Month: April 2020

Have some empty boxes at home?  In addition to recycling them, cardboard are great play materials for children.   Delivery packages, cereal and pasta boxes…..  They are not just a box…  A box can turn into a train, truck, dog house, and many more.  Best part is, most boxes are free, readily available and can entertain children for hours!   What can we do with a box?

Depending on the age of children, find different ways to involve children in the cardboard play.  Most children are contend with just playing with the boxes as is.  The children can crawl in bigger boxes, play pretend oven and so much more.  For smaller boxes, children can stack them up as tower and knock them down.  Boxes can also be recycled and turn into something totally different.

In order to transform the boxes, children can be encouraged to use their imagination and creativity to find different uses for the boxes. They then ‘plan’ and ‘design’ what they want to do.  And with a little bit of duct tape, scissors and other materials found at home, magic happens.  Do try to include everyone in the family, even for younger children.  Younger children can participate by helping to select the colour, placement for window for their playhouse, etc., as a way to involve them and have ownership of the family project.  Make sure to allocate time and space for children to work on their boxes, and take time to make the boxes to the next level of fun for them.

When families come together to create, whether it is a mailbox made out of a granola box, crowns made from recycling chocolate box, and play dome from the many more boxes.  Whether it is playing with reinvented box creations or simply playing with the empty boxes, these boxes guarantee many hours of fun and learning opportunities.  So the next time there are cardboard boxes, invite your children to think outside the box and have fun!!

In the times when early learning programs are not in sessions, some families are worried about children missing out on opportunity to learn, and missing their Strongstart facilitator and local librarians’ story time sessions.

With the closure of libraries, there might be limited access to great books, but there are many great digital books available, as well as many virtual storytime that can be accessible in the comfort of your own home.  While the libraries are closed, families can access the online resources that local libraries have prepared for families to help families with the love of reading.

Whether it is printed books or digital books, below are some tips to inspire the love of reading at the comfort of your home.

• Create a home environment conducive for reading. Ensure proper lighting, comfortable seating, and good selection of quality books.
• Introduce reading to children starting at early age, starting with read aloud to young children.
• Condition children to associate reading with pleasure by incorporating reading into part of daily family routine.
• Make reading time a quality bonding time, a special uninterrupted time to connect with children on deeper level, and have meaningful discussion through books.
• Be a good role model and set good examples by reading regularly. Children are great imitators. If children sees adults reading regularly, they will do the same.

Reading is most affordable, yet most valuable and meaningful way to connect with your children. Inspire and motivate children to love reading by making it a shared family activity that fun, entertaining, and exciting.

Reading together, whether it is an electronic or print book, is one of most effective ways to bond with our children, and connect on a deeper level. Remember that our children do not need or want digital storybooks with fancy effects or an audio-visual device that offers a professional storyteller with perfect English skills.  What our children really need is having their parents’ time and attention – reading books together regularly can be a powerful bonding experience.

While parks and playgrounds are closed, we can still appreciate nature in our own backyard or when going for walks while practicing safe social distance.  And appreciating flowers and making arts using flowers can be a great activity to do with young children.

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Start by appreciating all the different flowers in our backyards, be it wild flowers, planted flowers.  Encourage children to use all their senses, such as look closely at the flowers, the bud, seeds, the colours, size, number of petals; smelling the flowers, appreciate the softness of petals or the edges of leaves and thorns.   Be mindful of safety such as poisonous plants or the thorns, prickles, or spines.

If flowers are in your own backyard and is safe to pick, you can also use the flowers for activities, such as making flower collages, paint with flowers, or pressed flowers art.   Research and learn more about the names of flowers, which pollinators are attracted to which flowers, and so on.   Discover and appreciate the beauty of the amazing world of flowers by stopping and smelling the flowers.

Hello Lochdale StrongStart Families,

Hope you all doing well in these uncertain times.  I am thinking of you, and really miss seeing you all at StrongStart.   I am in process of reaching out to you via email or phone call to check in with you.   I’d love to hear from you to let me know how you are doing.

This is an unusual times right now, and I am grateful to have this blog as a way to communicate and connect with you and your children, until StrongStart reopens. I hope to use this blog to share with you all some ideas and resources, such as songs and rhymes, activity ideas, and to support each other.  This is a blog for all of you so feel free to let me know of any activity suggestions and feedback.

I hope we can continue to stay connected through this blog until we meet in person again.   Please check back to the blog soon for more posts.   We are all in this together and we can get through this together.   Please take care you and your families.