Recap of Meeting--10/22/2013

Wow, three weeks between our MOPS meetings is such a long time. I hope you all have been enjoying the beauty of fall, the leaves changing colors, pumpkin patches, corn mazes and are ready to celebrate a season of thankfulness. I know I am thankful that our next MOPS meeting is next Tuesday! 

At our last meeting we heard from Erica Graf, a local mom, homeschooling parent, and a woman passionate about making learning fun for children. Her presentation, Learning Games for Young Children, gave us her top tips to engage children and how to create a life-long love of learning. Erica began by sharing a little bit about learning styles and how understanding your children, specifically how they learn best, will lead you both into making the learning process fun. Here are Erica’s top six tips for laying a strong foundation to learning:

1. Read, Read, Read, and oh yeah, Read.
2. Limit Screen Time - especially solo screen time.
3. Experience Life Together - be a part of their world and let them into yours.
4. Get into the Library.
5. Set the Example - no screens, read, be inquisitive, experience life.
6. Springboard Their Interests.

Next, Erica began to explain and show us a number of simple, yet effective games to play with our children.  A couple of the games that really looked fun to try in our own home were:

*Lid Toss - Writing letters, or the letter sounds, on concentrate juice lids. Once the child identifies the correct letter, they can toss the letter into a bowl.

*As Long/Heavy As A - Great way to teach measurements since most young children aren't ready for concepts of inches or feet. But kids can use comparisons such as "is that as long as a baseball bat?"

*Laundry Math - How many socks are there?   Now how many pairs does that make? If we fold a wash cloth once, that makes half, fold it again and now we have quarters. (It’s quite possible that I just want to have my children fold clothes under the guise of learning.) Erica also reminded us of a number of games that we might have played ourselves as children that are still fun and still effective as teaching concepts, such as dominoes, dot-to-dot pictures, Mad Libs, and many more.  Although much of her presentation was information many of us moms have heard before, it was a great reminder to enjoy this time while our children are eager to learn.  Take the time to be intentional with our young ones, seek ways we can incorporate teaching into our daily lives, and have fun with it. 

If you want to follow up with Erica you, she is on Facebook as Erica Graf. Her blog is ericagraf.blogspot.com. And her email address is graferica@gmail.com 

We got to follow up this talk by creating “Activity Jars” with Kristina.  We each got to write 30 different activites on sticks to place inside our jars.  Now when the kids are restless and we are short on ideas, here is an easy tool to let the kids choose an activity. If you missed out on this, we should have extra copies of the activity lists available so that you can create your own “activity jar” too.

--Kristine Manz