I know that place values are way above what my preschooler is ready for… but is it, though? I mean, do I actually expect her to understand and grasp entirely what we were talking about? No way. But she is has an incredible sense of numbers that I did not have at her age. And when the opportunity came up, I definitely seized it.
Anyway, I digress… today we played with sand dough. We play with sand dough regularly, but my preschooler got a set of letters and numbers for Christmas, and she is very proud of that ownership. And since she always loves numbers, when she made the one and the zero, she got excited about it making the number 10. And then the wheels started turning and you could see it. “What happens if I add another zero?” So, I told her to do it and see! Then I said, “look, you just made 100!” and it grew from there all the way to one million.
I know this wont be the only time we talk about it, because she’s not ready to completely grasp the concept of place values, but I loved seeing the brainwaves happen. [nerd fact: From a science perspective, it’s called myelination – reinforcing thought patterns in our brains. Basically the more you hear and see something, the more you will understand the concept. And from a teacher perspective, it’s called scaffolding – basically that when you introduce a new concept you need to build up to it].
How was your holiday? I hope it went well. The holiday came and went so fast for us this year! Partly because we are in that magical stage full of little kids that just love everything about the season, and believe in all the magic. I wish this age could last forever. The downside is, the more I learn about our family of ADHD brains, the more I’m learning about overstimulation, and we definitely felt it bad this year. I’m sure it happens every year, but this time I have a name for it! we definitely needed some heavy exercise after the adventures of opening new presents/toys and all the festivities with family and friends. The problem is… it is full on blizzarding outside. Winter decided to show up, and she came like the diva she is. So… no outside time.
While I was trying to just get anything under control with my own ADHD brain and simultaneously help my kids regulate, I looked at the tinsel my toddlers have been slowly destroying over the course of the season. It really wasn’t worth packing away. The house was already a mess. So… What is more mess? I put our floor mat in the middle of the room in hopes it would aide in a speedier cleanup, and let the kids do what they’ve been trying to do anyway: Destroy things!
I hope this doesn’t backfire and they think it’s okay to destroy other things, but the more I’m learning about brains, the more I’m inclined to let them have at it and just over-emphasize that they have to ask a grownup first. First of all, I think it requires a level of focus that is good for development. But also, it’s cause and effect, and just strangely satisfying.
I’m not a fan of “rage rooms.” I don’t think we should encourage throwing or smashing things, though I hear it is very cathartic. but meticulously picking something apart is different to me, somehow. I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain what I see, but I think that Tinkergarten.com did a better and more thorough job than I have time for. They point out in the article, that kids thrive off of destruction because they are influencing the world around them, and that is super empowering!
Honestly, I don’t regret it at all. I threw the tinsel away, they contained the mess to the mat as well as toddlers and a preschooler can, and they got some destructive energy out! it actually wasn’t too hard to pick up the mat and sweep the whole mess into the garbage can.
So, there I was, minding my own business (aka cleaning the front room while my children are watching educational television -*cough,* Octonauts, *Cough*), and I overhear that the whale has a sunburn.
So, my curious brain decides to google if whales really can get sunburned.
Hippos don’t get sunburned because they secrete a red sticky substance that not only refracts the sun, it keeps bugs away. Beauty companies are studying hippos in order to mimic it in makeup. (Side note: when telling all of this fascinating info to my sister, she informed me that The Lion Guard lied! One of their episodes talks about hippos getting burned. Is that not the epitome of mom-to-modern-preschoolers life? Haha, not only are we discussing random facts we learned in one kid show, we are cross-examining it with another kid show. … Here’s where you ask us how much we let our kids watch and we tell you to mind your own kids, thank you very much).
Anyway, you should also know that domesticated pigs can get sunburned and heat stroke, but wild pigs don’t. The fur on a wild pig has been bred out of our domesticated breeds.
But wait, there’s more.
Elephants and rhinos can get burned. That’s why they hang out in the mud.
So, hippos nope, but elephants and rhinos, yes. (source)
And cows and newly-shorn-sheep can get burned, too! I asked my mom (dairyman’s daughter) if that was true and she said yes, and she has seen it personally. Lighter-colored cows turn pink when they’re sunburned! I know you were just dying to learn that.
Apparently, researchers are discovering the more plants with chlorophyll an animal eats, the more likely they are to burn (no good source but enough you can see a connection. my best one has since been taken down. Google it, though). But also some research in humans who take chlorophyll supplements have started to emerge). I guess I can see it… chlorophyll collects sun rays. Who knew the plants were getting revenge, amiright?
