All posts by rightfromthestart

early education & play, music education, Uncategorized

Musical Games to Help Young Children Learn about Notes and Beats .

April 12, 2012 rightfromthestart 2 Comments

Last month I hosted a competition to win a copy of Justin Fletcher’s cd. To enter the competition I asked people to ask questions about musical activities with young children. The winner was Maya Russell who asked this question on my Facebook page.

Is there a musical game I can play with my 3 year old to help them learn about notes, beats etc?

The ability to keep a steady beat has been recognised as the single most influential factor in later academic success. There are a number of activities you could employ to build these skills. In fact I ran a successful project with Springboard Opportunity Group on this topic, proving that even children with severe disabilities can benefit from and enjoy Steady Beat activities.

At the simplest level this can involve singing simple nursery rhymes and chants including, the grand old duke of york, 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed and 5 little peas in a pea pod pressed. Most traditional nursery rhymes have a strong beat and if you say them whilst tapping the rhythm on your knees the children soon follow suit. Ros Bayley has some wonderful resources for Steady Beat activities including Beat Baby

Beat Baby is a gorgeous fluffy creature available in a variety of colours. The magnet in his tail allows him to curl up and he only uncurls when the children make a steady beat and chant an introductory rhyme. There are a number of Beat Baby books with rhymes but it can also be used with well known rhymes or some you make up of your own. Ros Bayley also has a number of rap books with accompanying cd’s. A great idea is to have a dressing up box with baseball caps, trainers, gold chains, puffer jackets etc. and encourage children to be rappers.

3 is probably a little young to learn notes and their values but there are a number of things you could do in preparation. Create flash cards of notes to play snap and pairs games with, introducing the names crochet, minim, semibreve and quaver.

A good way to introduce rhythm is to use animal names for clapping out rhythms. A steady 4/4 beat would be cat – er – pill – ar, 2/4 would be ti- ger , 3/4 el – e – phant. Once children have been introduced to the animal names you can try clapping a rhythm and asking the children to tell you which animal you are clapping or hold up an animal and ask the children to clap the correct rhythm.

early education & play, Uncategorized

Paint Play – Colour Mixing

March 9, 2012 rightfromthestart 1 Comment

Included in our Baker Ross parcel was a box of acrylic paints. I use acrylics for my painting and find that one of the key components to painting is mixing the right colours. I therefore thought it might be a good opportunity for the girls to experiment with colour mixing.

I provided them each with 2 pieces of tin foil, one had a blob of each of the acrylic colours on and the other was for mixing. I avoided giving instructions about what to paint or even that they had to paint at all. Often young children enjoy the process of mixing and don’t really want to paint with the colours. My 3 year old used up most of the colours mixing them into various shades. I explained that acrylics dry quickly so once the colours are mixed they need to be used quickly for painting

My 7 year old on the other hand carefully mixed a variety of colours, trying out the different combinations. I gave them a pot of water each to clean their brush and kitchen roll to mop up any excess water.

She proceeded to paint a picture. Half way through she ran out of one of the colours that she had mixed and was unsure what to do next. I explained that the new colour wouldn’t need to be exactly the same as the good thing about acrylics is that you can layer one colour on top of the other. She mixed another colour and came up with a pretty good match.

Finished Results

early education & play, play

Mess Free Painting

March 2, 2012 rightfromthestart 3 Comments

Today we received a very welcome parcel from Baker Ross. Right From the Start has joined their blogger network, they send us lots of goodies and we come up with our own creative projects for using them. The theme of our first parcel is painting.

We love painting. I paint when I find the time and find it very therapeutic. The girls also love to paint, in thesummer we paint outside .The girls enjoy painting on canvases and I display them in our hallway.

Today we went for the mess free option by trying out Colour Me Chubby Water Soluble Markers.

These are perfect for small hands, dry really quickly and don’t make a mess. Even better they are washable, do not stain clothes and don’t dry out if you leave the lid off (although I didn’t tell the children this). The markers are great for an early mark making tool on large pieces of paper, they are sturdy and the paint comes out easily.

canvas painting by 3 year old — My most recent painting

My 7 Year old decided to try them with the wooden sea stencils. These are great for little hands as they have large, chunky handles, meaning that they are easy to hold in place with one hand whilst drawing around them with the other.

