Being a busy working mom of six children, means I have to work hard to carve out reading time and encourage literacy in my home.  I have three main tips for keeping big and busy families reading:

1) Read Together

Cuddling up to read together creates not only early reading skills, but also makes for some great family time. Children love books and they love cuddles, so this is a winning combination. Many parents read to their children one-on-one. Admittedly, not a lot of that happens in our house. Because we have so many kids, the children are generally divided into developmental levels and have age-appropriate books read to them. As some of my children are getting older, they are taking on some of the reading leadership in our household. There is nothing more special than peeking into a bedroom to find the 11-year-old reading out loud to younger siblings. Sharing the magic of reading with each other melts this mama’s heart!

2) Role Model

It’s important for kids to see their parents reading. It is good role-modeling and allows them to see that reading is an enjoyable and educational activity that lasts a lifetime. I have one small problem with this – I am the kind of reader who can’t put a book down.  When I’m engrossed in a novel, I run the risk of saying things like “OK, OK, I’ll get you dinner, but can you just wait until I’m done this part? Besides, I gave you dinner last night!” or “I know you’re bleeding and I’ll take you for stitches as soon as I’m done this chapter”. Recognizing I had this issue, I tried to restrict my reading to evenings. Eventually the 3:00am bedtime was starting to get to me. My kids do see me read, but generally when we are on holidays, or they see me reading for work. For now, most of my reading is done with the children.

3) Read What They’re Reading

My sister is an engaged aunt and one of her tricks for staying involved is to read the books her tween/teen nieces and nephews are reading.  It provides the opportunity to talk to them about books and discuss different kinds of literature. She has created a shared love and passion for reading, making her relationship with the children special. I decided to take a page out of her book (excuse the pun) and read what my tween daughter was reading last summer. My daughter was thrilled and excited to see me enjoying one of her books. I was constantly being pestered with “What part are you at?”

With all the activities, gadgets and other distractions in life, what part does reading play in your family? What tricks do you have to keep your kids reading?

Julie Cole is the co-founder of Mabel’s Labels, Inc. and proud mom of six. Read her blog at http://blog.mabelslabels.com/index.php/author/julie-cole/. Follow her on Twitter @juliecole.

I adore engaging in hands-on art experiences with young children, but I also love getting kids excited about dramatic play! This Halloween idea is a sure-fire winner for children from preschool through Grade 2. When I work with kids around Halloween, I bring this favorite activity that involves drawing jack-o-lantern faces on orange paper circles taped to Popsicle sticks. These funny faces then become props in reciting a little poem involving interpretive voices. Children get to hold up the faces during the poem to act out the fun. This also gives them something to hold on to during the dramatics!

Jack-o-Pie

I am Jack-o-Happy

I am Jack-o-Sad

I am Jack-o-Sleepy

I am Jack-o-Mad

I am Jack-o-Pieces

I am Jack-o-Small

I am Jack-o-Pie, the best of them all!

[Repeat at least three times]

Introduce During Circle Time

Recite the poem above once or twice through. Ask the children to repeat the poem after you. Show a different orange pumpkin face for each speaker/character in the poem, such as a happy jack-o-lantern, sad jack-o-lantern, sleepy jack-o-lantern, mad jack-o-lantern, broken jack-o-lantern, small jack-o-lantern, and a pumpkin pie jack-o-lantern.

Mix It Up!

Hold up various jack-o-lantern faces from the poem out of order and ask the children to shout out who the face is.

Jack-o-Happy!

Jack-o-Small!

Jack-o-Sleepy!

and so on.

Keep shuffling the jack-o-lantern faces and show them to the children over and over, allowing them to name each face again and again. Next, encourage the kids to use interpretive voices to describe the faces, such as a happy voice for Jack-o-Happy, a tiny voice for Jack-o-Small, and a tired yawning voice for Jack-o-Sleepy. Be prepared for the children to really enjoy the voices, so give them plenty of time to try them out again and again. Some kids may want to stand up and use the interpretive voice alone rather than in the group. Go with this idea as suits your group.

