Painting the clouds



Focusing on his work.

Our Maple Room two-and-three-year-olds have been enjoying the outdoors this spring!  One day this week, I found them out at the picnic tables deeply engaged in an activity with mirrors and shaving cream. 

Shaving cream is an engrossing sensory experience for children who are old enough to keep it out of their mouths (usually about 2 or 2 1/2 and up).  On this sunny, but partly cloudy day, teachers Alex and Hannah took child-safe mirrors outside on the picnic tables.  


A close-up.  Shaving cream is great for touching, too.

The children were able to see the reflections of the clouds in the mirrors on the tables, and they used the shaving cream to "paint" what they saw.

 Children were able to observe the clouds above in a very different way, and use shaving cream to create their own representations of clouds.

Observing the world around them is a natural thing that young children do, and teachers help by extending that experience by talking to them about what they see, adding new vocabulary words and giving children the opportunity to express themselves artistically.

When children learn that a drawing or painting
can "represent" something else, they are making 

Cloud painting can be a social activity.

strides toward that same understanding that will help them to learn to read later. (Letters make up words that abstractly represent something else.)

They can also learn new vocabulary, like "wispy" and "fluffy" or even "cumulus," "stratus," and "cirrus." 

How can you help at home? What can you observe outside with your child?  Take a table outside with crayons and paper, or hand over a clipboard and pencil and let your child draw what she sees (no coloring sheets necessary!) 





Dress for mess! Sensory play at school

Babies exploring non-toxic paint, together.

I always tell our new families to be sure that their children come to school dressed for mess! Children have the opportunity to use all of their senses to explore a variety of materials, many of them messy, every day at our school.  Some parents embrace the idea, and for others, it can take a little bit of persuasion.

The idea of messy play is so important to us at the YCCF that we put it into our policy manual, so families understand that their children are likely to get paint, water, mud, soap, play dough or glue on their clothing during the day. 

Why do we think it's so important? We know that children learn best when they can engage all of their senses in their exploration of the world.  And materials with interesting textures are the most engaging of all. Materials that children love include paint (especially finger paint), shaving cream, mud, water, uncooked rice, dried beans, and various recipes for play dough, "goop" and "gak."  There's even one we call "ooblek!"

Sensory play uses big and small muscles. When children explore with these materials, they use not only the small muscles of their fingers and hands, but also the larger muscles of their arms as they move, squish, dump and pile the materials. And when the sensory experience involves a rain puddle, mud puddle, or sandbox, their whole body gets involved! There's also something extremely soothing about sensory experiences-- both for adults and young children.  Letting a big handful of dry rice fall through your fingers is inherently attractive to us. It just feels good. Petting a soft, silky cat calms us.  When teachers come to me because a child has a challenging behavior, I very often ask, "What sensory materials do you have out?"

Toddlers explore soapy water.

Sensory play is a social activity.  Most of the time, when children explore these materials, they do it together.  Whether it's toddlers around the water table or babies painting together on a giant piece of paper, this social activity gives children the opportunity to share an experience together.  They have opportunities to ask for what they need and to help out a friend.  When one asks, "Can I have the star cookie cutter?" at the play dough table, and another child helps out by handing it over, children learn the social-emotional skills they need to get along with others.

Sensory play teaches language. It would be  impossible to understand words like "squishy," "soft," "slippery," or "silky" without having repeated sensory experiences with materials that match those descriptions.  The same goes for "prickly," "rough" and so many more.

Sensory play teaches foundational science.  While you might not think physics or chemistry has a place in a preschool or toddler room, actually,  foundational science is a big part of sensory play! Pouring water from a short, fat cup into a tall, thin cylinder helps children understand the concept of conservation of liquids. Adding rocks to a full pitcher of water makes the water inside overflow, helping children understand displacement.  And that's only the beginning.

How can you help at home? Give your children opportunities with safe sensory materials to play with.  Fill a plastic tub with water and give them cups and spoons from your baking drawer.  Recipes for play dough can be made at home, inexpensively.  Add some cookie-cutters and a rolling pin. Talk with your children about their experience with the sensory material.  How does it feel?  What can you do with it?  What properties does it have? Need some specific ideas?  Visit Learning4Kids for recipes!

There is so much in a young child's world that is a "no-no!" or a "don't touch!" Let's tell them YES to sensory play!

Raising Readers, Part 1

One of the most frequent questions I get from families revolves around that big school-readiness question: "How do I help my child get ready for reading?" 

We rarely worry about whether our children will learn to talk or not, and sure enough, somewhere around 16 - 18 months they start to chatting away with seemingly little effort from us. But for some reason the idea of learning to read drives us to purchase worksheets and flashcards for our little ones! The question is, is this worry necessary?