But that’s not all! Did you know that darker skinned people have a harder time converting sunlight into vitamin D (source)!?! This one kinda blows my mind because this pale-skinned northerner is not so great at having enough vitamin D whenever they take my labs. In fact, I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, so it’s kind of a big deal for me to get enough sunlight. But I checked other sources, and they all agree. The lighter the skin, the better the ability to convert sunlight into vitamin D. So, the ancestors that used to live near the equator had darker skin so they would not burn as easily, but they also get more sunlight, making that the necessity. And the ancestors that lived to the north were paler because they needed to absorb and convert the sun rays into vitamin D because the sun wasn’t as available to them. Bodies are awesome.
I don’t know if I really needed to learn all of that, but it’s fascinating, isn’t it? And now you know all that useless information, too! You are so much better informed, now! You’re welcome.
And, see? Octonauts are educational!
And my floor was clean for a whole 2 seconds while they were distracted, so… totally worth it.
It’s October! My Preschooler LiVeS for October. It has all her favorite things. Candy, costumes, and spooky things. Did I mention the candy? I don’t know where she gets the love of spooky things from, definitely NOT her mother.
I was pretty excited it was October, but for a totally different reason: Halloween activities! I’ve had a board on Pinterest for a while for all the fun things I’ve wanted to do with a kid for Halloween and they’ve always felt like a “someday” kind of project. But once again, spending intentional time with my children has another positive side effect. I get silly dopamine boosts for checking off an imaginary bucket list item. Said bucket list item 1? Silhouette painting.
The concept is really simple: Cut out a shape (I printed our ghost free printable at 25%, printed 2, and cut them out), and use masking tape (or painter’s tape, or double sided removable tape and tape your ghosts to a sheet of black construction paper. We used Masking tape and it worked better than I thought it would. Then hand your kid a Q-tip (cotton buds? Does anyone actually call them that as opposed to Q-tips? ) for each color of paint (multiple if your kid forgets and accidentally sticks it in the wrong color) and some paint on a plate (white is a given, but not a requirement) and tell them to paint anywhere they want! Make sure there is plenty of paint around the ghost, or he will not show up after the white paper is removed. Once they declare it “perfect,” let it dry and remove the ghosts!
This is a great activity for that Pincer Grasp we keep working on. I noticed she started off a bit shakey, but when I reminded her to use her “monster grip,” as her OT calls it, it got a lot more controlled. As you can see, our ghosts got quite the paint job, too. It doesn’t matter. Just let them paint. I DID, however, have to convince her to put paint along the outside of the ghost. She either wanted to pain him or the “negative” space, and it took multiple reminders to paint around the ghost outlines to have enough paint that it’d even make sense after the ghosts were removed.
When we decided to come up with one purposeful activity per day with our preschoolers, it caused me to look at daily tasks in a whole new light. Suddenly, berry picking isn’t just a task to be done, it’s a chance to teach my preschooler a new skill; and instead of approaching it as a chore, it’s a time to spend in the wonder that is the preschooler mind.
When my friend invited me to come pick berries with her, I used that new paradigm and got excited about the chance to take my preschooler. Not only is it outside (her favorite place in the whole world), and involving food (she actually did pretty well at not eating all of the berries she picked. But toward the end, she did eat quite a bit and shared the wealth with her little sisters), but its also a chance to step out of our normal routine. And, as I said before, it’s a chance to teach a life skill to a preschooler. She caught on pretty quickly as to which berries to pick, reaching for less and less unripe berries as we went.
I think she had a pretty fun time! And I am a firm believer in the happy chemical boosts involved in working together. Not to mention the boost in Vitamin D by being outside in the sunlight.
I mean, I guess I should have been worried that my wild child would have ravaged my friend’s patch, but I decided that a little trust an expectation would go a long way. And it worked. She didn’t get bored before her sisters were just plain done. She actually worked really hard! and when she didn’t work, she thoroughly enjoyed herself talking the ears off of a new audience. And then there were butterflies, and that was fascinating. All in all, I’m soooo happy we went. If you’re ever on the fence as to whether your kid would be a benefit or a hindrance to the work that needs done, take them! Even if they’re a hindrance, they’re learning work ethic! They’re learning that the task can be fun. They’re watching you and learning life skills. And it might just go better than you fear.