This non-messy option was good for the baby too. We did our painting on the floor so that she could move more freely. She loved playing with the lids, taking them on and off and enjoyed painting on the paper although it was sometimes difficult to get them upright enough to make a mark. She decided as all babies do that it would be a good idea to see what the paints tasted like. However, as they are fully washable and non-toxic I didn’t need to worry – a quick wipe removed the orange lipstick.

I was really impressed with the results and when we have limited time and I can’t face the mess involved with painting this is a great alternative.

The Final Results

early education & play, parenting

How to Make Welsh Cakes for St. David’s Day

February 29, 2012 rightfromthestart Leave a comment

It has become a tradition in my house that we make Welsh Cakes for St David’s Day. As a child in Wales St David’s Day was a big event. We would go to school dressed in traditional costume. The morning would involve a special assembly during which we sang Welsh songs and presented prizes for the Welsh themed art and craft activities we had been involved in. We even had a half day to mark the occasion.

Living in England, St David’s Day is a low key affair but I always wear my daffodil and make Welsh Cakes.

Ingredients (makes approx 24)

175g( 3/4 cup) butter and lard mixed

450g (2 cups) self-raising flour

175g (3/4 cup) caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp mixed spice

75g (1/3 cup) currants

2 eggs

rub fat into flour — Step 1. Rub fat into flour (or tickle it)

baking — Step 2. Add the other dry ingredients.

beat eggs — Step 3. Beat eggs and add to mixture

(Spot the baby cunningly stealing an apple).

Welsh cakes are traditionally cooked on a bakestone, a cast iron or steel griddle that would have been placed on the fire. If you don’t have one a heavy frying pan would suffice. Place it on the hob on a very low heat.

early education & play, parenting, Special Educational Needs

CBeebies -Tree Fu Tom (raising awareness of dyspraxia)

February 28, 2012 rightfromthestart 11 Comments

We have been previewing a new CBeebies programme this week and we are very excited. Not only because the wonderful David Tennant is voicing one of the main characters but also because it is well researched and encourages children to actively participate in the story.

Former Doctor Who stars David Tennant and Sophie Aldred voice the lead characters Tom (Aldred) and Twigs (Tennant) in the new multi-platform fantasy action adventure series, Tree Fu Tom coming to CBeebies in March. Twigs is a wonderful character, beautifully animated, incredibly cute and full of vibrant energy.

Aimed at four to six year olds, Tree Fu Tom is set in an enchanted world where movement creates magic. Tom appears to be a normal eight-year-old boy but putting on his magic belt and performing a special sequence of magic action-movements (known as Tree Fu) transforms him into a tiny but mighty magical super-hero.
All of the Tree Fu magic moves that children are encouraged to copy are developed from therapeutic techniques that are used to help children with movement disorders like dyspraxia, but are designed to assist and enhance the development of all participating children at a crucial time in their growth.

Magic is an essential part of Tree Fu Tom and children are encouraged to participate in the movement-based Tree Fu spells to affect the outcome of each episode. Dyspraxia Foundation movement specialists Sally Payne and Dr Lynda Foulder-Hughes worked closely with the series choreographer Nick Kellington to develop unique spell movement sequences that reflect the narrative of each story-line and which have a “cool” martial-arts type feel (which is particularly engaging for boys). However the programme is equally appealing to girls with its beautiful animation, captivating any girl who is interested in fairies and elves.

My girls loved it (it even drew my 7 year old away from CBBC for a moment). I asked my 3 year old what she liked about it

I likeded the bit where he did magic – he crouchded down and jumpded like frogs and it went magic.

Participation in the magic spells was clearly a hit with her. The nature of the programme also lends itself perfectly to becoming a Kinect game, imagine how magical it would be to copy Tree Fu Tom’s movements, creating your own spells and going on a personal, fantastical journey.

Tree Fu Tom has his own online section which includes 6 action packed games developed in consultation with a Senior Educational Psychologist. There will also be further support in the CBeebies Grown Ups Section.

