by Amie Hanneken, Building Bonds & Bridges Education Center

Playing in the sandbox can be much more than a messy moment.  It too can provide an opportunity for parents to dig into learning with their child. 

Explore Estimating Volume/Capacity, Measuring, and Counting:
With shovel and buckets in hand ask your child, “Which bucket do you think can hold the most sand?”  Then encourage them to check and see if their answer was right by counting the shovelfuls of sand that will fit inside each of the buckets.  With every scoop of sand placed into the bucket, count with your child, “One scoop of sand.  Two scoops of sand.”  By including the words, scoops of sand, the child hears and learns to include a unit of measurement with each number; thus, associating more meaning and value to the end numerical answer.    Once the first bucket is full, write the number of scoops it took to fill it on top of the sand.  Repeat with the other buckets and determine which one held the most sand. 

by Amie Hanneken, Building Bonds & Bridges Education Center

April showers bring more than just May flowers; they bring many rainy days spent inside with nothing to do.  That is until now! 
 
Parents start stocking up on paper towel rolls.  You'll need at least one for each child to decorate and 5-10 more to continue the pirate adventure longer. 

The paper towel rolls Arrrrrr easily transformed into ye old telescopes or spy glasses with just a few simple scurvy art supplies that Arrrr round ye home such as tissue paper, colored duck tape, pipe cleaners, markers, string, or glitter. 

When ye old storms brings the crew inside have the scurvy supplies ready on deck.  Encourage the scallywags to decorate each spy glass.  

by Amie Hanneken, Owner, Building Bonds & Bridges

The arrival of Spring means enjoying the wonderfully warm weather and watching everything turn green- including your child's thumb!  Help your child experience a little responsibility and discover the miraculous life cycle of plants this year by tending to their own garden.  Don't worry; it doesn't have to take up your whole back yard, simply a few flower pots.

Begin by raiding your refrigerator for an empty egg carton (makes a get starter container) and making a trip to the store to purchase a few packages of seeds and potting soil.  Allow your child to pick the types of plants they want to grow.  This could be anything from flowers to crops.  When you get home examine the pictures on the packages.  Discuss what is inside each of them.  Point out the letters that tell what types of seeds are inside.  "Those letters spell Corn; C-O-R-N."  Encourage your child to point and repeat the names of the letter.  Then instruct your child to write the first letter of the plant's name on a few sections of the egg carton.  This will help you identify the plants when they start growing.

Next, open the package and examine the seeds. 

by Amie Hanneken, Owner, Building Bonds & Bridges Education Center

A child's fascination with dinosaurs can be Jurassic to say the least.  Many children quickly identify the all powerful T-Rex by his tiny arms and gigantic teeth.  Then there are those less threatening dinosaurs with dull flat teeth.  If your child has embraced the wonders of dinosaurs, take advantage of this passion and channel it into other areas of learning such as hygiene.   

When observing children playing with dinosaurs, typically the T-Rex is running around devouring all of the other dinosaurs.  Without having to teach them, children already notice the differences in the dinosaurs' teeth.  Some have sharp teeth and eat other dinosaurs such as the T-Rex, while others have flat teeth to eat plants.  Those are usually the fellow dinosaurs eaten by T-Rex.  Don't be afraid to exploit this play time to teach your child new vocabulary words such as carnivores (meat eaters) and omnivores (plant eaters).  The more words you expose them to at a young age the better their vocabulary will be later on.  To challenge them even more make one more leap, ask them to figure which category they fall into: carnivore or herbivore.  Allow them to deduce that they are both!  They are carnivores because they eat meat like hamburgers, and herbivores when they are forced to, eat plants such as green beans.  Therefore, they are given their own special name - omnivores, both plant and meat eaters.

Follow up the playtime discussion with an activity that focuses on classifying animals based on their characteristics and teaches oral hygiene.  In this case, focus on the shape of teeth and how to clean them. 

by Amie Hanneken, Owner, Building Bonds & Bridges Educational Center

Before reading this article, take a moment to make a list of everything you know about eggs.  Hold that thought…

Now let's talk about your child's ability to learn.  Everyday your child is exposed to a multitude of new experiences.  Many, as we adults, overlook or ignore.  But toddlers are like little sponges - taking in everything with ALL five senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste.  It is with these senses that they discover, play, learn and grow. 

Keeping these senses in mind, bring back your list on eggs.  This time imagine you are a child looking at an egg for the very first time.  What does it look like?  Remember the egg is different on the outside than it is on the inside?  And of course, the egg will vary if it is raw or boiled.

Then move on and describe what it feels like.  Smells like.  Sounds like.  Tastes like.

Hopefully your description has grown more vivid.

So where does this sixth sense come in to play? 

by Amie Hanneken, Owner, Building Bonds & Bridges Educational Center

The holidays are wrapping up and now its time for cleaning up.  But before you throw away this year's Christmas cards, put them to good educational use.

Scatter the cards on a table.  Ask your child to locate shapes on the Christmas cards such as a stars, triangles, or squares.  Note that some cards might contain more than one shape; therefore, encourage them to cut out all the shapes they see on each of the cards.  Some shapes to keep your eye out for are triangles (Christmas Trees), circles (Snowmen), rectangles (Santa's belt), and squares (Presents). 

