May 2021 – Twelfth Ave Strong Start

Hi StrongStart friends,

Sunny weather is here and it’s time to take out the bubble solution and have some fun!

We had fun the other day at StrongStart making gigantic bubbles. Thanks to teacher Beth for making the special wands for us! We used this Recipe for Giant Bubbles:

6 cups of warm water
½ cup of Blue Dawn original dishwashing detergent
1 Tbsp of corn syrup (or glycerin, if you happen to have some)

Mix all of the ingredients together (gently!). The bubble liquid gets better the longer it sits, it should sit overnight at least. The solution gets better with age and should last a while! Tip: just dip wand into the solution, don’t stir or swish, otherwise it creates small bubbles and stops working.

It took some practice. Grandma was modeling and soon- success! A gigantic bubble!

Chasing bubbles was so much fun too!

Sometimes we just watched how big bubbles make amazing shadows!

Sometimes you blow and see them getting bigger and bigger.

Sometimes they just pop!

Babies love floating, glistening bubbles too, what a joy to watch their faces as bubbles shimmer in the sun. The bubbles will help build their eye-hand coordination as they will want to reach out and touch them! What a wonderful sensory discovery! What happens when you touch a bubble? How does it feel? Show your toddler how to blow gently and slowly, show them how to pop bubbles by clapping them between your hands. What a delight and endless fun as they will be chasing after the bubbles to do it again, and again! Good for their physical development too. By talking about different actions and textures you will help children grow their vocabulary as well.

By adding songs you will enrich their experience. I was inspired to learn a few new ones from the book Bubble Play published by Key Porter Books.

Click here to watch Ms. Lillian sing bubble songs.

For older children we can try counting bubbles, catching them with your hand or your spoon or in a plastic cup. We can chase them, pop them on your nose, on your neck, dodge them, float them by waving a leaf or a hand to make a motion. Bubbles help us wash our hands, we can wash our dog, we can wash our dolls or toys with a bit of soapy water.

If you do not have a ready bubble solution, you can make your own.

Another Home Made Bubble Solution (Using Sugar)

Mix 2 Tbsp of dish soap (Joy and Dawn seems to work the best), 1 cup of water and 1 Tsp of sugar. Stir gently until sugar is dissolved. Pour the solution into a container and use bubble wands to blow huge bubbles. There are many other recipes, but most require glycerin.

I made some wands from objects I found at home: zip ties, twisted pipe cleaners, a long piece of aluminum foil which I twisted tight, a cut-out lid attached to a chopstick with a piece of duck tape. I made a cone out of a cut-out milk jug with a 6-7 cm opening at one end, secured again with a duck tape (that one made the best bubbles!).

You can paint with bubbles (by adding a tiny bit of paint in the solution in a tray and then blowing them and making them pop on a paper.

Enjoy!

Ms. Lillian

Dear StrongStart families,

Here is a post from our community partner Anita Olsen. Let us SERVE AND RETURN!

As the Early Childhood Community Consultant in Burnaby, I absolutely love visiting the outdoor StrongStart programs. There is something almost magical about the outdoor exploration that happens when parents/caregivers and their children connect with one another.

I spend a lot of time talking about the need children have to feel connected to the big people in their immediate world (mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, or whoever makes up your immediate “family”). When children feel connected to their big people they feel safe and secure, and when children feel safe and secure, they learn that the world is a safe place to explore and learn in. Feeling connected to their big people helps them feel important, and a child who feels important is gaining self-confidence and acts on their curiosity to explore. A child who feels connected to their big people feels that they are listened to and understood – and children who are listened to and understood are far more likely to listen to others (even their big people) and practice empathy.
Being connected with our children through outdoor play offers countless opportunities to engage in what leading researchers at Harvard’s Centre on the Developing Child refer to as, “serve and return” interactions.

For the most part, these are everyday interactions that can happen anytime and in any place. They are back and forth exchanges based on a child’s interest – a child “serves” by showing an interest in something and the adult “returns” that “serve” by responding in a supportive way. Here’s a great example of a “serve and return” interaction.

In this picture, L. shows an interest in the distant sound of a train’s horn, this is his “serve”. Dad “returns” this “serve” by first sharing the focus with L. , he pauses and listens to the train’s horn with his son. Dad continues to return L’s serve by naming the sound, “Yeah, you hear the train”. By naming what our children are seeing, hearing, doing or feeling helps them make understanding of the world around us and what to expect from it – not to mention all that language development it fosters. L. responds to his dad with a train sound – now they are taking turns and L. gets to practice self-control and how to relate to others, in this case his dad. When dad is waiting, giving L. a chance to respond, L. has the opportunity to develop more ideas, build up confidence and independence. Finished with the train’s horn, L. goes back to his leaf collection and dad offers a hand when the leaves are too high.

In those moments we practice ending and beginning – when we can find these moments for our children to take the lead we can fully support them in exploring their world and make more serve and return interactions possible.
Strong Starts are there to facilitate the connection of the parent/caregiver and child relationship – for them to engage in these “serve and return” interactions.

Unfortunately, we don’t live at Strong Start and life is full. Now, if we were able to return every single serve that our child gives us a) we would be absolutely exhausted and b) we’d be robbing them of full human condition! Disappointment or frustration is a natural part of life. Sometimes we may miss a “serve” and that’s okay, there will be more to return. Sometimes our return to a serve isn’t what our little one has in mind and gets upset, this is okay too.

If time is up at Strong Start and your little one serves you with “I don’t want to leave!!!” it doesn’t mean that your “return” has to comply – what it needs to do is exactly the same as what L. and his dad practiced. Share the focus – here the focus is on not wanting to leaving the park. Then you name it – “Sounds like you’re feeling upset the time is up” and wait to see how they respond. Asking a question about what they liked best or if they could stay all day what would they wish to do, can help get into some turn taking – remember, give them the chance to respond. As you move through this with them, honour the ending of the time and associated feelings. Endings can be really hard, and they need practice too.
Share the focus – pay attention to what they find interesting (or hard)
Support and encourage – name it (what they see, hear, feel, do…). Take turns – wait to see how they respond.
Practice endings and beginnings.

If you would like more detailed information about “serve and return” I highly recommend checking out the Harvard University Centre on the Developing Child.

I look forward to visiting again!