Month: May 2020 (Page 1 of 2)

In our StrongStart at springtime every year we usually do some planting and sprouting.

This other day I found a load of popping kernels at home, the kind you use to make popcorn. I decided to try sprouting and planting them as an experiment. I wasn’t expecting that popping corn would sprout!

I used two sheets of paper towel sheets soaked with water. I put one in a bowl, then I put a handful of corn kernels on top and covered it with another scrunched wet paper towel. I put the bowl in my window sill. I was lucky we had a few sunny days, to my big surprise, after a couple of days I saw that kernels sprouted!

After I left them few days longer the sprouts became bigger and longer and some grew light green leaves as well.

When I visited our StrongStart Centre, I planted them in one of the planters (closest to our picnic area). I wonder what will happen? Will they continue to grow? If you are walking by our Centre, look in the planter pictured here and let me know. Take a picture of any flowers that are growing too.

At home, you can sprout beans, chick peas, mung beans (these are the easiest to sprout), you can also sprout seeds and nuts, some you can eat raw, some you will have to steam or cook. It is so healthy and easy. Please note that sprouted corn is not good to eat either raw or steamed.

Basic How-to sprout seeds and nuts:

Wash very well, then soak the nuts or seeds in water. Soaking times vary depending on the variety.

Drain, rinse, and put them in a jar. Cover the jar with something that allows for air flow, but will also protect from bugs and dirt. Sprinkle with water twice a day until they begin to sprout.

Search the internet for more specific instructions regarding food safety.

Enjoy!

Ms. Lillian

Dear StrongStart friends,
I hope you had fun learning about print in the community from our previous post. I would like to invite you to look for symbols and signs in yiour neighbourhood.

Every transit (bus) stop has a sign, a nice opportunity to look at the numbers there. What bus is stopping there? The one we take to go to…

Some symbols or traffic signs are made up of only pictures. Ask your child: What do you think this sign means? They are not studying for a driver’s license so accept the answer they give you if it is “a man crossing the street” or “daddy walking”. They are learning to make meaning from print.

Once they understand that lines across a picture in a sign means “no”, they will have fun finding ‘Parking’ and ‘No Parking’ signs, ‘Stop’ or ‘No Stopping’ signs, ‘Bicycles Allowed’ and the sign ‘No Bicycles Allowed’.

Children usually learn ‘Stop’ signs first and from then on they will always remind you to stop when you see one together!

Remember, learning to read is a developmental process that takes time, but children can learn many things that will help them on this journey before they enter school.

Ms. Lillian

Dear StrongStart friends,

I know that, unfortunately, some of you can’t join us for our Tuesday Zoom storytime. Here is one of your favourite songs “The Stars in the Night”. Please click here to sing with me.

Keep singing and reading together!

Ms. Lillian

Dear StrongStart families,

Our world is full of print in many different languages. It is usually parents who help children make a connection with letters.  Print can be found on the food packages (every child is able to recognize their favourite snack by making a connection with the picture or parents can point to the first letter of the food name and let kids know what sound it makes). Print is in flyers, newspapers, signs around us, traffic signs, signs and menus (almost every child can recognize M for McDonald’s for example), posters, e- mail and of course, books. Showing your child the many ways the print is used is one of the important ways to support child to learn to read.

Here is an easy activity that can help you and your child learn the fun way.

Cut out the front side of a food package into puzzle pieces, either squares or odd shapes.  As you child is putting together this “puzzle”, talk about the lines letters are made of (“We need to look for another curvy line that will complete a C”).

Another way to incorporate fun learning into your everyday life and into children’s meaningful play is to help them set up a store with packages (full or empty) of foods available in your house: egg cartons, yogurt containers etc. Add some pretend money, some adult calculators or cash register, purse and you have an opportunity for your child and you to pretend play. All it takes is for you to draw their attention occasionally to a letter or two:  “Y says /y/ for yougurt”.

