RockIt Times AmuseLetter
Summer
Beach Party!
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Contents
Quote Of The Month I
have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they
want and then advise them to do it. Editorial Hello! Wow! Where is the summer going? I can't believe that August is now upon us, summer is winding down, and school will be back in session sooner than we know. Remember back in the day when we didn't start school until after Labor Day? My two sons, Reece, who will be entering Jr. High this year, and Ian, who is starting his second and last year of preschool, are due to be back in the classroom on August 25. There's no time to waste getting in some last minute summer fun! I'm thinking that a nice, end of the year, summer beach party might be in order for us! Unfortunately, I live by O'Hare Airport and not anywhere close to Lake Michigan and the beach. So...that leaves me with the need to create a beach in our backyard! It's amazing what a few bags of sand, a wading pool and a sprinkler can do to create a festive atmosphere in your backyard! Throw in a fun craft for everyone to make, a great beach'y snack (Or, if you prefer a great cake, check out the Teddy Bear Pool cake in the May issue!) Whether your child will be entering preschool or kindergarten this year or not, it's never to early to start instilling a love of learning and the foundations for success. This month's article, How to Help Your Child be Successful in Kindergarten, give you some basics to ensure that when your child DOES enter school, whether this year or years down the road, they have what it takes to be ahead of the crowd. Remember that play is learning for your child! Classes, such as the Kid Rock program, help your child learn independence, the importance of sharing, to follow directions, and to use their imagination. Music and repetition is crucial to your child's healthy development. Well, it's getting late and I am off to bed so I am fresh for some "fun in the sun" with Reece and Ian tomorrow! Hope your end of the summer is wonderful and filled with adventure, even if that adventure never takes you farther away then your own backyard. Take care! Until next time.... Mari Reading Rocks! Recommendations
Kid Rock "Party In The Spotlight" Summer Beach Party! No summer is complete without a blowout beach bash! And isn't it great when you can have a beach party, whether or not you have a beach? Throw some sand in a wading pool for the kids to play in with buckets and shovels and be sure to invite Kid Rock to make sure your child and friends are movin' and groovin' to the summer surf beat! This party theme may include the following songs or other beach tunes:
Reserve your party date today! Email to parties@rockitkids.com or call us at 847-961-6584. Craft Of The Month Kool-Aid Sand Art Bottles Use fancy little bottles or left over baby food jars, the choice is yours. Whatever you use, I'm sure you and your child will be delighted with you "sand" art creations! Materials:
How To Make It:
Having a party? Don't forget to invite Kid Rock! If you are in our neighborhood, we happily provide stress-free, interactive children's party entertainment for any function. Or, make it a Kid Rock day no matter where you live, with our perfectly assembled gift bags and party favors! Visit the official Kid Rock
website at http://www.rockitkids.com/ Snack Of The Month Beach Party Cups Your child and you will have a fantastic time creating these adorable and yummy beach party cups. My 4 year old just LOVES crunching up the cookies to make "sand"! Since my older son (11) is starting to cook, he gets to be in charge of the pudding, leaving me the opportunity to sit and enjoy the site of my children working together and having fun! Ingredients:
Instructions:
Music Rocks! Recommendations
Motor Activity Of The Month Lifeguard, Lifeguard, Where's Your Flag? The Chant: Lifeguard, lifeguard, where's
your flag? How to play: Have your child cover their eyes while you are saying the chant. While their eyes are hidden, hide the flag (I use a small scarf, but use whatever you have on hand). When the chant is over, let your little lifeguard go search! Encourage your child to use gross motor skills while on their hunt, such as taking giant steps, walking on their tippy toes to look high, walking low with bend knees, and crawling. Be sure to take turns hiding and seeking with them! Little ones LOVE to trick grownups! Special Guest Article How to Help Your Child be Successful in Kindergarten New learning builds on prior knowledge, therefore the more exposure or background a child has with a concept the easier it is for new learning and deeper comprehension to occur. Providing your child with pre-exposure to concepts such as the alphabet, numbers, following directions, listening, reading, cutting, tracing, etc. will help them feel more comfortable and confident when they experience these similar concepts in school, thus better enabling learning to occur. Schools are becoming more academic, dependent on standardized tests, and fast-paced. Giving your children some familiarity with concepts they will encounter can help lessen the anxiety and stress that often accompany these experiences. Children who are overly stressed or uncomfortable are less likely to be able to concentrate and learn. Children have a natural motivation to learn and a curiosity about the world. You can enhance and nurture this natural motivation by making enjoyable play experiences learning experiences as well. For example, children’s games are great resources for combining learning with physical activity. Duck, Duck, Goose can be a way of reinforcing concepts such as the alphabet by having children say the name of a letter in place of the word, duck, and a word that begins with that letter in place of the word, goose. Hide and Seek can become a learning experience by