On the risk of sounding cheesy…

Forgive my burst of sudden sentimentality (well, for those who know me quite well, you guys know I’m a sap, meaning I cry over puppies and newborn babies)… but this week is really happy yet hard for me.

Next week, two of my preK classes are graduating. I work at two sites, one is a paid internship and another is an unpaid one, but same workload nonetheless. So, my students are moving up to kindergarten and it’s not easy. It’s never easy to say goodbye and never really possible to prepare very well for it. But yeah, it’s hard.

In my one class, the kids are learning sign language and I get taps during the day with some of them just signing, “I love you.” to which I sign back, “Thank you.” It’s quite adorable especially when one said, “You are the one I love a lot teacher.” or “I will miss you as much as a tree misses the sun in winter” *cue in waterworks ._.*

In my other class, they have been extra snuggly and cuddly lately. I’m talking about all of them. They have been giving a lot of hugs and touching your hair and face a lot. It’s quite emotional (don’t judge me :D)

In both classes comes a lot of artwork and letters that get put in my apron or in my bag. My students are giving me their memories or making pictures for me or writing my name.

This is a sad and happy thing at the same time. I’m excited for what elementary school holds for these kids. I’m praying for each of them, that God works in their hearts whether it be softening their hearts for truth (preparing the soil for planting so to speak) or with encouraging the growth to maturity. This is one of the things this is about, and admittedly this is my first group to graduate here in the US (i’ve been with them since they were three) so it is quite an attachment.

But to many more groups of kids to learn with!! I’m excited. Ever since I started this work, God has just been opening a lot of doors and for that i remain forever grateful. You truly are my life. =)

“Train a child in the way they should go, so that even when they are old, they will not depart from it.” - Proverbs

Shadow boxes: Encouraging your child with healthy artful expression

Ever wanted to try a new way of preserving memories of children (students or your own look-alike versions of God’s blessings?), but wonder how you can make them actively involved in the process of helping you make their own mementos?

One good idea is to introduce shadow boxes to them. Craft stores usually carry a decent number of examples that the children can look at. The library around your area may carry books on how to make shadow-boxes. Craft-ing seems to be an “in-thing” nowadays so the internet will no doubt have DIY blogs that will be more descriptive.

Children love collecting things. My students collect anything from dirt, insects, leaves, rocks and anything odd that they can bring. If you have a garden or a cool storage room, it would be nice to take a trip with your child to go on a collecting expedition.

Teach children how to recycle. I admit that I would prefer to buy the wooden frames for shadow boxes but if you are on a limited budget, don’t despair. There are many resources that you can use!! You can use old shoeboxes and even put together wood pieces (Home Depot will sometimes give you those for free, maybe if you’re lucky they’ll offer to cut it for you too! ;) ) to create your own frame. Your children or student will give you ideas and you can help scaffold the learning by figuring out how to make it work and how to extend the creativity.

Children love to problem solve. Provide opportunities for children to think of solutions to any hindrance that may come their way in art (one of the plethora of areas in life that will have problems). Foster their learning by not providing everything for them (sometimes leave out the glue when an activity needs gluing or leave out crayons when they have to color). When you have a younger child (2-4 years old), this encourages them to talk more and relate with you more! The two things that are at a balance here are independence and relying on others (which would be good skills to develop in balance with each other).

Teach them color. Color is a concept that they will need anyway, so have fun pointing those natural colors to them! It is a good area for the introduction of the sciences.

Children love to story tell. It’s true, children have a huge imagination so they will definitely find it cool to make their own shadowboxes for each

year of their lives maybe? Maybe it can even find it’s way as a clock in the house or their room?

Use this experience to point out God’s creation to them. They will see the flowers, the insects, and every little and big thing that God made. This will be a great experience and you can talk about how God made all things and how much God loves each and every one of us. When a child knows this, a good foundation can be set. This isn’t meant to be a hyper-spiritual activity, but this is a good way to show your child the meaning of true worship, something that you, as their teacher, parent or care-giver can work on (for your own) and model for them.