Tree Fu Tom and Dyspraxia
Dyspraxia and coordination difficulties are common, life-long conditions that affect up to 10 per cent of school-aged children (two per cent severely). It is an impairment of the organisation of movement and is the result of an immaturity in the development of the nervous system. This means that nerve signals are not transmitted effectively from the brain to muscles, affecting a person’s ability to perform movements in a smooth, coordinated way.
Understanding of the underlying causes of dyspraxia (also known as Developmental Coordination Disorder) is limited but children who are born early, who have a low birth weight or who have a family history of dyspraxia are more likely to have the condition.
Sally adds: “Awareness of dyspraxia remains low in comparison to other common developmental disorders. Tree Fu Tom offers a unique opportunity to raise the profile of this much missed and misunderstood condition.”
Children with dyspraxia have difficulty developing the movement skills that come naturally to their peers. They often have poor balance and postural stability; find it difficult to move their arms and legs in a coordinated manner; and struggle to use both sides of their body together. Without these foundation skills it is hard for them to carry out everyday activities such as walking up stairs without tripping, bending down to pull on socks, making marks with a crayon and using a knife and fork.
Their difficulties with movement skills can often lead to children with dyspraxia falling behind at school (despite, often, having above average IQs) and having additional social challenges at school – this is especially apparent for boys whose early social interactions tend to involve physical skill-based activities such as sports.

Having worked with children with Dyspraxia in the past, I see this as a wonderful opportunity to raise awareness and support children with the condition.

Tree Fu Tom starts on Monday 5th March on CBeebies .

early education & play, music education

A Song for Hungry Caterpillar Fans

February 19, 2012 rightfromthestart 2 Comments

Over at Science Sparks they have been having fun based on the theme of The Hungry Caterpillar.

We visited Bristol Zoo this week and the butterfly house prompted lots of questions from my 3 year old.

But how do the caterpillars turn into butterflies?

We were able to see caterpillars, cocoons and butterflies and touch the empty cases. I promised her that when the spring comes we can rear our own butterflies using a kit we have from Insectlore. We have done this successfully in the past before releasing the butterflies into our garden.

We have a song about the lifecycle of a butterfly that we like to sing – it’s great fun for butterfly obsessed kids.

early education & play, parenting, Uncategorized

Love to Learn on CBeebies

February 17, 2012 rightfromthestart 2 Comments

I don’t generally recommend young children learn by watching television but I am human and like the rest of us appreciate a bit of respite from time to time. Now that my 3 year old no longer naps during the day, after a busy morning at playgroup an hour watching television helps her to relax. I don’t agree with young children watching commercial channels so always put my trust in CBeebies.

The quality of the early learning programming is generally of a high standard and well researched, we particularly like Something Special and Driver Dan’s Storytrain (especially as we are on the lookout for the episodes featuring her big sister).

At the end of February CBeebies are launching a new cluster of programming entitled Love to Learn. This will bring together a number of programmes, which are designed to give the younger members of the CBeebies audience an introduction to literacy and numeracy. Programmes will include the new shows, Numtums and The Lingo Show, alongside new episodes of established favourites Alphablocks and Abadas. These programmes will be scheduled together allowing children to have fun while they learn their letters and get to know their numbers.
The Numtums are cuddly Numbats (rare marsupial, native to Western Australia) each with a number on their tummy. Combining a troop of animated Numtums, children, sing-along songs and a distinctive, mixed-media style, the programme introduces the basics of number recognition and then gently moves on to counting objects and identifying amounts in a variety of fun scenarios. The series is reminiscent of the animated snippets that were a key feature of my favourite children’s programme, Sesame Street. I’m sure these will keep the children engaged and make learning fun.
I’m really looking forward to The Lingo Show . This began life a year ago as an online brand to introduce children to a variety of languages. It is a long time since I visited the CBeebies website, so I wasn’t aware it existed but I was very excited to see that the languages featured include Welsh. Growing up in Wales I have a very basic knowledge of the Welsh language, but my children were captivated. My 7 year old even wrote down a list of words to remember ( we looked at the food section). The variety of languages featured include Polish, Somali and Punjabi and this could be a really useful resource for nursery workers to learn basic vocabulary when teaching children with an additional language. The TV series will continue to introduce children to words in different languages – specifically French, Spanish and Mandarin .
The episodes see host bug Lingo send Mandarin bug Wei, Spanish bug Queso and French bug Jargonaise off into the real world to choose everyday objects and props to include in their grand finale – The Big Bug Show. Each episode focuses on one language, introducing children to six key words, plus examples of everyday vocabulary like ‘hello’, ‘thank you’ and ‘well done’. There are opportunities for children to develop both speaking and listening skills as they are encouraged to repeat words with the bugs, voiced by native speakers of the target language. I’m definitely going to make time to watch this with the kids.

