Over ‘Lamoon’ with healthy kids

With growing concerns over viruses such as Bird Flu, sanitizers became all the rage a few years ago and are used almost as regularly as traditional soap. They are great at removing all that dirty bacteria from grubby hands and are especially important for kids who are still susceptible to viruses such as Hand Foot and Mouth. At British Early Years Centre we had often used hand sanitizers to help stop the spread of bacteria until it was brought to our attention by a parent that they might not be as good as we all first thought.

After some research we have found that these supposedly clean products are doing a lot of damage to us and our children. Triclosan is an ingredient put into many toys, clothes, toothpastes and other products. It is an ingredient that is rumoured to help stop the spread of bacteria, however there has never been any study that has proved this. In fact some scientists worry that it actually helps the bacteria to become more resistant to antibiotics, creating superbugs. Foodforthought discuss in detail the problems caused by using hand sanitisers:

• Muscle weakness/impaired mitochondrial function.
• Excitotoxins that cause death of brain cells.
• Allergies and altered brain function.
• Autism incidence correlation.
• Dangerous hormonal changes.
• Bacterial resistance.
• Alcohol hazard.
• Other additive hazards.
• Harm to our environment and future generations.

At BEYC we have now adopted the use of organic hand sanitizers and cleaning products. We have found a wonderful company in Bangkok, Lamoon Baby, and we fully recommend the use of their products. They have a range of products from bags and clothes to detergents and baby wipes. Please check out their website here and their Facebook page here.

The development of fine motor skills in young children

What are motor skills?

The development of strong fine motor skills is essential for young children. Motor skills are a term given to the movements of the body. They fall into two main categories: gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills encompass the development of larger muscle movements, such as the swinging of legs and arms, walking or crawling. Fine motor skills are the small muscle movements requiring the use of fingers and hands  (Amundson & Weil, 2001; Case-Smith & Shortridge, 1996). The brains of newborn babies are not yet mature enough to make skilled movements and it is generally the more difficult of the skills to develop due to the specific detail in the movements themselves. Using fine motor skills is impossible without gross motor skills and children need to practice and strengthen them together. The importance of the development of motor skills is not just in the movement of the body either, but as Gallahue (1993) says:

“Movement is at the very center of young children’s lives. It is an important facet of all aspects of their development, whether in the motor, cognitive, or affective domains of human behavior. To deny children the opportunity to reap the many benefits of regular, vigorous physical activity is to deny them the opportunity to experience the joy of efficient movement, the health effects of movement, and a lifetime as confident, competent movers”. (p. 24)

What if my child has weak fine motor skills?

Development of fine motor skills early gives children a good footing in which to build. According to Gesell and Amatruda (1947) development proceeds in a cephalo–caudal (head to toe) and proximal–distal (moving from the body parts closest to the trunk to those furthest away) pattern. Early development of the shoulders and upper arms allows the children to begin to feed themselves early and helps them to develop pre-writing skills. The development of a strong trunk will also help children to sit properly and maintain good posture (www.fingergym.info/downloads/Finemotordevpp1-4.pdf)

Children with weaker fine motor skills are not just affected by weak movements, but it reciprocates into other aspects of their lives. Children will often become frustrated when they can’t perform simple skills, leading to a refusal to join in with activities.They might get angry or in some cases they make excuses to avoid the task, “I need to go to the toilet”. It can be very sad for young children who may begin to feel separated from their friends.

How can I help strengthen my child’s fine motor skills?

There are many different games you can play and tasks that you can set for your child in order to strengthen their fine motor skills. Starting early is the key to consistent, strong growth and a lot of the activities are good fun too. Imagination Tree offer great ideas. Click here to see their fantastic blog. For younger children and to get a really early start take a look at parents.com.

Fun snacks for healthy kids

Trying to get children to eat healthily can be difficult. Here are three creative ideas that can be as fun to make as they are to eat.

Watermelon Pizza

A very simple idea that can be used in role play as well. Set up a pizza shop and call up your child to place an order. Ask for recommendations and allow your child to decide what to put on the pizza. Let your child deliver the pizza and take payment. Try swapping roles and let your child make an order and then make it together. Make sure you have lots of ingredients to choose from. You can use a light cream to keep the pieces in place.

Real Fruit Lollies

To make these delicious fruit lollies you will need:

16 ounces of pressed apple juice
1 ounce of cold water
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
Slices of fresh fruit.

Directions: simply stir all the ingredients together, adding the fruit last and freeze.

N.B. This will make quite a lot. The apple juice has a lot of sugar so feel free to play with the ratios and replace juice with plain water.

Click here for more lollipop recipes.

 

Homemade Ice Cream

For this recipe you don’t need an ice cream maker and not only is it great fun to make, it also teaches children a bit of science too.