So, have fun! enjoy the process and don’t rush the end goal. Enjoy these tiny moments with the kids. They grow up really fast!!

“The heavens declare Your greatness. The oceans cry out to You. The mountains, they bow down before You. So I’ll join with the earth and I’ll give my praise to You.”

Preschool Castaways?

Picture from Cast Away

We had a training session for work and one question was asked, “What three things will you take if you get marooned in an island?”

It was quite interesting all the answers that came. It was a reminder that there is a bit of a difference between city and rural life, first world and third world life. Most of my team was thinking convenience so they thought of fishing kits and and a water desalination kit. Haha. I chose to bring a huge knife (machete) and a lot of rope. I made an economic assumption that the island would hopefully have coconut trees, wood and stones. :P One thing we all had in common was bringing someone, a partner or sorts, although our motives were all very much different. Most of us needed someone to talk the crazies out of our systems while some figured a man could do a lot of the work.

The point to all this was to be good improvisers. What if all you had was basics? How can you make use of those for your environment and all the inquiry areas? As a teacher, you must be both planner and spontaneous and that is a challenge one has to work with!

Bonding with children: Room decorating

A really fun activity you can do with your cousins, siblings or your own children is to decorate their room with them. This provides you an opportunity to hang out with them, get to know them and also have a very important end goal in mind, sleep. It can be quite challenging at times to get your children to bed and to stay there while they fall asleep!! It can be a hair-pulling moment and if you have access to their room and have a little bit of the family budget to spare, maybe it’s time to decorate their room into a comfortable, safe and sleep-beckoning environment.

Here’s a list of do’s:

1. Do consider the logistics of a project. It is something that a family can do together, and the logistics can be explained to your child as well. For example, when I was a child, my parents and I decided to make my own curtains. They discussed budget with me and told me how much I could spend and they took me to Divisoria (a bargain place in the Philippines) so I could go around and look at fabric. I ended up picking sunflowers in a blue background (really cheap fabric but colorful and relaxing) and I was in budget! We bought some foam and some wooden boards and staple gunned away. I think I was 10 or 11. In order to be appropriate with the age of your child, you have to think about what you want them to learn with the room decorating project. For my parents, it was budgeting and handling money. So, two birds with one stone!

2. Do consider a concept. If your child faces challenges with sleeping at night, maybe making a room personal will help them. I had cousins who have a hard time with the dark, so a project would be night lights but they loved the feeling of camping, so a small light and ‘fake sticks’ did the trick. Another cousin loved the idea of light dancing in a film strip, it kept her entertained enough to keep the nightlight on and stay in her bed until sleep took over. Again, consider age of the child. It is not fair to yell at your child for being scared of the dark, but you must also be firm about bed time or you’re going to be stuck every night. Intentionality is key, and a solid yet flexible room concept helps that.

3. Do Shop around: I’m a big fan of frugal, and one can find nifty things at swap meets, thrift stores or garage sales. It just takes time and a little patience. Dollar stores are also teeming with great finds of things you can add to your child’s room, for example, a tent can be a substitute for a headboard.

4. Do sacrifice your time: I know, life gets busy, but children are blessings so prioritize your family. It will count, you know. :) Besides, you realize how much you can know about somebody just by being committed when you hang out with them. This formula works well with children too! They will appreciate all the effort.

5. Do consider the color palette: Color sets the mood of a room, and it also helps the temperature control. Also, if you don’t want to do a paint job, there are many alternative such as paintings, fabric decor, etc.

6. Do consider safety: Creativity has its limits, right? Consider your child’s safety in her room. It must be a place that makes her want to stay safe and keeps her safe.

7. Everything can be a teachable moment when you make it to be: I think that’s pretty self-explanatory. This can be a good opportunity to talk about bedtime rules, fear of the dark, sleeping by themselves, etc.

