Picture Courtesy: Flickr - Djloche

Try solving this mystery with your preschooler.

Take a large sheet of plain paper, and draw a line of paw prints from bottom to top. Use three dabs of paint to create the paws.  Perpendicular to this line of paw prints, draw a line of birds’ claw prints, with a black pen.  The line of bird prints should end when it comes close to the middle of the line of paw prints.

Sit your preschooler down, and ask her what she think happened here.  So, there was an animal walking from here to here.  A robin was hopping along when he came upon the animal.  What happened next? What kind of animal was it - a cat, dog, wild animal…?  Why are there no more robin footprints?  What happened to the robin? Discuss all possible explanations.

• Was the robin eaten by the animal?
• Did the robin hop on the animal’s back and go for a ride?
• Did the robin fly away?
• Did the robin’s Mommy fly down and rescue the little robin?

Let me know if they come up with other solutions to this mystery!

This weekend, use a piece of paper to help your child understand the difference between rough and smooth.  Run her palm across the surface of the paper, and say “Smooth.”  Then, crumple up the paper into a tight ball, and run her palm across the surface of the ball. “This is rough.”

Picture Courtesy: Flickr - Coltera

Here’s a game you can play in the car at a traffic light, if your preschooler is familiar with her alphabet.

Kids love singing Old McDonald, and most of the appeal has to do with the Ee-i-ee-i-o refrain. Start the game by substituting this yodeling with the first letter of the alphabet… Ae-i-ae-i-o. Next time you sing, substitute “B”…Be-i- be-i-bo…and then, ce-i-ce-i-co…and so on, as you move through the alphabet.

Silly, but fun! Plus, it gives her a chance to brush up on her ABCs.

Teach your child that things are not always as they seem.

Take a glass, and fill it to the brim with dry beans. Ask her if you can put anything else into the glass. If she says no, take some salt (or sugar or sand) and pour it into the glass. Shake the glass a little, and pour more salt, so the cracks are filled with salt. Again, ask her if you can put anything else inside . If she says no, take some water, and pour it into the glass.

This gives her a different way of looking at things. Plus, it seems like a magic trick that she can try on others in the family!

Picture by - Flickr: KellyB

By the time, your child reaches the preschool years, he may actually enjoy the prospect of bath time, and all those screaming sessions of his infancy and toddlerhood should have ended. Use this time to teach about the body, cleanliness and hygiene. With all that water and soap suds around, there’s plenty of opportunity for fun too!

1. While you’re getting the bath ready, plug up the sink, set her on a steady stool, give her some bowls and ladles, and let her splash about.
2. Bring on the gang - the bath tub is a great place to explore imaginative scenarios, so bring in the toy ducks (why is the duck paddling close the edge of the lake? Because somebody is waiting there with some bread crumbs for her…?), the little boats (the boys are always game for a war scene) or little plastic fish.
3. Blow bubbles. Check here for a bubble solution recipe and also one for bath salts. More fun in the bath!
4. Teach her the proper routine to wash herself - her hair, face, and so on…
5. Take the chance to reinforce and expand her knowledge of body parts. She’s familiar with her legs, hands and knees, what about her neck, back…?
6. Sing “This is the way we wash our hands…” to the tune of “Here we go around the mulberry bush.
7. Introduce some dolls, and let her wash them while you wash her.
8. Use cookie cutters to make fun sponge shapes, and let her use these to wash herself.
9. Make beards and mustaches, pointy cats’ ears, pirate’s hats, bracelets and necklaces on her face and body from soapy lather. Show her the results on a mirror.
10. Paint on the sides of the bath tub - use shaving foam, bath tub crayons.
11. Buy a small toy fishing net, or use a mesh bag attached to a stick to fish out her toys from the water.
12. Add novelty to the bath experience. Freeze one of her bath toys (put some water and the toy in an empty carton and freeze. Later, simply peel off the carton), and let her thaw out the toy in the tub.
13. While she’s splashing about, use the time you have to do a quick clean up of the bathroom. So it’s not fun for her, but you’ll get something else done on the side!
14. Add more novelty. If the weather is great, fill up the kiddie pool with water and lots of bubbles, and let her have her bath out in the yard.
15. If the mirror is still fogged up, write her name on it.
16. Warm up thick towels in the dryer, and finish your bath with these as a special treat - wrap her up tight in them when she steps out,and have a cuddle session right in the bathroom.

