Dear Families,

The goal of this page is to support you in educating your child at home. On this page I will provide ideas; to communicate better with your preschooler; work through tough transitions at home, develop prewriting and prereading skills through fun activities. Your feed back is important. If there is a need please let me know and I will try and address it on this page. I hope you find this helpful.

Finemotor

We will be beginning to focus on letters. With this new focus one of the areas that we look at is prewritting. There a few important factors to take into account to develop quality hand writting later on.

1. Muscle development

2. Motor planning the movements.

3. Crossing Midline

4. Using both hands i,e, holding the paper while writing.

5. Grasp

To work on the above give your child ample opportunity to color any which way with crayons preferably encourage a pincer grasp by using small broken crayons. Tearing tape off, tearing paper up, tearing packages open using only the thumb and pointer finger. This activity works on grasp and bilateral movement (using both sides of the body) Turning any thing small that only allows two or three fingers to turn. Turning screws, turning pages, turning bottle tops. Exercising those hands. Any activity that is weight bearing on the hands is good (wheel barrow walk) Lastly a fun way to develop the motor patterns is doing mazes or tracing a line with a crayon. Other great activities that help pre- writting development is any writting done standing. (at an easel or coloring the back of a shed or a play set with chalk) Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

Communication

One of the most common questions I have heard is, "When I ask my child how his or her day was, he says fine or good."

Preschool children are still developing in there ability to communicate. Questions such as how or why are still abstract for four year olds. We practice these questions during circle time. Also the ability to verbally reply is challenging also. This is called expressive language. The ability to understand language is called receptive communication. Most four year olds have far better receptive communication skills than expressive communication skills.

Tip #1 Start with play and have your child pretend she is the teacher and you are the student. Children will role play their familiar experiences. Like wise when they pretend they are mom and dad at school I get a feel for home life.

Tip # 2 When ever possible use command form to draw out information. i,e, "tell me or show me how you played or drew the picture."

Tip #3 Use rediculous statements such as Did you paint Mr. Todd today. or Did you play on the play roof. You will get a correction with accurate details.

Tip #4 Be specific. "How was your day", is to broad a category for children to answer. If you know they had music ask, "Tell me what songs you sang with Ms. Gabby"

Tip #5 If you are wanting to work on specific skills such as number, letter, color or shape recognition, start by having your child point to the item you are asking for. "Can you hand me the square?" "Push the blue car to me." "Give me three grapes please."

These are starter ideas don't stop there if your child wants to share more. Every conversation is an opportunity for language development. Talk about your day. Model the behavior you want them to do. Remember they are four and five not adults so slow down the pace of your speech.

Social/Emotional Development

Emotional development is not as clear cut as other areas children are expected to mature. There a couple of sugestions that I have for you and your child about trying new situations. Big areas of control are food, bathroom, bedtime. There are other smaller areas of controll. Children lean on several things but not limited to for controll such as, there abilities and strengths or familiar patterns of behavior. Some children revert to repeating familiar actions or activities when they are confronted with a challenge. You might see the clown come out to avoid certain activities or to compensate for discomfort, or complete avoidance

Two points that I want to make when dealing with these behaviors. Instead of changing our child's behavior look at your own behavior. Can you change your response to a neutral one. If your child tries something unexpected that they wouldn't ordinarily try stick to one phrase for this finicy child, "Good Job." And leave it at that. Some time to much attention may make the child respond to controll the situation for fear they will not achieve the same level of approval next time.

If the child doesn't meet the expectations try,"Maybe next time." and leave it at that. Some times children aren't ready to take these risks and let go of controll.

The second point is do not talk openly about your children's deficits in front of them or in their presence. This is tricky, we don't always have oipprtunity to talk to other adults seperate from our children. It is very important to try and find a way to seperate. Children pick up intonations and conversations of adults.

A third suggestion I would like to make is to share in your child's experiences. Children learn through their experiences. Research shows us that children learn best through their experiences, i.e. play. In contrast drilling letters out of context is not meaningful and will not be assimilated into a childs understanding. When ever possible expand social interactions with one more question, one more challenge or one more giggle. As children accumulate these experiences they see the need for letters and the printed word, they see patterns in behavior, objects and activities. We can not possibley drill for the multitude of situations children will face, there fore join your child and share in these activities with them.

It is clear there is no easy answer to work through the anxieties children might experience when faced with challenging situations. Good Luck