Things you will need:

1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon sugar
4 cups crushed ice
4 tablespoons salt
2 quart size Zip-loc bags
1 gallon size Zip-loc freezer bag
a hand towel or gloves to keep fingers from freezing

Directions:

Mix the milk, vanilla, and sugar into one of the small Zip-loc bags and close. If you double bag there is less risk of splitting and the ingredients mixing with the salt and ice. Then place the smaller bag into the larger bag, which you fill with the ice and the salt. Close the bigger bag and then shake and massage the bags. Try to make sure that ice touches all parts of the inner bag. This does take 10-15 minutes depending on how rigorous you are but is good fun. When the ice cream solidifies, open it up and eat straight from the bag.

Benefits of Reading 2- Ideas and Activities

Reading in the womb

It is never too early to begin reading to your child. Even reading whilst the child is in the womb has been proven to have significant benefits to their abilities. The University of Florida found that a Foetus between the 28^th and 34^th weeks of pregnancy could remember familiar nursery rhymes. These findings suggest that babies are much more susceptible to being influenced by their surroundings before birth than previously thought.

There are many different ways you can stimulate your baby whilst they are in the womb:

• Sharing music and play some classical songs while allowing your child to listen.
• Read simple stories or tell your child what has been happening that day.
• Sing simple songs and nursery rhymes.
• Talk to your child and allow them to hear different familiar voices; siblings; Aunt Kate; Uncle Robert; Dad and Mum.

Reading with babies

According to The American Academy of Pediatrics reading is an essential part of quality development. It stimulates imagination, creativity and improves communication skills. It also introduces children to numbers, letters, colours, shapes and other topics.  This is the age when a two way interaction between parent and child can begin to form.

• Children love routine, so making a set time to read with your child is vital. This will set the foundation for your child to enjoy reading right the way through childhood.
• Your child won’t understand everything that you are saying but by reading together and looking at the books, your child will start to recognize every day words.
• Choose brightly coloured books with simple pictures. You don’t want to overload your child with too much information; allow them to use their own creativity. As you read with your child, point to pictures, change the sound of your voice to suit different characters and allow your child time on each page. Interactive books that you can touch and feel are great for children to develop their senses.
• Reciting nursery rhymes and dancing is also a great way to stimulate creativity and imagination. Don’t fall into the trap of just reading them out to your child, rather, be energetic, smile and bring the songs and stories to life. Your child will react to your body language so remember to enjoy this moment yourself.
• Using your child’s toys to make up stories also breeds familiarity and allows the children to continue their creativity when you stop reading.

Reading with young children

Between the ages of 2 and 3 children see a huge development in language and vocabulary skills. In fact according to Barbara Zurer Pearson, author of “Raising a bilingual child”, children are even capable of distinguishing between languages, so the more languages they are surrounded by the better. This is also a great age for sharing reading as children become more responsive. There are many phonics games that you can play at this age and these can be found on our videos page on facebook as well as on our phonics page within the blog. In terms of just reading there are many ways to share:

• Choose books with repetition- Children love knowing what’s coming next and love repeating phrases they are familiar with. It brings them into the story and enables them to join in without being able to read themselves.
• Act out the story with your child- Once you finish reading a story and the child is familiar with it, act it out. You could build a castle out of bed sheets, or houses made of sticks and really get your child living the story.
• Ask children to draw their favourite character from the story- Discuss what clues from the story help describe the character. You could even ask the children to make up a new character for the story.
• Hot seat- Let children read their favourite book and then put them in the hot seat. They can choose their favourtie character before being interviewed on their role in the story. Swap roles and let them ask you as well.
• Make up a story together- With your child verbally make up a story together. You could take this one further and write captions and let your child illustrate; creating your own story book together.
• Make a photo story- Take a trip with your child and take photos together. Allow your child to create sentences about what you are doing in each photo. With more advanced learners you could write a joint diary writing down how you felt at different parts of the day. This also allows the children to empathise with your feelings and perspectives as well.
• Look for books together- One of the most overlooked and important parts of reading, is going to find books together; ones that you can both share.
• Hidden messages- This is a fun way to get your child to enjoy reading. Write them special notes and leave them round the house. Reward them for finding them, “ask Mum for a cookie”.
• Treasure hunts- Children love going on treasure hunts. Dress up as pirates for the day and set up an obstacle course. Take children round the house following clues to find the treasure.
• Role play- Sit and have tea with your child’s dolls, or act out a World Cup final. Find out what your child enjoys and make up a story with them. You can either improvise or make up the story first and then act it out.
• Share the reading load- If your child is beginning to read independently, it can seem daunting to have to read a whole book or even a whole page so break it up. Read one line each and act like you are struggling. Ask for help rather than demand your child reads. Let your child know that even adults struggle at times and it is nothing to be ashamed of.

The most important part of shared reading is to look for the things that your child enjoys the most. Not all of these ideas will work for every child.  There are many ways to peak a child’s interest. Try to pick ideas that share the reading experience and you will both be much happier for it.