Here are some don’ts:

1. Don’t go overboard: We can all get a little happy seeing all those interior design websites online, but you have to remember this principle: Things get old (they need to be maintained so more money!) and interests wane. So if one day, your dinosaur loving tyke suddenly starts liking race cars, your room concept must be not too luxurious to adapt to his changing interests.

2. Don’t put a slide, please!: I know this is going to make me sound like a dictator-adult female teacher, but bedrooms are primarily for beds and for sleeping. As an adult, you are primarily responsible for making sure your children are not overly stimulated in their bedroom. An example is putting a slide in their room, they are going to want to play all the time. The trick is to make their room comfy for sleeping and hanging out, but they have the outdoors to play and the living room to play video games and such. A beautiful gift to give your children early on is to value rest and sleep.

3. Don’t make it too adult-friendly: Put enough things in your child’s room that are educational, please don’t put fragile things that you don’t want broken. Your child must be able to explore their room without you getting too upset. For younger children, you can put shelves or bins lower, maybe even have a toy chest, for your child to be independent in cleaning their space. It takes more effort, but remember, your child is not staying a child forever, so they must learn how to be responsible for their own stuff.

4. Don’t rush it: It takes time to revamp a room, so don’t stress yourself up too much. Sometimes, it starts with a bed. I know my room revamp started when I was 9 because i finally got my own bed (it was a hand me down but I didn’t care at all); it was a good change from sleeping on a mat. my first curtains came when I was 10 or 11 so it did take awhile to have the spare money to do so, but my dolls and my books were secure by age 7 (obviously where my priorities were). Enjoy the time with your child, your sibling or cousin, it’s once in a life time!

Here a three pictures of my web favorites:

Welcoming Spring with Fingerprint art!

images from crafty-crafted.com and housingaforest.com

One set of my preschool kids (I teach at two centers currently) are really into trees and following the Project approach and reggio emilia philosophy of preschool, we are exploring trees, gardening and birds based on their current interests. I’m excited to maybe plant a tree with them for the project :) and we’ve been spending time in their garden watering the seedlings. I’ll blog more on that later on, but this blog will be exclusively on the wonders of fingerprint art!

Kids are all about exploration and experience and using different colors of stamp pads and their best art tools (their fingers and hands) makes for a very exciting project. The kids were preoccupied for thirty minutes or more. They were able to make good observations about the sizes of their prints and explored some handprints as well. Their language and storytelling abilities came to life as they tried to explain the many different colors of leaves on their trees.

Their learning experience gets extended with questions. Ask them about leaf colors, leaf sizes and how many leaves are there. One of my preschoolers filled the ground with thumbprints and exclaimed that it was “fall” and leaves fall as a result of the fall season. One student put different color leaves and talked about leaves changing colors. It helps their language skills and their learning concepts as well.

Try it with your students, children and maybe your younger cousins or siblings. You’ll find that you get to know more about them when you plan meaningful and intentional activities for them! Also, try it yourself, it’s a cool way to express art and color!

Learning to tie those shoes

One of my students is learning to tie her shoelaces. She has always been fascinated by laces and have lately gotten used to taking off her shoes during nap. This helps because we get to learn how to put them on after naptime. She wanted to first learn by watching, and then she wanted to try and do it on her own. We both decided to create something for her to sing to while she was learning to tie her shoes.

It’s semi-silly and not at all well-thought of but here it goes:

my laces make an X, and one goes to the hole.

bunny ear on my right, bunny ear on my left.

They bump into each other, make another X

one gets scared and ducks to the hole.

It doesn’t rhyme, it’s seem very weird but somehow she remembers it and recites it while putting her laces together. She did it twice in one day. So, more practice and we’ll learn all those fancy sneaker lace tricks. J/k

This is a good developmental skill for a child to learn. There are two common ways of tying the shoelace, one is the around the tree method and the other is the bunny ear method. It would be helpful if the shoelaces could be half one color, and half another so a child can see the color differences. It is excellent fine motor and you can encourage this skill by giving your child or student activities such as beading, tearing paper along a line, pinching stickers off paper, weaving yarn into holes and etc.