Did you know that Disney movie makers and our brain have something in common? No joke! Okay, I’m sure there are a lot of jokes tied into that revelation, but I’m being serious here. Both Disney movie makers and our brains process things in story-board-like glimpses. That is why stories are so entertaining to us. Our brains are designed to grab new data out of stories. That is why when someone throws facts at you, it is hard to remember them, but when they tell you a story, it is easier to remember. Let’s think for a moment of the Master Teacher. Christ taught in parables; He taught in stories. Whenever people in Sunday School discuss why Christ taught  stories, the answer is usually “so that anyone can understand them.” They are talking about how there are layers of a story for every understanding. There are those who are only  able to take it at face value, there are those who understand symbolism, and there are those that take that story and get out of it a personal meaning just for them. Like the parable of the lost coin. To some, it is just about a woman who lost a coin and wants to find it. To others, it is a story about how our Heavenly Father feels about lost children. And to some, it is the story about a time when they felt lost and didn’t think that they were worth more than a few cents, and they suddenly had a paradigm shift because someone found them and was so excited for their return. Or maybe a person finds personification in the role of the friend. Or as the one looking for a coin. There are multiple connections to be made with each parable. While that is a very good reason for Christ to teach in parables, I don’t believe it’s the whole reason. Christ, as the creator of this world and the co-creator of man, as well as the Son of the Omnipotent would have more understanding of how the brain worked than just because there are multiple levels to a story. He would have known that his disciples would need to remember the lessons he taught long after he was gone. He had a short ministry. Most of our history of Him was written after he was crucified. His stories needed to be remembered in order to make it down the funnel of time to be available to us now, in the last dispensation.
I heard this parable in a support group, once. I can’t find any sources, so this is just how I remember it.
Life can be be compared to a swimming pool. Emotions are equal to water and being able to process emotions is the equivalent of swimming. Some people are natural swimmers, born to families of natural swimmers, but some don’t ever learn how to swim. We start out clinging to the wall. It’s safe. Sturdy. But we get bored of that (about the time we turn into teenagers.) and want to learn to swim. There’s obviously more fun going on in the middle of the pool. So we dive in. The natural swimmers just take off and make it to the middle, treading water and having fun. Some people teach themselves to swim. Some get lessons. And some panic and cling onto whomever is nearest. The only problem is, the other person can’t swim when we cling on! At first, they’re excited to have you in the pool. they may even think it’s fun to have you clinging onto them. But once they start drowning, they don’t think it’s so cool anymore. So they push. Gently at first. But when that doesn’t work, they shove. And they shove hard. They will do whatever it takes to get you off of them. And you’ll do whatever it takes to keep hold of them. Because otherwise you drown.
When it’s finally sunken in (ignore the pun) that this person isn’t going to let you cling anymore, you have 2 choices. Cling to someone else, or face your fears and learn to swim. If you cling to someone else, you’re gonna end up drowning again.You need to learn to swim on your own. And that’s when the pool really is fun – when there are others, also swimming on their own. But they all have to know how to swim.
As I’ve said earlier, I’m studying the brain in one of my classes and I find this stuff fascinating. It almost makes me want to study Neuroscience when I’m done. Almost. Okay, not really. But I do think it’s pretty cool and helpful stuff. Have you ever heard that humans learn best by repetition? Ever wondered why? Well, I’m no neuroscientist (duh), so my understanding is probably flawed, but here’s how it makes sense to me. First, some background: The brain is  full of nerve cells. The official name of a nerve cell is a neuron. Neurons don’t look like blood cells. They look more like the part of the tree where all the branches stick out. The branches are called axons or dendrites depending on whether they send or receive information. On the end of axons (the branches that send information) are terminal buttons. These terminal buttons let off chemical substances that act as signals to other neurons, called neurotransmitters. I had heard of neurotransmitters, but had no idea what they were. (in college-prep-speak, neurotransmitters : nerves as words : humans. If we’re following the same analogy, then terminal buttons would be mouths. They “speak” the information). The space between neurons where neurotransmitters are passed is called synapses. Neurons don’t really touch, (just think, it’s socially unacceptable to touch someone when you whisper in their ear). My definition of synapses was all wrong before I studied this stuff. Along the outside of the axon is a myelin sheath. Myelin sheaths are pretty cool. Not all axons have them. Myelin sheaths help “information” travel faster and clearer. It’s the brain’s way of saving cookies to a hard drive so that the internet page loads faster and better. The more the axon is used, the more myelin is created, the faster that information can be re-processed.