Enjoy!

This weekend, try this tip to help strengthen your child’s fine motor skills - the ones that will be responsible for how well she can grip and move a pencil.

Take a couple of sheets of stickers, and give her another blank sheet of paper.  Draw empty squares  on the blank sheet of paper, and ask her to remove each sticker and stick it in an empty square on the blank sheet.

Let her try not not to go over the lines of the square.  Depending on the age of your child, make the squares as big or  as small as she can handle.

Enjoy!

Because magnets do so many wonderful things (they attract stuff, you can pull things up with them), kids think of them as having super pwers.  It’s fun to see them go berserk as they explore.

• Give your child  a few magnets and a choice of objects to experiment with - coins, metal cars, plastic toys, her jewelry or pins, spoons, match box, crayons, aluminum foil, staples.  Which of these stick ot the magnet,  and which don’t?  Record the ones that do stick, and the ones that don’t separately on a paper. (Kids also love making lists - very grown up).
• Use the magnets to experiment with things around the house - refrigerator, bed, couch, washing machine, door handles, glass bowls, metal chairs, wooden chairs.
• Let her try to pick up small metal items with her magnets.
• Show her the importance of iron in our body. Take any brand of high iron content breakfast cereal, and empty in a large bowl.  Break into tiny, tiny pieces with your hands, and add water.  Stir and make a thin consistency, adding more water, if necessary.  Take a long plastic spoon or ladle, and tape a magnet to the end.  Now, stir your cereal mix for  a few minutes. Tiny filings of iron will stick to the magnet.   (Take care to explain, however that this doesn’t mean that she can just gobble anything made of iron!)
• Or break up the cereal flakes, put in a  ziploc bag and add water.  Tape  a magnet on the outside of the bag.  The iron filings will collect close to the magnet.

Enjoy!

Picture Courtesy - Flickr - Timmer!!

Kids love making small scale anything - farms, towns. This could turn into a fun half hour project for you and your child. Raid his toy closet and craft box for props, and build away.

For a town, use cardboard to make a base. If you’re making a town, use strips of oak tag to make roads, cut varying strips and glue together to make turns and intersections. Draw zebra stripes and make markings on the oak tag. Use toy traffic lights, and toy cars to complete the road.

For a farm, color patches of the oak tag in green, and use a mirror as a pond. Set up farm animals, and prop up tiny branches with leaves to make up trees. Make hills from play dough, and place these appropriately.

For both, use cardboard boxes, milk carton boxes, or her old shoe boxes to make buildings - farm houses, office buildings, schools, houses etc. Use rectangular stickers, to make windows, and doors for these buidlings.

For people, use craft sticks and paint faces on these. Glue some cotton or yarn to make hair.

You can also use colored rice - green for the grass, gray for the roads, blue for water, and so on.

Making models is great for encouraging imaginative play - there are endless questions you can ask as you’re playing.

Who lives here? Who works in the office buildings? What work do they do?

Have you ever made models towns or farms with your child? What other props do you use?

Here’s another way to introduce science into your child’s life.

Cover a bowl with a foil, and secure it tightly with a rubber band.   Place some grains of rice on the foil, and tap the edge of the foil lightly with a stick.  Watch the grains jump into the air.   The vibrations are longer if you stretch a piece of rubber instead of foil.

Or, do the same thing on a drum, if you have one.

Or, take a ruler, hold it above the table, and then hit the side of the table with it. Watch it vibrate .

Or, let her hold her throat muscles while she talks or sings, and feel the vibrations.  Explain that the vibrations of the vocal chords causes the sounds to come out.

Or, do all these together (it should take half an hour if you do them all in slow motion) and make  a science lesson of it!

Have fun and keep smiling!

This weekend, fill up a box with sand, and bury little treasures for your child to find - a toy, plastic animals and sea creatures, shells painted in glitter, coins, small balls, painted cones etc.

Have your child put her hands into the box, and pull out treasures one by one.  Ask for the names of each treasure she pulls out, or have a sheet of paper for her to write down the names of each as you spell out the letters.

Enjoy!