For more information on the benefits of reading, please take a look at our earlier post The Benefits of Reading With Children

 

Discovery boxes

One of my fondest memories of being young was my “busy box”. In my busy box were a variety of objects, from recycled egg boxes and felt strips to plastic bottles and cereal boxes. It was my treasure chest of creativity. Anything that could be reused was put into my box by my Mum. It was such a simple thing, but I loved it. I wasn’t the most imaginative child but when I opened my busy box my mind became a factory of ideas. My busy box was always around handy for a rainy day and what was even better was that a close friend had one of his own, so whenever we went to one another’s houses, we would often share pieces of junk. Not only did it fuel my creativity but it helped me develop relationships with friends through play.

Here are some great ideas to help you start your own busy box, courtesy of Imagination Tree…

 

The benefits of reading with children

One of the easiest and often most overlooked aspects of child development is simply just taking the time to sit and read together; the emphasis lying with the word “together”. Reading should be a shared experience and not just one way. When we say one way we mean either by the parent reading and the child listening, or for older children, the child reading and the parent listening. The best way to help children to develop, no matter how good they are at reading, is to read with them and share the enjoyment. Children want to share everything they do and when they know that their parents and teachers have time to listen to them, it motivates them to want to read more.  In this blog piece we will outline the benefits of reading for children and in the next addition we will look at ways to share reading experiences and make reading more fun than it already is.

Reading is not just for your child: reading is an opportunity for parents to slow down and have some personal time with their children. In this day and age and especially as children get older, it is harder to find one on one time, so it is important to schedule some time in and what could be more personal than cuddling up with a good story?

Reading is fundamental to academic development: Reading with children is the easiest way for them to become smarter without having to push them. Reading can start from any age and some studies have shown that even reading to the child in the womb can have a positive effect on the child’s development. Good reading is the basis for all educational progression. If a child is a good reader they are able to access every part of not only the curriculum, but also the world around them.

Moral building: Reading books can help children to relate to others more personally. By seeing how characters react to each other within stories children learn what is right and wrong. As well as this children gain vital sharing skills from just reading with family members.

Logical thinking and predictive skills: Through books children begin to see patterns in language and plots. They will begin to link sequences of events and be better at relating to real life experiences. Reading also breeds creativity and good readers tend to be good writers too.

Learning about themselves: Books nowadays are tailored to the milestones in young children’s lives. For example young learner books might be related to sharing or role playing, whereas a child of say five or six might be reading about how to fit into a new school. They offer valuable lessons and reinforcement for parents when discussing key issues affecting the children at different stages of life.

Better concentration: Reading has also been linked to better concentration and attention skills. Children with better reading skills have been shown to have better retention rates and generally perform better at tasks requiring high concentration.

 

For ideas and activities on how to share reading, please take a look at The Benefits of Reading 2- Ideas and activities.

 

Outdoor Learning at BEYC

With the the increasing reliance on technology in the classroom it is important to remember the basics. Creating an outdoor learning environment where the children can learn through play is vitally important to child development.

A high quality learning environment is influenced by the planner’s ideals and social views according to Creating Early Learning Environments by Saskatchewan Ministry of Education (2009). At the British Early Years Centre (BEYC) in Bangkok we try to encompass every aspect of the children’s development, squeezing as much teaching out of the space we have as possible. A lot of thought goes into the equipment we buy and skills that are not as well developed inside the classroom can be nurtured outside.

BEYC has responded to the challenges of the changing climate and the moving ideologies that we come across each day. The environment and the teaching reflects the world’s need for sustainability as well as promotes health and compassion. Topics taught are based around key issues that we face in today’s world; some of which include: staying healthy, organic foods, juicing, recycling and global warming. It is not enough to just teach these ideals however, children should see the school following its own advice. At BEYC the menu is 100% Organic and the children learn about what goes into their meals as well as design meals themselves to be eaten at school. Planting and growing sections are available to the children to grow their own organic crops and the children learn how to recycle their rubbish at snack. The school also uses environmental, non toxic cleaning products and has a salt water chlorinator for the swimming pool.

The learning environment isn’t just for promoting social values, it also has other uses. BEYC has a play safe rubber playground that has been specially designed by the teachers to allow teaching of Maths, English, Topic and Science. There are creative sensory pits of sand, water and construction which have now been upgraded and purposefully built into the rubber design. As well as this children are encouraged to paint on walls and canvases around the school with a wall for Pre-K being designed specifically for this task. Children can build their own forts out of giant bricks and there are giant tactile tiles for building towers as well as a race track with different vehicles for children to practice coordination, respect for others and anticipation as they race to the finish line. The balance beams help to develop proprioception and the play houses teach key skills for knowledge of the world, role play and sharing. As well as all this there are many more activities for developing many other skills.

This being said the school’s vision does not lay waste to and ignore the advances in technology. Ipads and smartboards are still used as teaching aids. There should be a shift and an acceptance of technology but should we be forgetting the basics?

Have a look at some outdoor playground ideas  that can be done at home here and check out our the Educational Games section of our blog which will have posts every week with simple ideas to do with your children. If you have any ideas that you want to share with us please comment as we would love new ideas to use at school.