Make Your Own Jack-o-Faces

Kids will need orange paper, scissors, black marker or crayon, tape or glue, and a Popsicle stick or tongue depressor. Have the children divide into groups of 7, to construct the seven Jack-o-Faces. Each child can cut one of the seven faces from orange paper, add the facial features for that face, and glue or tape it to a Popsicle stick (like a masquerade mask). No eye-holes need be cut.

Gather Together Again

Ask the children to bring their Jack-o-Faces to the circle. Have the first group of children line up before the others, following the order of the poem. Read aloud the poem and make sure each child holds up his or her “face” at the right time. Now, ask the children to create individual funny voices for their pumpkin faces. Once again, recite the poem. The happy pumpkin uses a very happy voice. The sad pumpkin uses a crying voice. The mad pumpkin uses an angry voice. Jack-o-Pieces sounds broken and the words are staccato. The small pumpkin has a tiny voice and Jack-o-Pie has the strongest voice of all! Invite the children to say the poem in order, holding up their Jack-o-Faces in front of their own face as they use their interpretive voices. When complete, they may sit down. Then, repeat with a new group!

Follow-Up Activity Ideas

Matching Game: In a box, place 7 Jack-o-Faces to match with 7 words/names, like big, small, pie, pieces, etc. Match the Jack-o-Faces with the words that describe them.

Sentence Chart: On a sentence chart, feature sentences from the poem, such as, “I am Jack-o-Happy.” Make sure the sentences are out of order. The children can then put the sentences in the correct order of the memorized poem, saying it out loud as they work. Little Jack-o-Faces can also be used to help match to the sentences.

Puppet Show: Use the Jack-o-Faces to create your own puppet show, repeating the interpretative voices used to recite the poem.

Jack-o-Face Books: Children can draw one of the Jack-o-Faces on each page of a short handmade book. Encourage them to invent new faces and voices, like Jack-o-Fish (bloop bloop) or Jack-o-Baby (wah, wah, goo goo). They can draw, write, or cut out faces to glue in the book.

See Where the Children Take You! I have seen one child act out the entire poem on his own. I have seen kids invent new personalities and jack-o-lantern faces to add to the poem, often rhyming. Open your mind to letting kids carry this to a new level, and you may be surprised what they come up with from this simple poem!

Additional Ideas to Expand the Theme:

• Orange and black paint at easel
• Play dough with black triangles and other shapes in a dish at the art table
• Collage materials for interesting jack-o-lantern face designs
• Decorate real pumpkins
• Carve pumpkins, with help if needed
• Count pumpkin seeds
• Cook pumpkin seeds
• Collage with pumpkin seeds
• Jack-o-lantern masks from paper plates, with additional decorations

MaryAnn Faubion Kohl is the author of 20+ award-winning books of activities for children. Two of her newest titles are First Art: Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos and Art with Anything. MaryAnn invites you to subscribe to her free ArtsyKidsNEWS monthly e-newsletter packed with lots of art ideas and book giveaways.

Materials

• Kitchen tools, such as metal pots, pans, lids, and wooden or metal spoons
• Lengths of sturdy string or nylon rope

Preparation

• Gather a variety of kitchen items.
• Attach varying lengths of string or rope to the handles of the kitchen items.
• Select a suitable tree in the playground, and hang the items from the branches. Position the wooden or metal spoons near the pots, pans and lids, or attach the spoons directly to the pans and lids. (The children will be using them as strikers.)

What to Do

1. Read a book about sounds (see below for suggestions). Talk with the children about the sounds they hear every day.
2. Encourage the children to experiment with making different sounds by using the spoons to hit the items hanging in the tree.
3. Ask them to listen carefully and compare how the different items sound. Does the smaller pot make a higher sound than the big pan? Does the pot lid sound different than the baking pan?
4. Ask them to experiment with hitting the pans quickly and slowly. Explain that the speed at which they hit the pans is called a tempo.
5. Can the children make up songs to go with their tree music?

Teacher Tip: If possible, leave the items in the tree for the children to explore over and over again. Encourage the children to expand the collection over time and to experiment with more sounds.

Pair This Activity with a Children’s Book!