The new episodes of Alphablocks are in a slighter longer format than in the past and will continue to use best-practice phonics teaching to help young children develop engagement and confidence with reading and making words. For those unfamiliar with the series Alphablocks are 26 living letters who fall out of the sky and discover that if they hold hands and make a word, it comes to life.

Abadas aims to help children to learn new vocabulary that corresponds to objects they come across in their everyday lives.
The new episodes feature the familiar fun faces of Hari the hippo, Ela the fox and Seren the bat (all with Welsh accents) who come to life when a pop-up book is opened. Once the book is opened, the Abadas’ world comes alive and it’s playtime for the three adventurers. Through these adventures the Abadas encourage the young audience to re-tell a story and be able to ask questions and tell others what they have learned.
The season of programming will also include repeats of the popular numbers series Numberjacks.

I hope that by scheduling these programmes together, children will become naturally inquisitive about letters and numbers. The 5 minute programmes are perfect for young children’s attention spans and this short concentrated burst of literacy and numeracy programmes could serve as a great introduction to other hands on activities. Pre-school children do not need to learn to read, write and count but the programmes could introduce the concepts without any pressure. Take the lead from your child, if they are showing an interest you can develop it further. The Grown Ups section of the CBeebies website has excellent articles about how to support your child’s early learning including phonics , numeracy, story telling and mark making and includes many additional activities. Over the next few weeks I will also be sharing literacy and numeracy ideas here. If there are any particular areas you would like inspiration for add a comment and I will follow it up.

The Love to Learn programmes will be on air from 27th February every weekday on CBeebies. The scheduling is 09:00 Numtums

09:05 Numberjacks

09:20 Alphablocks

09:25 Abadas .

The Lingo Show will air sometime during March.

The timings are perfectly placed just after the school run , before we go out and explore numeracy and literacy in everyday situations.

Random Thoughts & Life Stories, Uncategorized

Raising Awareness of Heart Disease

February 14, 2012 rightfromthestart 1 Comment

February is Heart Month over at Little Green Blog. The idea is that a number of guest bloggers post articles about maintaining a healthy heart. There have been a variety of topics and today is my turn. I am sharing my mum’s story, hoping to show that the warning signs of heart disease aren’t always obvious.

The Unlikely Candidate, Losing Your Mum to
Heart Disease.

review

AngelBerry Frozen Yoghurt Factory – Healthy Treats for Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Appeal

February 13, 2012 rightfromthestart Leave a comment

There are times when I would like to take my kids somewhere fun to eat. Invariably we end up in an unhealthy fast food takeaway – and as for sweet treats, healthy options are few and far between. So when we were invited to AngelBerry Frozen Yogurt Factory for the launch of their new Bubblegum Campaign, I was keen to see whether a low-fat sweet treat would leave the children impressed .

Angel Berry Frozen Yoghurt Factory, located at Imperial Retail Park, Bristol is a new concept for this area. The colourful, yet simple decor and uncluttered layout make it appealing for adults and children alike.

baby being fed by her sister — Try this one

We were greeted by a cheerful and helpful assistant who showed us around the flavours and gave us some taster pots to decide on our favourites. This was particularly appealing to my one year old!

We were then given a larger tub and could choose as many flavours as we liked. There are 10 different flavours at any one time and new flavours are added regularly.

At our visit they had just added Pistachio, Caramel. cake and the charity flavour Bubblegum. During Half-Term week all proceeds from the sale of Bubblegum flavour will go to Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Appeal.

The Grand Appeal has raised over £18 million towards the first purpose-built children’s hospital in the UK and continues to support the hospital by funding pioneering medical care and equipment, arts, music and play programmes and accommodation for the sickest children and their families.

My children couldn’t decide on a favourite flavour ( I thought chocolate was particularly delicious) but they liked blueberry and mango a lot. After choosing a few flavours there was even more fun – adding toppings, and boy were there a lot of them, talk about children’s heaven.

candy — sweets – gummy bears were popular

more toppings — A small selection of the many toppings available

fruit toppings — And even healthy fruit.