When your child is finished cutting, write each of the shapes' names on separate note cards and place them on the table. 

by Amie Hanneken, Owner, Building Bonds & Bridges Educational Center

Reading to your child is great. But is it enough? Believe it or not, there is much more to reading than just saying the words.  The art of reading can be broken down into two parts: orally saying the words correctly and understanding what those words mean.  It's the second part that many parents don't know how to teach.

To teach understanding, a child must be engaged in the story.  Notice I said the story, not necessarily the reading - orally saying the words correctly.  Just because your child can say the words correctly, that does not mean they are understood.  Not sure what I mean?  Give your child a Spanish word to sound out and say aloud.  Great!  They can say it, but do they know what it means?

So what can you do to help them understand what they read?  Let's take the story Cinderella as an example.  Here are a few ways to engage your child throughout the story - and after.
 
Be Involved During Reading:
1. Use pictures on the cover and throughout the story to make PREDICTIONS.  Encourage them to defend their response.

"What do you think this story will be about?  Why do you think that?  What do you think is going happen next? Why do you think that will happen?"

2. Ask questions throughout the story that challenge your child to make PERSONAL CONNECTIONS.

"How would you feel if you had to do all the chores?"

3.  Help define new words with context clues and/pictures.

"...Cinderella's slipper fell off...."
Ask your child to point to the slipper in the picture.  Then ask, "What is a slipper?"  You might be surprised by what they think a slipper is.

Activities for Afterward:
1.  Retelling a story by sequencing events.

Photo copy or download pictures (6-12) from the story.  Cut them out and paste them onto index cards.  After reading the story, ask your child to place the cards in order from first event to last.  Now, there are two different approaches that can be used.  
 
The first approach encourages the child to use their memory and retell the story based on the order they place the cards.  If the story doesn't make sense, then perhaps the cards are not in the correct order.  This methods helps the child check their own work and check for understanding of the story.
 
The second method encourages children to look back in the text to find the correct answers.  Begin with the first page and locate the correct picture.  Then, move on to the next page with the next event.  This method teaches children that it is okay to go back and find the answers.

2.  Cinderella's Chores Activities
Purchase a small spray bottle and Vis-a-Vis Wet Markers.  Make a list of things for Cinderella to clean off of the table.  For instance make a list with the words DIRT, MUD, LEAVES.  Then use the Marker and write the letters on top of a laminate tabletop.  Ask the child to clean up the D-I-R-T.  The child begins by identifying the letter D in the word DIRT.  Once the letter D is located on the table, they should spray the letter with a little water and wipe it away with a rag.  Repeat until all the letters that spell dirt are gone.  Then, move onto the next word.

Language Art Goals Addressed:
1.B.ECa  Predict what will happen next using pictures and content for guides.
1.C.ECa Retell information from a story.
1.C.ECb Respond to simple questions about reading material.
3.A.EC  Use scribbles, approximations of letters, or known letters to represent written language.
3.B.EC  Dictate stories and experiences.
4.B.EC  Communicate needs, ideas and thoughts.
5.B.EC  Relate prior knowledge to new information.
5.C.EC  Communicate information with others.

by Amie Hanneken, Building Bonds & Bridges Education Center

As an educator and mother of a three-year-old son, I try to see every situation as an opportunity to teach him something new.  This may be as simple as stopping for two minutes to examine the grasshopper that just hopped passed us.  Typically, if an adult sees a grasshopper, they continue on their way and think nothing of it.  However, as parents, you have to remember that your child probably doesn't know what a grasshopper is unless you have discussed it with them.   Taking a few minutes to discover something new can opens up the doors to a lifetime of learning.

So what does all of this have to do with a dry sponge?  Well, I like to think of my son as a dry sponge.  Each time he is exposed to something new (and at the age of 3 there's a lot), it is like adding a single drop of water to the sponge.  Imagine how many drops of water that little sponge is capable of holding if you just give it some water!  Like any sponge, it can hold onto that water for a while before it comes back out again.  So parents, just because your child might not immediately give you that water right back, it doesn't mean it’s not in there.  You might not see that drop of water come out for a few days, for a week, or for a month, but the child will eventually leak that information back out.  It is our job as parents to keep adding water to the sponge every chance we can.  You'll be amazed at how much they can hold, and when the water all comes flowing out you will take pride in the fact that you help put it there.

Amie Hanneken, Owner - Building Bonds & Bridges

Autumn has fallen upon us and Halloween is lurking just around the corner.  Time to find the perfect costume, carve pumpkins, and most importantly devour delicious candy!  But prior to ripping off that first wrapper, there is one traditional task that must take place...sorting the candy into the good stuff and the not so good stuff. 

This seasonal phenomenon occurs in every household and in every age group.  But did you know that it also happens to be an excellent way for your little one to build an educational foundation in math, science, and language arts?  By identifying similarities and differences in traits, your child begins the simple stepping stones for organizing information which will later assist them with patterns, classification, and comparing and contrasting.

by Amie Hanneken
Building Bonds & Bridges Education Center

With the heat of the summer fading away, it is time to get back outside and enjoy a nature around us.  Grab your toddler and your wagon.  Only this time your tot won't be riding!  Working together, find and place every different type of seed you can see into the wagon.  While on the hunt use as many different descriptive and comparative words as you can such as...
  
  big, small, smooth, sharp, round, and long 

Or better yet try...