Saturday, May 3, 2014

Crossing the Midline

Crossing the midline is a very important skill for kids to master. Your midline divides your body in half down the middle left to right, across your middle separating top and bottom and along your side separating front and back. By crossing the midline, your brain is learning to communicate between the hemispheres.  When children are unable to cross the midline, they don't develop a dominant hand and will have troubles reading, writing and cooridination.  Here are some activities that will help your child more fully develop crossing their midline.

Right Brain/Left Brain Teasers-

a. Pop bubbles with only one hand (they will have to reach across their body to pop the bubbles floating on the opposite side).
b. Reach for bean bags, balls, stuffed animals, or other objects across midline, then throwing at a target.
c. Draw large figure eights (the infinity sign or an 8 turned on its side) on paper, on the floor with a finger, in the air with a finger, or drive a matchbox car around a figure eight pattern.
d. Let the child play with sand, scooping sand from one side of the body and putting it into a bucket on the opposite side of the body without switching hands.
e. Let the child pretend to drive a car with a ball in his/her hands to use as a steering wheel and encourage the crossing of his/her arms as he/she turns the ‘steering wheel’ Or…In order to make this similar in style to most of the others—Pretend to drive a car with a ball in both hands to use as a steering wheel and cross both arms while turning the “steering wheel”.
f. Play flashlight tag. In a dimmed room, lie on your backs and have the child follow your flashlight beam projected on the wall with his own flashlight.
g. Touch the opposite elbow and knee.
h. Cross one foot over the other while walking sideways.
i. Do “grapevine” walks.
j. Knee Slap Walk- Walk around raising each knee while touching/slapping it with the opposite hand (or elbow). Change it to a skip while touching the opposite knee as it comes up.
k. Windmills-Stand with feet spread apart and arms extended out to the sides. Bend over at waist and tap right hand to left foot. Stand back up and then bend and tap left hand to right foot.
l. Point your left finger out and put your right thumb up. Switch them, and switch, and switch, and switch…
m. Hold your nose, then cross the other hand over and grab your opposite ear. Slap your thighs and switch your hands…switch, slap, switch, slap…
n. Write your name in the air while rotating your foot in a circle clockwise.
o. Wash the car and make sure the arms cross midline while scrubbing.
From North Shore Pediatric Therapy Site.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

ECFE schedule for April 2014

We have ECFE class on the following days:
April 7, 9, 11
April 14, 16
April 22 is Big Wheels 5:00-7:00
The last day of class is the  Ice Cream Social!!  Bring your favorite topping to share!!

Saturday, April 5, 2014

ECFE survey

If you attended ECFE this year, please take a moment to fill out this survey! Thank you!


Thursday, April 3, 2014

Conferences

Conferences April 3 and 10
11:20-5:00
Please email or call me if you are unable to attend!

I am looking forward to meeting with all of you!

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Classdojo

Those of you who were lucky enough to have class this week have already received a notice regarding classdojo!  This is a new behavior tracking app that I am using to track behaviors in the classroom.  You will receive a sheet that has a code on it. You can then go to classdojo.com and enter that code and see how your child did that day.  This will be done instead of me trying to write in 16 folders at the end of each day!  I can just track behavior throughout the day and then it is all there for you to see!  You will only have access to your own child's information. If you have any questions, please let me know. This will take some extra time on behalf of parents but, it will allow me to get you better information.  There may be days that I don't have my ipad or the app may not be working, if there are any extreme behaviors, I will let you know in a note home!  Thank you!!

Crazy mixed up schedule!

This week we are experiencing a really crazy schedule!  Thanks to our two our late start on Tuesday, we only have one day of class this week! There is NO school on Wednesday April 2 or Thursday April 3! There are conferences on Thursday from 11:00-5:20 for Adventure Preschool.  If you have any questions regarding our crazy schedule, please email me! 

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Baking cupcakes with Nicole!!

We had so much fun baking GREEN cupcakes with Nicole! We counted eggs, stirred and made them green! Then we brought them to the kitchen to bake! 
How many eggs?

Cracking the eggs!

Adding the water!

Stirring!

Ready to bake!!

YUMM!!