Vocabulary development is huge for young children.    Low vocabulary is one leading indicator of children who are at-risk for reading difficulties.  And the problem starts very early.  Researchers have found that children from low-income families may start Kindergarten with 10,000 fewer words in their vocabularies than their classmates.   

One great, simple way of increasing the vocabulary of children, even very young children, is to read with or to them.  Most teachers recommend reading at least 20 minutes each day.  A few years ago I ran across a chart that really brought the importance of that reading time home to me.  I’ve shared it our parents every summer since then and wanted to share it with you today.

It’s hard for me to look at this graphic and not be astounded each time.  The difference between reading about 5 minutes a day and 20 minutes a day is 1.5 million more words per year.  The value of that increase and practice with vocabulary cannot be overstated.

Misty

Beating H1N1 and Norovirus

Yup, it’s that time of year again.  Teachers and students are starting to drop like flies from the flu and, from what I’m hearing from colleagues, from norovirus as well.  While this is never a good time of year for trying to stay healthy, this year seems particularly bad with the H1N1 strain of the flu being a seriously unpleasant version and norovirus being even worse.  Not only do I want to keep the children in my care and my staff healthy, but quite frankly, I don’t want to bring either of these illnesses home to my family either.  

That said, how do we keep everyone healthy?  It boils down to two main strategies; cleanliness and avoiding infecting others by staying home if you do get sick.  

Earlier today, I was reading an interesting article about a potential norovirus outbreak in an elder care facility.  One of the administrators observed that, while staff are diligent about handwashing, the residents are not always able to maintain the same level of attentiveness.  I see that problem as being extremely pertinent to us.  We can have the best  hand hygiene, cleaning and disinfecting, but if we don’t spend just as much time ensuring that the children wash their hands, it could all be for naught.  Not only do we need to make sure that they wash their hands at the appropriate times, we need to make sure that they wash them correctly.  (a friend used to threaten to record me saying “with soap” so that we could just play it back for my sons instead of me saying it over and over)

Good handwashing practices, properly covering coughs and sneezes, and diligent cleaning and sanitizing will go a long way in keeping everyone healthy this year.  And, if you have chosen to not use bleach as a disinfectant, make sure that you check the FDA’s list of disinfectants that kill the norovirus. This is one tough, nasty bug. 

Misty

Dialogic Reading

We’ve known for a long time that reading to children is critical in their language development.  However, we now know that the way in which we read to children is important also.  Dialogic reading can be described as a conversation between an adult and a child (or children) about a book.  It is a very powerful tool in language development, particularly vocabulary development.  The goal in dialogic reading is for the child to move from being an active listener to a storyteller.  

As with reading any book, start by having the child look at the cover and tell you what he thinks the book is about.  Then read the book normally so that the child can become familiar with the story.  In subsequent readings of the book, you can use dialogic reading.  (Children enjoy repetition; repeated reading is another great technique to improve language skills.)

The method used in dialogic reading is known by the acronym PEER. 

• Prompt—ask the child a “what” question about the book.  What did you see on that page? 
• Evaluate—either reinforce the child’s correct answer or guide the child to the correct answer.  Yes, you saw a man on that page.
• Expand—expand the child’s answer with additional details.  (You can provide the details right away or ask the child to provide more details before you expand the answer even more.)  That man is a fireman, standing next to his fire truck. 
• Repeat—have the child repeat your phrase or part of your phrase.  Can you say “fireman”?

Try to ask a variety of questions instead of just asking “what happened” over and over again.  The acronym CROWD provides suggestions for types of questions to ask.

• Completion—have the child complete your sentence about the story.  The fireman is standing next to his _________.  (truck)
• Recall—ask the child to recall a detail from the story.  What did the fireman do when he heard the alarm?
• Open-ended—ask the child a question without a specific answer.  What do you think the fireman is going to do next?
• WH questions—who, what, where, when, why (and how).  Where did the fireman go in his truck?
• Distancing—ask the child to relate the story to something in his own life.  Have you seen a fire truck?  Where did you see it?  What was it like?

And, of course, after reading and discussing the story, have the child give you an overview of it.  This will help you to make sure that the child is comprehending what you are reading.  Most importantly, read, read, read (and have fun with it).

Misty

Phonological Memory and Early Reading

Phonological memory refers to a person’s ability to retain phonological (sound) information for a short period of time.  Difficulties with phonological memory often signal future struggles with reading and vocabulary acquisition.  Phonological memory skills can be practiced with remembering lists of words, strings of digits, multi-syllable nonsense words, sentence or story details, or multi-step directions.  Helping children improve their phonological memories is one way to help them avoid future reading problems.  And, like most things, these skills can be developed in fun ways.

• Going to New York—Tell the child, “I’m going to New York and I packed a …”.  Name something you packed.  The child then repeats the phrase, what you packed, then adds what they packed.  (“I’m going to New York and I packed a … and a …”)  Continue the game until the list gets too long to remember.
• Repetition—Read a book with a repetitive phrase (like “Brown Bear, Brown Bear”) and have the child repeat the repetitive phrase at the appropriate time.
• Rhythm Clapping—Clap out a rhythm and have the child repeat the rhythm.
• Calculations—Read a string of digits from a prepared card (2-7 digits, depending upon the child’s ability) to a child.  Have the child repeat the digits to himself over and over while walking across the room to a calculator.  The child presses the buttons on the calculator in the order in which they were read.  Compare the number on the calculator to the prepared card so the child can see if he remembered the digits correctly.
• Play Mother May I
• Stringing Beads—Give a child a direction of what 2 colors of beads to put on a string, in order.  Increase the number of beads as the child’s ability increases.

To help children develop their phonological memories, teachers or parents can also teach the children strategies for remembering.  For example, a 7-digit phone number is chunked into 3 digits followed by 4 digits.  Repetition, like in the Calculations game, helps to keep those digits in memory until the task can be completed.  Tapping along with “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” can provide a needed reminder.  Some children will pick up these strategies on their own and some will need to be explicitly taught the strategies.

Misty

5 Numbers to Know

The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University has a new, interactive multi-media presentation entitled “Five Numbers to RememberAbout Early Child Development”.  The numbers are:

• 700 Per Second—In a young child’s brain, new neural connections are formed at the rate of 700 per second.  Reciprocal interactions with adults are one of the primary methods through which these neurons develop.
• 18 Months—By the age of 18 months, disparities in vocabulary, based upon the education level of the child’s parents, begin to appear.  By the age of 3 years, children of college-educated parents may have a vocabulary 2-3 times that of children whose parents have not completed high school.
• 90-100%—Children who are faced with 6-7 risk factors (poverty, parent/caregiver mental illness, maltreatment, etc.) in the first 3 years of life have a 90-100% chance of developmental delays. 
• 3:1 Odds—Similarly, children who are faced with 7-8 risk factors are 3 times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease as adults.
• 4-9 Dollars—Several longitudinal studies on the impact of high-quality early childhood education programs have demonstrated that every dollar invested yields $4-9 in future returns.

So, what does this research tell us?  Early childhood education is extraordinarily important and well worth the investment.  A relatively small investment early in a child’s life can prevent lifelong problems. Children in difficult home environments may need more extensive interventions.  Quality early childhood education benefits not just the child and parents, but all of society.

Misty