One activity we’ve been doing at Boston Children’s Museum this month in the Art Studio is “Map Making”. Children can make a map of anything they’re familiar with: the playground, their school, their bedroom ….the possibilities are endless! Maps can be drawn with pencils, crayons, and markers or collaged with bits from magazines or made with toothpicks glued to paper (reminiscent of Polynesian stick charts).

Here are some books to go with a mapping activity:
• My Map Book, by Sara Fanelli
• Follow That Map, by Scot Ritchie
• Me On The Map, by Joan Sweeney and Annette Cable

If you get creative blocks like I do, these blogs help me recharge and find inspiration. Hope they help you too!

http://progressiveearlychildhoodeducation.blogspot.com/

http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.sunhatsandwellieboots.com/

http://www.childcentralstation.com/

http://www.classic-play.com/issues/

Do you have favorite resources that get you out of your creative ruts? Let us know what they are!

Boston’s young children have reflected this trend for quite some time.  Data from the 2010 Census shows that 71.5% of Boston’s 34,741 children birth to five are not white.  29.3% are Hispanic, 29% are African American/Black, 5.7% are Asian and 7.5% are multiracial/other – compared with 28.5% who are white. 

This is in sharp contrast to data on the whole population.  Even though Boston is a majority-minority city, 47% of the population is white, 22.4% is black/African American, 17.5% is Hispanic, 8.9% is Asian and 12.3% are multiracial/other.  

For more on Boston’s demographics, check out the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s Census reports.

Three years later, what are the academic pressures of the kindergarten classroom? Do the experiences of the teachers in this piece reflect your own? How do you balance accountability with play? What’s changed? What’s stayed the same? Where do you think we should go from here?

“The Bug Squad is a team again!”

Jumpstart and the Pearson Foundation are thrilled to announce that the official Jumpstart Read for the Record campaign book for 2012 is Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad by David Soman and Jacky Davis!

In Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad, join Ladybug Girl, Lulu, on another adventure with her Bug Squad friends!  Together they will share their superpowers, fight off tall giants and aliens, and learn the importance of saying sorry.  This book offers great opportunities for parents and teachers to talk about friendship, encourage make-believe play, and help children realize when it is important to apologize, even if it isn’t easy or things don’t go their way.

And, for the first time this year, Jumpstart’s Read for the Record will take place over a full week from September 27 to October 4, giving record breakers across the country even more opportunity to support Jumpstart’s mission to work toward the day every child in American enters school prepared to succeed.  Again this year, record breakers will also be able to take part by reading the book for free at We Give Books (www.wegivebooks.org), the free digital reading initiative created by Penguin and the Pearson Foundation.

Stay tuned over the summer and into the fall for more Jumpstart updates, activities and initiatives for Read for the Record 2012.  In the meantime, stop by your favorite library, bookstore, or visit We Give Books and take a look at Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad!

Title: Gilberto and the Wind
Author: Marie Hall Ets
In this book Gilberto hears the wind whispering at the door and runs out to play. The wind teases Gilberto by carrying his balloon away and breaking his umbrella. The wind is playful too, racing Gilberto, lifting his soap bubbles, knocking down an apple for him to eat, and gently lulling him to sleep.

Vocabulary:
blur: something you cannot see clearly
clothespins: clips for hanging wash on a line
gentle: soft, mild, kind
howling: making a long, loud cry like a wolf
jerk: a sudden tug
kite: a toy that flies in the air, lifted by wind
pinwheel: a toy that spins in the wind
ripe: ready to eat
sail: a cloth attached to the mast of a boat that the wind pushes along
unlatched: not fastened, unlocked
whispering: speaking softly

Dramatic Play: Playing House
Purpose: Children can use vocabulary and comprehension as they engage in play about doing laundry, especially hanging clothes outside to dry in the wind.

Materials: Basic house-play materials including clothesline, clothespins, pillowcases, doll clothes and chairs to hang clothesline (if possible)

Hints/Strategies:

• Observe children as they play and comment on their actions using rich vocabulary.
  • “Look at all the clothes on the clothesline! I wonder if they are going to fit on the clothesline. Do you have enough clothespins?”
  • “I notice you have washed the pillowcases and the apron and hung them up just as they were in the book about Gilberto.”

*NOTE: It can be helpful to string the clothesline between two childsize chairs so that the line is within easy reach of children.
 

Science: What Can Air Move?
Purpose: Children develop vocabulary and comprehension as they begin to understand that it is possible to investigate air and classify the results; observe an experiment and make predictions about the results, like similarities and differences.