hiding numbers, letters, colors, your child’s name, phone number, address, etc. around the house and asking your child to find them. Simon Says is a great game to practice following directions and positional words such as on, above, below, etc. Bingo can be used to reinforce number recognition, letter recognition, the difference between upper case and lower case letters, letter sounds, colors, etc. You can have a treasure hunt while shopping, driving, or at home by seeing how many letters, numbers, colors, or shapes your child can find. You can also play I Spy where you state, “I spy with my little eye something that is…” and you describe a letter, number, shape, color, etc. that you can plainly see. Your child then tries to guess what you are describing. Your child can also take a turn describing something (this helps develop verbal skills). Children’s individual interests can also be incorporated into learning experiences. Blocks or Lego’s can be used to teach patterns (have them build towers with alternating colors), counting, sorting (separate the blocks by colors, shapes, size), etc. If your child likes to color, have them create rainbow tracings of letters or numbers by tracing them with as many colors as possible. Play dough can be made into shapes, letters, and numbers. An interest in cars and trucks can be used when learning how to trace by telling your child to keep his car (crayon or pencil) on the road (whatever is being traced). An interest in animals or dinosaurs can be used when learning how to cut with scissors by relating the opening and closing of the scissors to the opening and closing of an animal’s mouth. You can pretend the animal is “eating” the lines on the paper. Your child’s surroundings can also play a part in preparing them for school. Providing a number and variety of books for your child and taking time to read to them is one of the most important things you can do for their education. Reading to a child teaches them vocal skills, vocabulary, listening skills, left-to-right orientation, cause and effect, knowledge about the world around them, and pre-reading skills. Most importantly, it instills a love for reading and books which will benefit them throughout their entire education. After all, every subject (even math) requires reading. Our brain absorbs information from our surroundings on a conscious and unconscious level, and between 80-90% of all information absorbed by the brain is visual. Therefore, providing visual displays in your child’s room or elsewhere can actually aide in learning. Things such as the alphabet, colors, numbers, etc. can be hung up or displayed in places where your child will see them. Even magnetic letters on the refrigerator can aide in retention and learning. This is why many schools have plenty of visuals displayed in the halls and classrooms. Young children can also learn many concepts through music. For example, they usually learn their abc’s by the alphabet song. There are many children’s tapes available that teach concepts through music. Playing these while in the car or while your children play can aide them in learning. Even though they might not be singing along or seem like they are even paying attention, subconscious learning can be occurring. You may also want to practice separating from your child for short periods of time, such as enrolling in a program or play group or having them spend time with a baby-sitter. Separation anxiety can be traumatic for some children if they are not used to being away from their parents, and this anxiety can inhibit their ability to learn and relax while in school. Lastly, no matter what methods you try with your child, the most important thing to remember is to make them enjoyable. You want your child to associate positive feelings with learning. Take turns choosing activities; give your child some choice sometimes. This makes them feel less dictated to and more willing to learn. Also, offer them some variety in activities, do not always use the same learning methods all of the time as this can create boredom and disinterest. Choose the methods that work best with your child (every child is different) and have fun! Children are like flowers, they all bloom at different times. But, parents can help nurture them by providing experiences that enable them to blossom into children who love learning and school. Tina O'Block holds a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction and a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. She has been teaching kindergarten/preschool for 13 years. She is the author of "Now I Know My ABCs and a Whole Lot More: Alphabet Activities for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners" which is available at http://www.oblockbooks.com . You may also contact her at oblockbooks@worldnet.att.net . Subscriber Talk! Hi Mari! I love the addition of the pictures to the AmuseLetter! The pictures made the craft and the snack seem so much easier. Thanks for all your hard work--I enjoy reading the AmuseLetter every month! Jamie Thanks, Jamie! Would you believe that this month, I didn't manage to get a single picture in the issue? Shame on me! I recently began adding the recipes and craft instructions ahead of time to our private instructors' area for Kid Rock, so the teachers can do them with their own kids and send in pics for the upcoming issue. One of the instructors (Ms. Kim, you know who you are. :D) complimented me on the great snack and told me how much her boys enjoyed making it! When I asked her about whether she took pictures, she said she didn't, since it was from the July issue. :( She was confused as to how she had seen the upcoming stuff, but we'll forgive her, as she is QUITE pregnant right now! ~Mari Great Links and Freebies Check out these great links for parents and caregivers!
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