painting comets

painting comets

Play dough gym - get their little hands ready for writing...

Play dough Gym

Get those little hands ready for writing...

1) Make up a batch of play dough - I will post a simple method in a second. Make sure you make it with your child and get them to add food colouring so that it is the colour of their choice , whether that is snot, army, Ben 10, princess or sparkly. (Come on use your imagination)

2) Every day for 3 minutes play your child's favourite music : High School Musical, Barbie, The Saturdays, Take That etc.

3) Now act as the gym instructor and get your child to exercise their fingers and arm muscles "come one everybody and kneed that dough 2,3,4, and roll that dough 2,3,4...." Really exaggerate the finger and arm movements as you do it.

4) You have one fun activity that will get their fingers ready for holding a pen inno time :) xx

Everyone loves shopping

Don't let the weekly food shop become a chore...involve your children - even the youngest.

Firstly ask them to make the shopping list. If they can't write get them to cut and stick pictures from supermarket leaflets - even your youngest may struggle with scissors. That's ok, get them to rip the pictures out. When they are making the list encourage them to hear and make the sounds in the food words.

Next, go shopping! As you go around the supermarket encourage your children to read the labels, prices, quantities etc. Even using manners at the till :)

Please let me know how you get on - not only does this activity encourage communication, language and literacy but think of the mathematics development when using money and quantities...even discuss where in the world the products have come from. Have fun :-)

Facebook, Twitter, Phones, Games Console, Babies....Babies???

Whether it is on your phone or games console the internet is a part of our lives just like children.  Although unlike those with children I have a spare five minutes to search for what I am interested in, and that is early literacy.  Many may think books, but I am interested in research for babies and making free activities available for parents with no time to look for these sites.

I have just spent a few minutes looking over several websites and here is what I found.

TTYB - 'Talk To Your Baby' is a campaign by the National Literacy Trust.  It has many resources for parents and babysitters to download, and it is FREE.
http://www.literacytrust.org.u​k/talk_to_your_baby/resources


Another fabulous resource is a set of activity cards to get your toddler talking.  If you have any concerns about your toddler not talking enough try these out:
 http://www.ican.org.uk/Book-sh​op/Early%20Years/Toddler%20Tal​k.aspx

Babbling Babies - I love this title.  Get your babies babbling with this set of activity cards.
http://www.ican.org.uk/Book-sh​op/Early%20Years/Babbling%20Ba​bies.aspx

I also saw that in London there are war stories being told at the Imperial War Museum! What a way to engage children than in history and real events.
http://wartime.iwm.org.uk/?pag​e_id=13

Have fun and get talking :-) Em x

Treasure basket activites with babies

I have just been looking at the articles on this website: www.kathybrody.com. I was particulary impressed with the article called 'treasure baskets'! It is a simple, cheap way to engage your baby/child. How does this link to phonics? Well listening to the sounds treasure makes is the first step to hearing sounds in words. The first thing your baby needs to do is explore the materials independently. Then as they develop speech hide the objects and ask them to guess which object is making the sound? Does the wooden spoon banging on the metal pan sound the same as the metal spoon? Can they guess which spoon made the sound?

Try it out and let me know what you discovered. Have fun x

Questions?

Please email all questions about helping your child to develop thier communication, language and literacy skills to emdxb1@gmail.com.

Phonics

This blog has been designed to answer all your questions on how make the most out of your childs communication, language and literacy skills from birth.  Research shows that development from birth will help your child to talk, read and write in the later years. 

As well as showing how to help your child, this blog will give practical examples of how you can educate and develop your child from birth through to the school years.  All babies, toddlers and children develop at different rates so to pinpoint which stage your child is at you can also try the simple assessment tasks. 

Remember the best way to learn is to have FUN! Enjoy, Teacher Em xx