From Wiki Commons
So… the more we access certain nerves of our brain, the more efficient that information becomes. Therefore, we have lessons repeated and repeated and repeated in order for our brains to be able to access that data faster and faster. I think this would also explain why some information is only available to our memory until the day after the test (we – our brains – don’t think the information is important enough to build a super-highway). It also explains why, when we are trying to reprogram our brain for GOOD habits, it can’t be done overnight. And why it is so hard to break a bad habit (sometimes I feel like the myelin sheaths are pretty thick around those). Oooh, let’s look closer at that. I’ve got some more definitions for you! (I know, you’re thrilled). Our body makes new and thins out old synaptic connections all the time. It plows new pathways from  one neuron to the next. When our brains make new connections, that’s called synaptogenesis (makes sense. Synapto for synaptic. Genesis for creation). When our brains kill off old pathways, it’s called synaptic pruning. The thing is, it’s not as easy as just cutting off the pathway. The neuron still knows it’s there. First, we must re-direct traffic. We must convince our thought-cars to take a detour. With myelin speeding things up, it takes a while for our brain to even realize we’re trying to create a detour. Eventually, enough of those thought-cars have gotten the message to use alternate routes that our brain traffic in that area starts slowing down. From what I can tell, myelin sheaths don’t really disappear (except for in certain diseases), the whole road just gets “cut off.” And it doesn’t get cut off until it is mostly unused. How quickly that happens has a lot to do with age. Children grow tons of axons. Then their brains watch which ones get used and thin them out. There is lots of changing going on in a childhood brain. Most of the thinning-out seems to happen as a teenager, from what I can tell. It is still possible to thin out unused axons as an adult, but it is harder to do. Our habits are stuck harder. Why? because they’ve been used more (more myelination). Therefore, it’s much easier to break a habit as a kid or a teen than as an adult. I’m sure you already knew this, but now you know the science behind it.
Picture provided by Flickr user _DJ_
So… the more you do a task poorly, the more difficult it is to do the task correctly. For example, I hold my pencil “wrong.” I put wrong in quotation marks because obviously I am stubborn enough to think that I hold it right or I wouldn’t hold it that way. But because I hold it incorrectly, I have a permanent flat spot on my ring finger. The nail grows funny and everything. I was informed of my incorrect pencil-holding in third grade and seriously remember thinking “so what!?! I don’t care. I’m NOT going to change the way I write now. You guys (meaning all teachers. I was a little snarky) taught me how to hold a pencil, so perhaps you guys should have taught me correctly (see, snarky)!” So, I’ve continued all of these years to hold my pencil incorrectly. If I were to go back and change how I hold my pencil now, it would take AGES to re-learn how to write. At third grade, sure, it would have taken some work, and my handwriting would suffer a little bit, but what third-grader has ideal handwriting anyway? It would have required much less work at 8 than at 28. It also would have had less dire consequences. An 8-year-old that writes like a 7-year-old is less dramatic than a 28-year-old that writes like a seven-year-old. The moral of the story is pretty easy: stop a habit in its infancy. Pretty sure I didn’t have to give you all that information for you to figure that out. So why do we benefit from knowing how the brai
My schedule has completely deviated from it’s outline today. I just have to deviate. It would be a shame to stick to the planned itinerary when this information is so fascinating and crucial and important. I don’t want to forget what I’m learning and I don’t want to miss a chance to tell you about it. The best opportunities are often seized and not plotted. Especially when it comes to learning and teaching. So instead of doing the baby quilt on my floor, the half-finished mending projects, and reading the rest of my homework without taking a break to jot down what I’m learning, I’m doing some major note-taking and blogging today I’ve also just spent about 3 hours staring at the same page on Flickr to try to add a picture to this new thread. I gave up. No picture. Sorry. Flickr’s back! Yea for less frustration!
Can I say this again: This stuff is FASCINATING!
FIrst off, let me just say I highly recommend Once Upon a Brain: How Neuroscience Can Be Your Colleague in the Classroom by Thomas Morley for any teachers, homeschoolers, PSR workers, or anyone involved in a relationship with any other human that wants to improve upon understanding . I’m finding it incredibly valuable. I think it links so many pieces I have gleaned from other sources, like Charlotte Mason teaching methods, Thomas Jefferson Education methods, Love and Logic, and even LDS principals of accountability and how we do the “weird” thinks we do. I’m only in chapter 4 and I’m pretty impressed. I’d like to share about a million things from its pages.
Manage Cookie Consent
I don't really understand cookies but I have some programs that use them for security purposes. I'm trying to follow legal requirements and tell you that. Consenting to these technologies will allow all of the features to run smoothly but I don't use them personally. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
FIrst off, let me just say I highly recommend