Language/Literacy

10 Outdoor Pretend Play Ideas for Summer

| FunShine Express

by Katie Brazerol

Pretend play is fundamental to children’s development. During pretend play, children practice and try out new skills. Pretend play gives children an outlet to explore and process feelings. Taking pretend play outside can inspire children in new ways. The outdoor environment lends itself to new curiosities and different challenges. Outdoor pretend play may also enable you to incorporate props that may be hard to manage inside and leave children’s constructions set up in ways you cannot always accommodate. Head outside and celebrate summer by offering one or more of the following pretend play ideas: Continue reading →

FunShine Tells: Maintaining an Inclusive Classroom

| Chalimar Rios

This post will explore how to best support young children with disabilities. Let’s start by simply defining disability. A disability refers to a condition that makes it challenging for people to do certain activities or interact with their environment. Particular requirements may include the need to support mobility, communication, feeding, behavior, or any other skill or function so that the person can thrive and learn in everyday situations and environments. This is where inclusion, classroom adaptations, and developmentally appropriate practices play an essential role in early childhood.

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Charlie’s Cues: Using the Alphabet Word Cards

| Chalimar Rios

The sounds, words, songs, rhymes, and illustrations children are exposed to influence the ways they speak and communicate. This is why an environment rich in writing, letters, and vocabulary offers them the opportunity to develop strong language skills.

The Fireflies curriculum, for ages 3-5, becomes part of building a writing-rich classroom by including Alphabet Word Cards as part of your monthly kit. The cards show the letters that will be taught that month, accompanied by illustrations. Each month the letters taught are different but the purpose behind the cards is the same: to help children acquire vocabulary, learn new letters and their sounds, encourage repetition, and familiarize children with and help them become comfortable with using new words.

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The Power of Persona Dolls

| Teresa Narey

Dolls are a common toy in early childhood settings. Children can often be found dressing, feeding, or reading to them in the dramatic play area. Dolls are universally recognized for their ability to support children’s developing social-emotional skills. It may come as no surprise that dolls also make great teaching tools, known as Persona Dolls.

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The Ins and Outs of Baby Sign Language

| Teresa Narey

Working with infants can involve a lot of guess work! Babies cry, make sounds and facial expressions, and use body movements to express their needs and wants, but still, it’s not always clear how to assist them. Babies typically start talking between 9 and 14 months. Until then their mental vocabularies are forming and are much more advanced than we realize. Though babies cannot speak, they understand quite a bit. While talking to children regularly and narrating their play will support language acquisition, you can help them express their needs, wants, and emotions by introducing baby sign language.

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