Book Suggestions:

• All About Sound by Lisa Trumbauer
• Sound: Loud, Soft, High, and Low by Natalie Rosinsky
• Sounds All Around by Wendy Pfeffer
• Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss

For outdoor adventures that also build skills in areas like math, literacy and language, science, art, and music, check out Let’s Take It Outside! Perfect for children ages 3 to 6, the activities in Let’s Take It Outside! combine the magic and excitement of the outdoors with lessons that encourage and support learning!

Digital storytelling is a way of capturing still and moving images with words and recorded sound – voice and music – to create and keep a lively, multisensory story. This type of activity is so rich in opportunities for supporting language and literacy development that we find it being used in early childhood classrooms throughout the country. Have you watched a wedding video lately? Many times the video starts with music playing in the background while visually zooming in on still photographs, such as pictures of the spouses’ childhood homes and baby pictures, then moves seamlessly to actual video of the ceremony and reception. That is an example of how digital storytelling works.

There are several websites that make that kind of production easy for anyone to learn and use. By providing examples, step-by-step instructions, and user-friendly features, sites such as VoiceThread or Storycenter.org allow you to use your own digital photographs and video clips; record and add voices, music, and sound effects; and create a story. Effects can be added to enhance the drama. You may be able to even zoom in and out on pictures, fade in and out, crop, decorate, or highlight.

Other sites such as Voki and Storybird offer a different kind of digital storytelling. You select an avatar – a graphic character that represents you or any character in your story – and provide a voice to that character. There are options for different actions. You can type words and have the characters say them, or you can record your own voice. There are multiple language options as well.

Digital storytelling with these resources has become very popular as an educational tool from preschool through college. There are many blogs, wikis, and other articles that describe new and interesting ways to use this technology for a variety of learning activities that we can hardly imagine. If you want to try this idea, there is more than enough help available!

Are you considering using digital storytelling as a teaching tool? Here is some inspiration:

A New Jersey kindergarten English-as-a-second-language teacher, Monica Schnee, won a national award for her VoiceThread digital story. She helped her young multilingual students learn about polar bears, and they all worked together to create a digital story with artwork and words produced by the children. Using VoiceThread, they were able to record their own voices reading their own words as the screen showed the illustrations they drew. Once the project was posted, other teachers viewed it and recorded their encouraging comments by voice, typing, or both. The project was made available on the website so families of these ESL students who live in other countries could access the story and contribute their comments as well.

For more tools and opportunities to correctly choose and effectively implement technology in your early childhood classroom, order a copy of Digital Decisions: Choosing the Right Technology Tools for Early Childhood Education (ISBN 978-0-87659-408-7, 192 pages, 2012) by Fran Simon and Karen Nemeth.

The summer season is full of beautiful things for our eyes to enjoy! Help your child remember these beautiful things by creating a nature journal together. While we were building our home, the kids and I would take field trips to our new property. We would usually take a picnic and our nature journals.  Some weeks, the children would draw the house being framed or the roof going on. Other weeks, the children would draw the trees or the creek.

I will never forget the day we discovered the pair of owls that lived on our property. The pair soared across the sky as we watched in amazement. Immediately, one of the children grabbed their journal and began sketching. I was so thankful that she had her journal so she could record this special time. We continue to nature journal at our house. We have taken our journals on walks to see the horses and goats. We have taken our journals into the woods, into our garden, and onto our front porch. There is so much to see in nature, your child might need a new nature journal each season. If you are like me, you will decide that you need your own journal too.

Getting Started:

• Buy or make a nature journal. Larger pages work best because they provide adequate space for your child to sketch.
• Provide a variety of colored pencils.
• Keep binoculars handy so your child can get a better look at birds and other animals from a distance.
• Purchase bird and flower identifying books. We like The National Geographic My First Pocket Guide to Garden Birds and The National Geographic My First Pocket Guide to Wildflowers.
• Assist your child when they want to learn more about things they see in nature. Recently, we saw several snakes on a camping trip and now my youngest son is obsessed with knowing everything about snakes. He has recently learned that the most poisonous snake in the world is the Inland Taipan and the fastest snake in the world is the Black Mamba.
• Ask your child if they would like to tell you a story that goes with their drawing. Write their story down word for word. This makes this science activity a great language arts activity too.

