Tool Bench

 Dramatic play is always a learning experience. Pretending to fix things and be a helper is a great way to encourage students to participate more at home! We love our new tool bench and easel, both donated from a past student. Thank you so much!

The tool bench is an incredibly fun way to practice fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Students love to  twist, hammer, and 

screw the different nuts and bolts. When we get home, put us to work!

Chocolate Moose

We just LOVE a good book! What fun we have when we learn after reading a book that motivates us to explore and play!

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This sweet children's book is about a chocoholic moose who accidentally misreads a help-wanted sign for a mouse job at a bakery! In such a small mouse-sized bakery, this large moose runs into problems, making many mistakes and plenty of messes! But his sweet boss Mrs. Mouse, is patient and clever in helping him to feel useful! This wonderfully illustrated book helps children learn more about friendship and even the importance of reading!

After reading the story Chocolate Moose we were inspired to use our 5 senses in creating a project! First we ate chocolate "mousse" pudding. Boy, was it yummy! Next we used our fingers and the left overs to finger-paint brown paper to be used in the future! This was messy, delicious, and most of all FUN!

Throughout the story, the author uses colorful onomatopoeia (“Slurp, gulp, burp!”). We had fun coming up with our own sounds as we tasted our pudding.  This story really was silly!

Look at those sweet messy faces!  

                            After tasting and painting, we made moose antlers with our brown paper!

What a great story and what great fun we had making our very own moose antlers! This story is now one of our favorites!

Living Love and Logic Tip #60

They Won't Stay in Their Beds

Seven-year-old Jason and three-year-old Tony share a room. Their parents say that bedtime is frustrating. The two go into their room and before long they are out of their beds being silly.

Mom and Dad have tried taking away toys to get them to settle down, but things haven't improved. "We've taken away most of their toys, but they just don't seem to care," reports Dad.

We have two problems here (and a solution):

• Love and Logic does not advocate taking away possessions as a disciplinary measure. Once kids figure out that we are trying to teach them a lesson by taking things away, they soon start designing ways of showing us they don't care. Even if they do care, they don't want us to know it, so they won't show it.
  
  This idea could be confusing because we often suggest that kids use their possessions to raise money needed to solve a problem. For instance, a child might sell or pawn his iPod to raise enough money to send his folks to the movies to help them restore the energy they spent waiting up and worrying when he came home two hours late.

• Jason and Tony's parents are trying to control something that they can't control. It's easy enough to keep the boys in their room, but keeping them in their beds behind a closed door is something else.
  
  For best bedtime results the activity level in the home should slow down for a period of time prior to bedroom time.
  
  Notice that I called it bedroom time instead of bedtime. With that say, "Guys, it's bedroom time. We love you and look forward to seeing you in the morning. Make sure that we don't hear things that might cause us an energy drain. Sleep tight! Love you."

Before starting this routine, watch the DVD, Simple Parenting Strategies: For Raising Great Kids in Complicated Times, so that you are prepared to deal with the situation the next day, if necessary.

To see more helpful resources click HERE and visit the Love and Logic website!

Friends That Think Alike!

 

School is so much more fun when you have a friend to share everyday with! We are lucky at HO4K's that all the kids are such good friends. Some of the kids even think alike:) These two were thrilled when they showed up to school wearing the exact same outfit on the same day! They both look so cute and their smiles make our day!

Learning in Many Different Ways

When painting children learn fine motor skills as well as the step by step application process. For example, the little one above is just learning that the paint goes on the paper and not in your mouth! Look how creative she is! The little ones below follow the 3 step process to painting pumpkins. First they paint the pumpkin orange, next they glue 3 triangles on for the nose and mouth. Finally, the students choose the expression for the mouth. Painting is lots of fun and is a great tool to enhance fine motor skills that eventually help with writing skills. 

Standards addressed with painting activities:

6.PK.1 Demonstrate skills in eye-hand coordination (e.g., stacking, sorting, lacing toys, stringing beads,

reproducing basic patterns, complete six-piece puzzle, Legos and peg-boards).

6.PK.2 Demonstrate the muscle strength, dexterity, and control needed to manipulate items (e.g., scissors, writing utensil, paint brushes, play dough, buttons/snaps, etc.).

6.PK.3 Use fingered or tripod grasp with drawing, painting or writing instruments.

Although she doesn't know her letters yet, the more exposure the better! Above she is putting letters on and off the flannel board. Playing with letters is important because she becomes familiar with how the letters look. When she is ready she will be able to more easily identify the letters and eventually the sounds! Anytime a child plays with manipulatives it is active learning. 

Nothing is more exciting than when little ones start to initiate their own learning! Even though he is just 11 months old, he picked up the book and started to "read" it all by himself! He knows how to flip through the pages. This is the beginning of understanding the concepts of print!