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Grandparents Teach, too

Quiet time talks and reassurance positive

Grandparents

What are some quiet easily managed activities you can set up especially during this difficult time?

You can talk together while doing some reading or art for starters. Sit together, do an activity, and model calmness. Listen to what they have to say.

Use the 10 second rule before jumping in and help children focus on what they can control like wearing, masks, washing hands, and keeping a distance from others for a while. You can practice how to handle uncomfortable social situations, reassure, and practice routines.

Reading

Reading every day helps to quiet children and create normalcy. Arrange to purchase or check out books and find library programs during this unprecedented time.

Painting with water

Use quiet activities to teach expectations and answer questions. Science walking can collect rocks of various colors, sizes, and shapes. At home, set young children up with a waterproof area and provide a small paintbrush and a bowl of water or Mod Podge. Painting builds strong hand muscles to print letters. Notice how the color shows up like magic. A few can be kept in a pocket for holding the first day of school.

Pet rocks

Help children use permanent markers to draw a face on the surface of favorite large rocks. Help them glue on a little yarn to make hair with small dots of glue to save glue. Teachers will love you. Can you think of a good name for each rock? Place the friends on your table, bookcase, garden or backpack.

Crayon resist

Use a crayon on paper to carefully print your young children’s names in big letters. Use a capital for the first letter and lower case for the following letters. Then use water with a little paint color to make a wash over the whole sheet. The name will stand out and be a perfect door decoration or book cover for a whole series of pictures. You can see dots or dashes to outline names. Show children how to start at the top of each letter to correctly follow the dots to print their names. Praise what they can do. They’ll try their best.

Favorite pictures

Glue family photograph printouts to a paper decorated with favorite flowers, fruits, animals, vegetables, and toys. Print a title on each, for example:” My Favorite People and Toys.” Talk with children about choices and use a marker to print the name of each item. This is a good activity to practice letters and beginning sounds of each word. Staple the pages together to make a little comfort book.

All of these easy activities encourage creativity, build vocabulary, and make the connection between reading, writing, art and comfortable feelings. For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/ Learning through the seasons.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Grandparents Teach, Too is a non-profit organization of elementary and preschool teachers from Marquette, Michigan. The writers include: Jan Sabin, Mary Davis, Jean Hetrick, Cheryl Anderegg, Esther Macalady, Colleen Walker, Fran Darling, and Iris Katers. Their mission since 2009 is to help parents, grandparents, and other caregivers of young children provide fun activities to help prepare young children for school and a life long love of learning. They are supported by Great Start, Parent Awareness of Michigan, the U.P. Association for the Education of Young Children, Northern Michigan School of Education, the U.P. Children’s Museum and the NMU Center for Economic Education.

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