Rain is a novelty for my California preschoolers. It was a big deal one recent day when rain fell on the cement patio outside our classroom. Then just like the Itsy Bitsy song, “Out came the sun and dried up all the rain…” Where did the rain go, the children wondered.

“Let’s be scientists and see if we can figure out what happened,” I said. “What do we need?” “More water!” the children exclaimed.

“OK. Let’s fill some sand pails with water and I’ll get brushes,” I said.

Children in my pre-kindergarten class do science throughout the day, all through the classroom and outdoors, not just at a science table.

You can do this simple science exploration at school or at home. You just need some sand pails or buckets of water, large paintbrushes and chalk.

* Invite each child to fill a sand pail or bucket with water and choose a paintbrush.

* Then invite children to “paint” with water whatever they want—the sidewalk, the school building, a playhouse.

* Ask, “Do you think the water will stay on the sidewalk?”

* After children have painted for a while ask if they notice any difference in the place they started painting. Children may say, “The water disappeared!” or “It’s dry now.”

* Introduce the word “evaporate.” Water evaporates when it becomes part of the air. It isn’t gone; we just can’t see it. Say and clap the syllables: e-vap-o-rate. Invite the children to act out the word by crouching down like they are little drops of water. They slowly rise as they say “eee” and then spread their arms to make a giant V and jump up into the air as they say “evaporate!”

Evaporation is a hard concept for children to grasp but learning the word and seeing the process again and again as they paint with water helps build understanding. Painting with water is more engaging than a common science experiment of filling two identical clear jars with about 1” of water, marking the water level and then covering one jar tightly and leaving the other jar uncovered and waiting for the water in the uncovered jar to evaporate. That evaporation typically takes days so it’s hard for children to understand what’s happening. Painting with water lets children experience evaporation.

On a hot day, water on a sunny sidewalk will evaporate right before their eyes. As soon as children swipe the sidewalk with a wet brush invite them or a classmate to outline the wet spot with chalk. They can draw multiple circles as the wet spot shrinks. They can count how long it takes the water to evaporate. They can also time the evaporation with sand timers.

Here are more possibilities for exploring evaporation:

• Children compare painting with water in the sun to painting in the shade.
• Children paint their names or pictures with water on the sidewalk and watch them evaporate. Can they outline the letters in their name before the water dries up?
• Children spray water with spray bottles and compare evaporation times with water spread with a paintbrush.
• Children paint with water on small chalkboards. Water will evaporate quicker on the chalkboard than it will on the sidewalk.

These explorations incorporate the science and vocabulary of evaporation and the math skills of measuring time and size. I build literacy connections by reading non-fiction books such as Where Do Puddles Go? By Fay Robinson, and stories such as The Puddle by David McPhail.

The ideas come from my book, Thinking BIG, Learning BIG: Connecting Science, Math, Literacy and Language in Early Childhood.

Have fun doing science throughout the day!

This post was contributed by Marie Faust Evitt. Marie is the head teacher of a preschool class for four- and five-year-olds. Prior to teaching, Marie was an award-winning newspaper reporter and freelance journalist for more than 20 years. Her articles and essays on education, parenting, and child psychology have been published in Newsweek, Parents, Child, Parenting, Scholastic’s Parent & Child, Scholastic.com, and Family Fun. Marie is also the author of Thinking Big, Learning Big. She posts about her classroom activities at www.thinkingBIGlearningBIG.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thinkingBIGlearningBIG. She lives in Mountain View, California.

When I was a very little girl, my dad brought me a new book every week from the bookstore where he worked. Most of them were Little Golden Books, and I still own every single one. Those books brought magic into my life and lovely daddy-daughter time to me as an imaginative little girl. I treasure both the books and my time with my dad who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 50.

One of the ways I used to like to play with my books was to set up my toys in scenes and arrangements based on favorite stories, like playing dolls, but more. I was building the scenes from my books, like setting the stage for a great play or story. I would move the characters around and make them talk, reliving the book and adding my own twists to the story.

When I was satisfied with playing, I would bring out my Brownie camera (this was film, not digital, everyone! It was in the 1950s!) and take a picture of the scene. The pictures took about a week or more to develop and be returned to me. The waiting wasn’t so hard, as there was plenty to do to keep busy during the interim.