Materials: Hair dryer (and extension cord if necessary); 3 shoeboxes with signs attached (Moved Easily, Moved at a Higher Speed, Did Not Move); Various objects to test

Hints/Strategies:

• Use suggested vocabulary during discussion in ways that make their meanings clear: breeze, speed, wind, heavy, light, strong, weak.
• Show children the hair dryer and turn it on the lowest speed to create a breeze. Tell the children that you will do an experiment together to test which objects the air from the hair dryer will move.
• Read the signs on the shoeboxes and show children the collection of objects. Together, name each object you will test.
• As you test each object, use rich vocabulary and make connections to Gilberto and the Wind when possible.
• Have children select an object to test. Ask children to predict whether or not the object will move.
• Place the object on the table in the path of the hair dryer.
• For safety reasons only Corps members should use the hair dryer. Test at a low speed, then at higher speeds if necessary. Talk about what happens.
• Have children place the object in the correct box.
• Talk about how the objects in the same box are alike.

These are just a few of the possible activities that you could use with this book. Grab a copy…I’m sure you can find many more!

Drawing and Tracing: If your program will be celebrating Valentines’ Day try creating “mailboxes” for each child made of cardstock, brown paper bags, or recycled boxes. Have the children decorate their mailbox with crayons, colored pencils, markers, or even paint. Provide stencils for them to trace hearts, flowers or other shapes onto the mailbox.

Using tools:  Have children make their own Valentines to give away with colorful construction paper and safety scissors. Encourage the children to decorate their Valentines with glitter, stickers, stamps or paint.  This would be a great opportunity for children to practice picking up and manipulating small objects.

The basic arts and crafts of Valentine’s Day offer great fine motor skills practice to children and a lot of fun at the same time! While they create their tokens of affection, you can show your care by encouraging them to develop the skills they need for the rest of their lives.

Over 60 Vietnamese families with young children with Autism joined Mayor Thomas M. Menino at Dorchester House Multi-Service Center for games, arts and crafts, a traditional Dragon Dance, and the chance to receive “lixi”, a small gift of money meant to bring good luck in the new year.

Fields Corner Children Thrive sponsors a monthly support group for Vietnamese families with children with Autism.  For more information, contact Marika Michelangelo at Dorchester House.

Photos courtesy of Oriole Bui.

One way we love to read to babies, toddlers and young children is to use wordless books. We recently created a list of our favorite wordless books that adults and children can look at together to create their own stories to go along with the illustrations. Wordless picture books are a wonderful way to introduce young children to concepts they will later apply when learning to read, such as building vocabulary, comprehension skills and sequencing of events in a story.  Wordless books are also great for English language learners and adults whose first language is not English- families can “read” wordless picture books as a way of creatively sharing stories together.

Click here for a list of some of our favorite wordless picture books.

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Recently we’ve been thinking a lot about our Reading Center.  The Reading Center is an option for kids to choose during choice-time, but is all too often never chosen at all.  We know how important early reading skills are, and know that we need to take every opportunity that we can to expose children to reading.  In thinking about what more we could do to sell our kids on the Reading Center, I came across some great ideas and resources, including some creative Reading Center set-ups from one of our very own Jumpstart Sites!

• Jumpstart at Emerson College came up with these thoughtful and creative set-ups for their Reading Center:

By thinking creatively about their set-up, Jumpstart at Emerson College has made the Reading Center exciting and engaging so their kids will be more likely to make the choice to read with their Jumpstart friends.  Ideas like this make reading more of an experience than just reading words on a page–it becomes and engaging activity that kids can get excited about.

• Reading Rockets also has pages and pages of tips and tricks for parents, teachers and even school administrators.  One of my favorite parent resources was “10 Things You Can Do to Raise a Reader–” this is a great list of quick, easy, every-day activities and reminders for how parents can get their kids off on the right foot when it comes to reading.  I also loved the “Themed Booklists” and the how-to on setting up a “Classroom Library,” because they reminded me of a lot of the things we are constantly thinking about at Jumpstart, and prove that there is a lot more that can go into teaching a child how to read then just handing him a book.

Do you know of any more great reading resources?  Share them here so we can come up with even more ideas to get our children invested in reading!

This is what you’ll find in the guide:

• What is STEM is all about?
• Brain Building 101
• Asking Good Questions:  Focus on “What”
• A Day in the Life of a Preschooler
• Massachusetts Guidelines for Preschool Learning Experiences
• STEM Activities for Preschoolers

In addition there will be eight downloadable tip sheets on Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Seeing, Touching, Hearing, and Smelling/Tasting each with the following information:
• How can so much fun teach STEM skills?
• Activities to try
• What to tell children
• What to tell parents
• The brain-building connection
• Books to learn more

For more information about the guide, contact Beth Fredericks: fredericks@bostonchildrensmuseum.org