The Whole Child e-zine brings you free preschool activities each week to maximize your child's potential, build skills and parent-child relationships in just a few minutes per day. Useful tips, quotes, resources, opportunities and articles will added for extra value!

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CONTENTS

1. Hello from Shirley
2. Updates at Shirley's Preschool Activities
3. Book reviews
4. Tips!
5. Quotes
6. Readiness Activities

1. Hello from Shirley

We started 'school' again after 3 weeks holiday so it was back to routines again for us.

The children are all excited about a new business parenting system that we have started using. They feel very grown up with their own budgets and pocket money spending records.

It has been interesting to see how their plans for their money reveal different character traits in each child. One is very sensible and practical, the other is a gift giver and another is more of an entrepreneur wanting to invest and make it grow.

If you are not receiving this email in html format or you find white gaps where there should be images, then use this link for a much more colorful and easier-to-read version!

2. Updates at Shirley's Preschool Activities

Music Appreciation and Art Appreciation .

3. Book Reviews

Not only does this story illustrate the trading of goods and services and the process of creating cloth, but it also highlights the difficult conditions in which other people or other generations have lived.

It can stimulate an appreciation in our children for the comfort of our living conditions.

Each stage of the story occurs at a different time of the year and so it also lends itself to a study of the four seasons.

Buy from Amazon.com or Buy from Kalahari.net or Buy from Loot

Create a Wall Frieze

How about creating a visual reminder of the great books you have read.

Ask your child to choose her favourite picture in the story, then photocopy it, let her colour it in and trim it and paste it on a poster. Add a picture for all your favourite stories.

4. Tips

I am sure I am not the only one who finds her kids' cupboards gradually degenerating into chaos. Except for my son who is the 'neat freak' in the house and keeps his shelves pretty tidy, cupboards constantly need attention.

A tip I learnt from the flylady is to break big, overwhelming jobs into baby steps.

I ask my kids to tidy one shelf in their cupboards at a time, over a few days, until the whole cupboard is back at an acceptable level of neatness.

5. Quote

Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE)

Who is training your child's heart?

What kind of education will s/he be getting?

6. Readiness Activities

The Whole Child - Week 21 Activities - printable pdf

Week 21

Auditory Perception

Let your child enjoy making music with any musical instruments that you may have in your home, perhaps a xylophone, drum, recorder or other. Alternatively, make a shaker by placing rice in an empty plastic bottle with a lid, then let your child shake it in time with some fun, uplifting music. Dance or sing. Have fun!

Language and Thinking

Choose a story to read to your child that lends itself to role play. Afterwards ask her to re-enact the story, along with you or using soft toys or dolls as characters if necessary. This activity encourages a child to her imagine herself in the position of someone else. Even letting her pretend to be you, the mom or dad in a home, can help her to understand your role in the family better and why roles are that way.

Visual Perception

Continue with your child's colour scrap-book (or start one  now). Allocate a page for each colour and write the name clearly on each page. Begin with the primary colours, red, yellow and blue and then create pages for the secondary colours. Encourage your child to choose one colour and cut out pictures in different shades of that colour and paste them on the relevant page.

Mathematical Skills

Continue teaching your child about the different denominations of your country's currency. Use the coins or notes of low value first, which your child is most likely to be able to handle herself first. If she can recognize and name them accurately, start explaining what their value is in terms of what they can buy. For example, here in South Africa, five rand is roughly the price of a loaf of bread and twenty cents will buy you one toffee or one piece of bubble-gum!

Gross Motor Skills

Ask your child to march on the spot like a soldier, swinging her arms as she lifts the opposite leg.  This activity develops a sense of laterality (right and left sides) and balance.