When the pictures arrived, I selected which scenes would go into my scrapbook, really just a notebook with photos taped in, and tape them in. Though sadly I don’t have any of those pictures today, I do have the memory of my play time with my books as the inspiration and my dad smiling over me and asking me to tell him about the photographs in my notebook. Retelling the stories was a good part of the enjoyment.

So I’d like you to try this, your kids will love it! I call it Portraiture, an idea from the book, Storybook Art, authors MaryAnn Kohl and Jean Potter, and also in a different way from Great American Artists for Kids by MaryAnn Kohl and Kim Solga.

Portraiture

To Do:

1. A child (children) reads a favorite book (listen to a book or read it on their own).
2. A child (children) sets up a scene with whatever toys, figures, blocks, and so forth on hand.
3. Take a digital picture of the scene.
4. Choose to move the scene about and take a second or third picture to tell a story in sequence, but most kids are happy with one picture.
5. Print out the picture.
6. Save it in a notebook or scrapbook.
7. Take dictation about the picture from the child if they are very young, or encourage them to write something about it if they are old enough.

More:

Some kids like to actually dress-up in costumes and put together some background or props to re-enact a favorite book or one of their make-believe times. Do the same: Pose, take a picture, print it out, save it in a notebook.

These pictures show scenes as well as children dressing up and posing:

The squirrel is reading the baby frogs a bedtime story. The two children who posed the scene gave a short dictation of what was happening to the squirrel and frogs.

Jake and Sydney posed themselves in costume with props to show how difficult it is to have a cup of tea when the toys are not behaving.

Foil figures squeezed from aluminum foil can make fun characters to pose in a story. This foil man has found himself a marker and is setting out to draw his own personal story on white paper.

This post was contributed by MaryAnn Kohl (pictured on the left at about the age of Brownie cameras and book scenes). MaryAnn is the renowned author of over 20 books about art for children. Her books are published both by Gryphon House and by her own company, Bright Ring Publishing. MaryAnn enjoys speaking internationally and working with groups of children all over the US. Articles by MaryAnn can be found at the Barnes & Noble Parents’ Expert Circle as well as her own blog. MaryAnn lives in Bellingham, Washington.

Celebrate the beginning of winter (and the shortest day of the year) with these language and literacy activity ideas from The GIANT Encyclopedia of Monthly Activities!

Welcome Winter!

Materials:

• Several large sheets of paper
• Index cards
• Markers

What to Do:

1. Introduce the first day of winter with your favorite winter children’s books (see the list below for some suggestions).
2. Write the word “winter” in the center of a large sheet of paper and circle it. Ask the children to name some things that relate to winter, such as snow, cold, ice, ski, hot chocolate, mittens, boots, sled, snowman, and so on. Write their ideas on the paper outside the circle as you say them.
3. Depending on the attention span of your group, you can end the activity and post the list, end the activity and come back to it later for extension activities, or continue the activity by making a “winter word wall.”
4. To continue, let each child choose a word to copy. Ask them to draw a picture of the word on an index card.
5. Write their word on the card and have them add the card in the correct location on a winter word wall. (A word wall is a bulletin board display of the alphabet that the children add words to so they can refer to them for various activities.)

More to Do:

Use the list of words to develop your next theme with the children. Vote on a category for the direction the curriculum will take. Have the children decide on how to change the room, props needed, and encourage their creativity by letting their ideas transform the room.

Group or Circle Time: Cut out all the winter words listed. Designate a few categories, such as “holiday,” “weather,” “clothes,” “food,” and so on. Ask the children to sort the words into the correct categories.