Ultimately, learning to read is an important milestone for our children.  Most children learn to read sometime between 5 and 7.  Reading, and reading well, is vital for success in school and life.

So, how do we support our children, and when do we start?  Literacy learning starts right from birth, and occurs in a very similar way to oral  language learning.  Children learn to talk when they are surrounded by meaningful language-- especially dialogue that occurs between parent or caregiver and child.  Much like a tennis game, back-and-forth dialogue between a child and an attentive adult teaches a child that language is communication between people.  It carries meaning and it helps to build a relationship, even when the child's side of the conversation consists of babbles and squeals.

Similarly, children learn the early foundational literacy skills when they are surrounded by meaningful print language-- books, signs and more.  When we write a shopping list for the groceries, type out an email, read a book or use street signs to find the right road, we use print language for meaningful purposes.  And for children, meaningful print is important print.  When it's important to you, it becomes important to them, and they become interested and therefore motivated to learn about it.

How do we help you child use meaningful print language at school?  Right from the start you will see print used in your child's classroom.  Areas of the room are labeled-- "blocks," "dramatic play," or "science center."  Children's ideas are written down on lists posted around the room or on their paintings or drawings.  Children write letters to thank visitors for coming to their classroom.  Bins for toys are labeled with the names of the contents to help children clean up.  Stories are read and enjoyed.

How can you use meaningful print at home? Talk with your child about print when you use it.  If you're making a grocery list, announce to your child, "I'm making a list of things we need to buy at the grocery store. Can you help me think of things we need to include?"  As your child helps you with items, let her watch you write them on the list.  When driving, ask your children help you find the street sign for your road.  At the department store, tell them you're looking for the "men's" clothing, and point out the signs hanging from the ceiling.  And of course, read, read, read!  Read to them; read for pleasure; let them see you read for all kinds of reasons.  Make print important in your home - important for you and important for your children.

Learning to read can seem complex, but there are lots of things you can do to help.  This is just the start! Next time, I'll share about the role of vocabulary-building and experience in learning to read.

How do you make print meaningful in your home?

Raising Readers, Part 2

Often, when we think about teaching children to read, we focus on their knowledge of letters, letter sounds and what we call "decoding," or a child's ability to use letter-sound relationships to pronounce words they see in writing.

These skills are important-- in fact, knowledge of letter-sound relationships and decoding skills are  predictive of reading success in first grade. But it isn't the strongest predictor of reading success after 3rd grade-- but why not?

Something switches for children around the 3rd or 4th grade.  They move from learning to read  to reading to learn.  It's a key difference!  And what's the strongest predictor of reading success in those later elementary grades?  Vocabulary.  (Hemphill and Tinvan, 2008.)

Children study a car's motor.  Lots of  new words to learn!

But why?  Before 3rd grade, children spend much of their time learning to decode very simple text. Vocabulary and having broad knowledge doesn't matter much.  But after 3rd grade, comprehension is king, and the key to being a strong reader.  According to University of Virginia professor, Dr. Daniel Willingham, author of the 2015 book, Raising Kids Who Read, good readers are "people who know a lot."  This is because, in part, comprehension of written texts involves a lot of inference on the part of the reader.  Authors leave out the knowledge they assume the reader already knows (otherwise, reading becomes tedious.) Without a broad knowledge of the world, children are very challenged when deciphering the meaning of the text because they're unable to draw on that "missing" information.

How do we help children build their vocabularies? Clearly, building a large vocabulary takes time, so we can't wait until 3rd or 4th grade to do it! At the YCCF, we offer children a variety of experiences to help build their vocabularies. When a preschool class studies insects, they may invite an entomologist to come talk to the children.  When learning about shapes, we might investigate not only circles and squares, but  octagons and a rhombuses. When participating in art experiences, we might talk about not only purple and blue, but also magenta, aquamarine and turquoise. When building towers in the block area, teachers might bring up ideas about architecture and blueprints, and describe block buildings as not only tall, but also gargantuan, towering or colossal. You'll be surprised at how quickly children adopt these new, but meaningful, vocabulary words as their own.


How can you help your child's vocabulary grow at home? Talk, talk, talk, and not just to them but with them. Give them all kinds of experiences-- there are so many to be had right here in our own community.  Visit the library and meet the librarian to learn new vocabulary related to books.  Visit our state parks or a nature centers to learn lots of new vocabulary words related to nature.  Go to the grocery store and learn all about the fancy kinds of fruits and vegetables that you might not eat everyday.  USE new and bigger vocabulary than you think your child would normally use.  Introduce it to them in natural ways that connect the new words to their current knowledge.  "Your block tower is so tall!  It's colossal!"

Interested in learning more?  Here's some research and Here's the book, Raising Kids Who Read by Dr. Willingham.

What "big words" will you introduce to your child today?