I am a particular fan of offering children choice and the chance to try things for themselves. This was the perfect opportunity for children to practice using the pumps, experiment with flavours and create something beautiful.

The frozen yoghurt is priced according to weight, I’d suggest giving children the smaller sized tub or they could get eyes bigger than their belly syndrome.

My 3 year old is interested in exploring food with her hands at the moment and this was no exception.

I can certainly say that the yoghurt went down well with my girls and my 1 year old had a chance to practice her new word – ‘Finished’. They certainly didn’t notice that it was a healthy option and as a huge ice-cream fan myself this is a great low-fat alternative for me.

AngelBerry has only been open for one month but is proving very popular. AngelBerry are continually coming up with new ideas for toppings and flavours and are open to customer suggestions. I think AngelBerry would be the perfect venue for a children’s party, maybe in conjunction with the local cinema or water park.

If you are in the Bristol area and fancy taking the children somewhere different for a Half-Term treat, AngelBerry is certainly worth a visit. Don’t be put off by the cold, you can always drink coffee while the children eat the yoghurt and smoothies and milkshakes are also available. I’ll certainly be coming back.

Hopefully they will expand soon and open more venues so that I don’t have to travel so far.

AngelBerry are offering Right From the Start readers a 20% discount. Click to download a coupon

This is not a sponsored post and no payment of any kind was received for writing this review.
In exchange for writing this review my family and I were invited to attend a launch party at the venue

parenting

Mums and Part-Time Work

February 9, 2012 rightfromthestart Leave a comment

I was interested to read today about the latest Netmums survey and campaign regarding mums and part-time work.

Netmums surveyed 1600 mums who work part-time. 70% of the women surveyed chose freely to work part-time and 93% of those had worked full-time before having children.

However, half of the women reported that they had taken lower skilled jobs when returning to work part-time.

Part-time work tends to be concentrated in low paid and low skilled jobs, where opportunities for progression may be limited. Many mums complained about being held back by working part-time:

This certainly matches my own experience. I was fortunate after my first child to be able to return to work part-time on a freelance consultancy basis. I worked as part of a senior advisory teaching team for the local authority, the pay was good and I had the opportunity to spend time with my daughter. However, it was not without its pitfalls. The other members of my team worked full-time and on permanent contracts. This meant that many of the perks were not offered to me (including much coveted trips to Reggio and the Forest Schools in Denmark). I didn’t get a local authority email address meaning my emails often didn’t reach the people I needed to contact and no mobile phone or laptop like the rest of my team. The biggest drawback however was the lack of maternity pay – as a freelancer I was only entitled to statutory maternity pay.

Okay, so many of these disadvantages were because I was a freelancer but I see my desire to remain part-time as a big disadvantage. Since having my 2 youngest children I haven’t returned to work. The freelance work dried up with the budget cuts and I find myself in a difficult position. I could take up a part-time classroom teachers post or become a supply teacher but I would see this as a step backwards. With my experience and qualifications I would expect at the very least to be a Foundation Stage Co-ordinator or a Children’s Centre Lead Teacher. The difficulty is that once you begin to look at senior/management positions it becomes difficult to share that job with someone else and work on a part-time basis.

I don’t think this is uncommon. I meet talented, well qualified women all the time who work on the checkout at Waitrose. Those that try to work full-time or cram 5 days work into 4, only to end up feeling like inadequate mums. Some even give up altogether. I met a mother who had recently achieved a 1st Class Law Degree. When looking for jobs she was told that as a single mum she really needed to question whether this was the right profession for her because of the long unpredictable hours.

I find myself in a position of frustration that all my experience and knowledge is not being put to good use. I chose to be a mum, but I would like to strike a balance between being there for my children and having something fulfilling for me, without feeling like my years of study and experience have been wasted. If I didn’t feel this way I could get a low skilled, low paid job but it would be difficult to pay the childcare for 2 under 5’s .

Am I being unrealistic in my expectations? Do I need to bite the bullet and make a decision to return to work full-time or work part-time in a less fulfilling job?

I’d be interested to hear what other mums think.