Related books:

• The First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming
• Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft & Richard G. Van Gelder
• Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming
• Max and Ruby’s Snowy Day by Rosemary Wells

~~~

This activity was taken from The GIANT Encyclopedia of Monthly Activities. This activity was originally contributed by Ann Kelly from Johnstown, PA. For more activities (like the one above), you can purchase your own copy of The GIANT Encyclopedia of Monthly Activities on the Gryphon House website.

Looking for the perfect stocking stuffer for “rookie” parents, “third-time’s-the-charm” parents, or even “been-there-done-that” grandparents?  You’re in luck! Gryphon House is counting down our favorite picks for parents. Whether you’re looking to spice up a holiday road trip, explore some exciting art activities, or bring out your baby’s “baby smarts,” we’ve got a book for that!

Day 11:

L Is for Lion

Learning the ABCs is fun and easy with Between the Lions®!  L Is for Lion expands on this award-winning PBS Kids® series, to help parents make learning letters fun and easy for their children.

From exploring foods that begin with each letter to learning how to shape letters with their bodies, the activities in L Is for Lion let children explore the alphabet with all five senses.

Activity for the Letter “G”:

Gingerbread Man Shapes

What You Will Need:

• Bread
• Cream cheese or frosting
• Dried fruit, sunflower seeds, and/or candy
• Gingerbread man (or woman) cookie cutter

What to Do:

• Use the cookie cutter to cut gingerbread man shapes out of slices of bread.
• Spread cream cheese onto the shapes and use dried fruit, sunflower seeds, or candies to decorate each gingerbread man.
• Enjoy the yummy gingerbread man shapes.
• As you eat the gingerbread man shapes, ask, What part of your gingerbread man do you eat first – the head, arm, or leg?

Note: Remember to wash your hands before beginning this project.

More Ideas:

• Matching Gingerbread Children

• Use a gingerbread boy (or girl) cookie cutter to cut out 12 identical brown paper gingerbread people. Add simple decorations to make six matching pairs. Use buttons, happy or sad faces, decorations at the wrists and ankles (zigzag lines, straight lines, or no lines) to make distinct pairs. Model how to find a matching pair and place them together. Then let your child find the matching pairs.

• Gingerbread Children

  • Ask your child to tell a story about one of her gingerbread cookies. Ask, What is your cookie’s name? What does your cookie like to do? How is your cookie feeling?

For more fun ways to teach your child about letters, you can purchase your own copy of L Is for Lion on our website. And don’t forget to enter our 5 Days of Great Gryphon Giveaways on the Gryphon House Facebook fan page. Join us as we give away 5 books (as mentioned in our 12 Days of Great Gryphon Gifts for Moms and Dads blog series) to 5 lucky Facebook fans each day this week (Monday-Friday)! You still have 3 more chances to win!

Day 8:

Go Anywhere Games for Babies

Your baby can play and learn wherever you go – on the road, in the air, out to dinner, or back at home!  Go Anywhere Games for Babies is a handy little book packed with learning and bonding games designed for each stage of your baby’s first year.

Develop your baby’s listening skills on the go:

High and Low (for 0-3 months)

One of the newborn’s most highly developed abilities is responding to sound, including the difference between high and low-pitched sounds.

• Hold you baby close to you and say her name in a soft, high-pitched voice. For example, “Susie, Susie, I love you.”
• Next say the same words in a soft, low-pitched voice.
• Alternate between high and low several times.

Develop your baby’s body awareness on the go:

The Kissing Game (for 3-6 months)

Hold your baby in your arms and recite the poem, kissing each part of the body named as you sing each line:

Kissy, kissy fingers,

Kissy, kissy toes,

Kissy, kissy baby,

On your kissy nose.

I love to kiss your fingers,

I love to kiss your toes,

I love to kiss my baby,

On your kissy nose.

Develop your baby’s motor skills on the go:

Fast Food Fun (for 6-9 months)

To entertain your baby while at a restaurant, make a simple toy for them to play with.

• Take the lids from several drinking cups and put them on one straw, leaving space between each lid.
• Show your baby how to take the lids off and put them on again.
• Let the baby try it by herself.

Develop your baby’s language skills on the go:

The Snail (for 9-12 months)

• Cup one hand. While reciting the poem, creep the fingers of the other hand into the cupped one.

Hand in hand you see us well,

Creep like a snail into his shell,

Ever nearer, ever nearer,

Ever closer, ever closer,

Very snug indeed your dwell,

Snail within your tiny shell.

• Cup your hand and let your baby creep your fingers into it.
• Show your baby how to cup her hand. Creep your fingers into it.

For more activities to play with your baby no matter where you go, visit our website to purchase your own copy of Go Anywhere Games for Babies by Jackie Silberg.