Another fun idea is to use empty food containers/tins in sensory play (filling them with beans, rice, salt, whatever you have handy). Children of all ages will have fun filling them out, measuring etc.  Again, while they play make a short and quick connection to few letters they see. The learning will be meaningful in the context of their play, rather than tedious.

Another activity for older children might be to make their own “booklet”. Staple few papers together in a booklet and let your child cut-out and paste pictures from flyers, newspapers, or magazines into their booklet. They will have fun “reading “to you from this booklet (making a connection with pictures and initial letters of the words.)

Have fun together. More about print in the community in our next post.

Ms. Lillian

With some paper and basic supplies and a big dose of imagination this family had a blast making octopus friends. What a wonderful way to spend time together.   Mommy helped a bit. What joy was to take an octopus for a walk! Mommy made a lunch for two octopus friends. The octopus friends went for a trip by boat. They also went for a walk around Dear Lake Park. What adventures they had! Everyone had a marvelous time. Thanks so much for sharing your pictures and creativity with all of us!

Our friends from Twelfth Avenue Before and After School Daycare (currently at Stride School) also shared few pictures with me .

They enjoyed making their super imaginative creatures very much.

Thank you to our friends at Twelfth Avenue  Burnaby Neighbourhood House Daycare for sharing your creativity with us!

Dear StrongStart Friends,

My name is Jamie and I am the Children’s Librarian at the Tommy Douglas Branch of the Burnaby Public Library (https://www.bpl.bc.ca/). Tommy Douglas is located on the corner of Edmonds and Kingsway at 7311 Kingsway (learn more about our other three locations here: https://www.bpl.bc.ca/locations-hours). Some of you might already know me from my Storytime visits to the Twelfth Avenue, Second Street, Edmonds, Morley, and Stride StrongStarts.

I am so happy that Ms. Lillian has invited me so make a guest post on her blog to talk about Burnaby Public Library and our services. Although the Library is currently closed for visits, we are still here to help you and your family! Here are some of the services we are currently offering:

• Need a library card? Give us a call. Having a Burnaby Public Library card will let you access all our cool online resources from home. To get a library card, just phone: 604-436-5400, Monday to Friday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. No ID is needed, and we can make cards for everyone in your family!

• Got questions about the community, technology, books, or anything else? Call the library at 604-436-5400 or email eref@bpl.bc.ca. We love to answer your questions!
•  Need something to read? We have many e-books and e-audiobooks you can borrow from home and read on a screen, including picture books that are perfect for babies, toddlers and preschoolers: https://burnaby.overdrive.com/library/kids
• This collection is only available for Burnaby residents. If you live in another city, make sure to ask your local library about their digital collections.
• Looking for a book suggestion? Give us a call or look at these lists for kids: https://tinyurl.com/KidsEbooksBPL. The first booklist gives great read-aloud suggestions for having Storytime at home!
•  Searching for more stories? Check out TumbleBookLibrary, Bookflix, Indigenous Storybooks and other great options for online stories here: https://www.bpl.bc.ca/kids/online-stories .
•  Looking for support? We have now launched our online Community Resource Guide, which lists many great services and resources in Burnaby and beyond: https://www.bpl.bc.ca/community-resource-guide . Sections include resources for food, finance, health, technology, and of course children and families.

Keep visiting our website for news and announcements. For more information, visit: https://www.bpl.bc.ca/news/covid19

Remember, If you have any questions, please give us a call at 604-436-5400 or email us (eref@bpl.bc.ca). We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Warm regards!

Jamie

Children’s Librarian, Tommy Douglas Library

Dear StrongStart Friends,

One thing we all have nowadays is an abundance of cardboard. Cardboard boxes, tissue boxes, empty toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, cardboard galore! One rainy day, I was busy coming up with few ideas about how to use the cardboard I have to create easy and fun activities.

I used my trusty black duct tape (which I always have around) to create  binoculars out of toilet paper rolls and I used some everyday objects like socks, clothes pins  and pipe cleaners to make other creations. I had fun thinking creatively.

I hope you will give it a try, there are many great ideas on the internet about how to use cardboard, but it is always fun to use your imagination  too. The sky (or the amount of cardboard you have) is the limit.

To inspire you more click here to here read “Not a Box”

by Antoinette Portis with me, published by Scholastic.

I also made a puppet called Woody (made of wooden sticks, with his clothes made again with a bit of duct tape).

Thinking of all the dandelions outside, I decided to paint them using again – toilet paper rolls and little bit of paint (I  used home made paint, made out of flour and water). Thanks to Marianna for the idea.

Have fun together and don’t forget to send me pictures of your creations!

Ms. Lillian

Hi my friends,
I was walking in my neighbourhood and I saw something that surprised me, one of my favourite fountains looked different! What happened? It looks like instead of water, it is filled with snow! What do you think happened here and why?

Enjoy wondering together and please share your children’s theories with me.

Ms. Lillian

Learning letters has to be fun and meaningful to young children. It is a long process that happens over several years. Children usually learn to recognize the letters in their name or the names of their loved ones.  It helps when we draw their attention to the lines and shapes that make up those letters. For example, you could look at your child’s name: “Your name start with a letter T and look, T has a loooong line and a very short one on the top”, for extra fun, you can add a little visual image, “like a hat on top”. Or: “Look, this is your name, it starts with C, it looks like O (which most kids recognize early on) but someone took a bite out of it” and demonstrate the “bite”. Or: “B is for Ben and the ball you love so much, to draw a B we make a long line and then two curvy lines (or half a circle)”.

Talk about lines; short ones, long ones, straight lines, ziggy zaggy lines, scribble lines, thick lines, thin lines, curvy lines, circles, half circles, etc. as they draw or scribble – even if they are not interested or don’t know any letters. Just make it short and fun!

I enjoyed looking for lines and shapes that make accidental letters around my house and in my neighbourhood. This is a fun game for the whole family, look for the “letters” of each other names.  I can’t wait to see the pictures of ABC’s all around you.

Please also send pictures of children drawing and scribbling (unfortunately, I can not post children’s faces) and I will post them as well.

If you enjoyed this activity, check the book Alphabet Everywhere by Elliott Kaufman, published by Abbeville Kids.

Dear StrongStrart friends,

In our busy lives as parents, juggling so many responsibilities, with little time, much of our time outside is spent driving from place A to B. We take children to the playgrounds and rarely have an unhurried time to wonder about our neighborhood, stop at every corner and talk with plenty of time to spear. Well, the time is now.

In words of Mary Gordan, former Kindergarten teacher and founder of Roots of Empathy:

• Talk with loving adults is one of the best ways to wire a child’s brain for success in school and in life.
• The more you talk and the more words you use, the stronger a child’s language skills will be. Words are tools for thinking.
• Talk about what you’re thinking. You will show children the importance of curiosity and how to be problem solvers.

Some of you might remember our Walk and Talk field tips to the library when we stop and talk about everything we see on the way.

As you walk in your neighbourhood, wonder and talk.  For very young children you will do most of the talking, adding words to their vocabulary but for older children (specially pre-K’s, let them tell you what they think. You might say,” I wonder why this tree has a plastic bag around it? What do you think?” or ” I like this spiral bush. I have seen shape like this before in a snail. What does it remind you of?”.

You might say, ” I wonder what that sign with a bird is? I think it is a woodpecker… What do you think this signs means?” Once you shown them the mail box, children might have theories about what happens to the mail, or how it gets delivered, or how electricity is delivered from electrical poles to our houses.

You can also play old game of “I spy with my little eye”. You can start by saying,” I spy with my little eye something that is…”. For older children:  made of metal, or has a maple leaf,  is a triangle shape,  has a letter C on it (Canada Post mail box), or starts with T (tree). For younger ones it could be ” I see something green, or “I see somewhere where doggy lives…”

Walk and talk and enjoy!

Ms. Lillian