Can Jigsaw Puzzle Play Make Your Child Smarter?

This is a wonderful article by Nora J. Campbell. The reason I like this article is because she stresses how jigsaw puzzles play an important roll in the cognitive development of your child. Sadly, many children grow up not knowing how to go about obtaining objectives. Enjoy the article below.



Can Jigsaw Puzzle Play Make Your Child Smarter?

Perhaps. Did you know that almost everything children learn during the early childhood years is accomplished through play? The toys your pre-schooler plays with are actually important tools in his or her development. And jigsaw puzzles are one of the best toys for a child's cognitive development. Most pre-schoolers really enjoy constructive play, especially building projects with a finished product at the end. That's why wooden toys like jigsaw puzzles and blocks are ideal for children at this age.

Many educators today agree that the skills needed to complete a jigsaw puzzle are fundamental. The humble jigsaw puzzle can help stimulate your child's concentration and logical thinking processes. Jigsaw puzzles can teach reasoning and problem solving skills as well as hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness.

If your child is a kinesthetic learner, he or she will derive even more benefit from jigsaw puzzle play. Kinesthetic learners do best when there's lots of hands-on activities involving touching, forming or shaping things with their hands as a part of the learning or problem-solving experience.
Besides being loads of fun, jigsaw puzzles can help your children develop their ability to pursue and achieve objectives.

Since solving a jigsaw puzzle is an activity a child can easily share with friends, siblings or other family members, it's also a great way to introduce your child to team activities where more than one player is working toward a common goal.

What's more, jigsaw puzzle play can easily facilitate a broader learning experience. Whether it's a pre-schooler just learning his colors or a fifth grader learning about the cosmos, the subject matter and difficulty level of the puzzle can assist and reinforce a pre-schooler in learning colors or an older child in learning the planets in the Milky Way.

Puzzles are also great for seniors. It's a low-stress, yet highly effective way for seniors to help keep their cognitive abilities sharp as long as possible. Jigsaw puzzles can be fun and beneficial for just about everyone. Certainly for kids of all ages and seniors, and also as a way to relieve stress for busy adults or stressed-out moms and dads. The jigsaw puzzle is truly a unique, inexpensive and entertaining resource.

Nora Campbell is a former educator and avid writer. She has utilized educational games and toys with her own children and now maintain an informative blog concerning traditional and educational games, toys, and other useful family resources.

Nora invites you to visit her blog at: http://www.jigsawpuzzlepiece.com Your comments, feedback and suggestions are welcome.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nora_J_Campbell

Write it down,

Carma

Make Creative Writing Fun for Kids

Here is a great article by Carolyn Cordon on encouraging kids that they can write and be creative. Enjoy her article here:

Creative Kids? Get Them Writing

Students often feel unconnected from the idea of writing. Most of them aren't interested in creative writing, some will be extremely anti it, but every now and then you'll find one who actually likes to write and shows a natural talent for it. These are the easy ones. If they're given time and permission to write, they're in heaven. And when you read their words, you can be in heaven too, when their talent shines bright enough to light your day.

The students who aren't interested in writing are trickiest. The way to get to them, is to let them write about something they're passionate about, and their passion for their pony or whatever it is, can shine in the words they write. With the extremely anti ones, generally, but not always boys, you have to work even harder to find something that will light a spark for them. Ask what they like to do, what shows they like on TV.

One tip for getting uninterested students interested is the following:Ask the student what his/her favourite ad on TV is, then suggest they write a story or poem about that.

It's a good idea show the students you are interested in writing creatively yourself. If the teacher doesn't care either way, the students sure won't care either.

Short Stories:· Print out 3 clip Art images on one sheet of paper - have students write a story with all three things in the story (have several different sheets to give them a choice).· Limit the number of words allowed, but stipulate they must be proper stories - beginning, middle, end. You can have success with 100 words, 150 words. This teaches editing skills, and it's not so many words that the student gets bogged down.·

Give a theme - birds, pets, food, seasons, whatever - let them know they can interpret the theme as widely as they like - as long as they can explain how their story fits the theme if it's not immediately obvious.

Poetry: Again, themes - try: · favorite animal · what their dream job would be · favorite food · least favorite food

Particular forms of poetry - Haiku, pantoum, poetic styles based of syllables. There is a style based on syllable counts, 3 for 1st line, 5 for 2nd, 7 for 3rd , then new stanza, reverse the syllable count, and so on. This helps a new poet know when to end a line and start a new one. It also teaches skills in editing and playing with words.

Others to try are:· Favorite ad on TV, again· Favorite song
You could publish the efforts of the students - produce a book to go in the school library. Students could illustrate it too, depending on likes and abilities. Getting their name in print can be a real buzz for anybody, not just students!

Make it fun, keep them keen.
Carolyn Cordon
dreamer, dog breeder, poet, writer

http://puppysmum.blogspot.com http://www.sallyodgers.com/digit.htm
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carolyn_Cordon

Book Review: Bud, Not Buddy

Title: Bud, Not Buddy

Author: Christopher Paul Curtis

Reading Level: Ages 9 - 12

Hardcover: 272 pages

Publisher: Delacorte Press (2000)

Cover Design: Trish P. Watts

ISBN-10: 0553494104

ISBN - 13: 978-0553494105

It’s 1936 during the Great Depression and ten year old Bud, Not Buddy Caldwell is on the lam from an abusive foster home and an orphanage in Flint Michigan. Bud’s mother died when he was six and now four years later he sets out to find his supposed father. The only clue Bud has is a blue flyer with a picture of legendary jazz musician Herman E. Calloway, a stand up-bass player for the Dusky Devastators of the Depression.

Bud reasons in his ten-year-old philosophers' head that this must be his father because Bud remembers the angry look his mother got every time she looked at his picture.

Bud is very determined to get to Grand Rapids and as he sets out on foot he escapes a monster infested tool shed, escapes a police raid, steals a vampire’s car and even experiences his first kiss. Bud’s responses to his situation are very believable from his youthful point of view. In order to survive after his mother died, Bud made up a set of survival tactics called "Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar out of Yourself”.

This book has a Forest Gump type of humor. On explaining what it feels like being six and losing teeth Bud says

“Six is a bad time too ‘cause that’s when some real scary things start happening to your body, it’s around then that your teeth start coming a-loose in your mouth. …Unless you’re as stupid as a lamppost you’ve got to wonder what’s coming off next, your arm? Your leg? Your neck?”

"Bud, Not Buddy” was the first book to be awarded the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Medal in the same year 2000.

The author, Christopher Paul Curtis was born in Flint, Michigan and worked on the Ford assembly line and went to college at night and wrote in his spare time. Many of his characters are based on real people from his life which gives this tale a warmth and sweetness and a little family folklore sprinkled through out.

Write it down,

Carma

Book Review - The Candy Shop War - Brandon Mull

The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull is a fantastic novel. Go over to The National Writing for Children Center to read my review. Then pick up a copy of The Candy Shop War for yourself and read it.

Also, Brandon Mull is the New York Times bestselling author of Fablehaven. Book three is due out this summer. Check out the Fablehaven website here.

Three Ways to Ignite Your Writing

I know writers are always looking for tips and information in order to further their craft of writing. There is an excellent article by Jesse Hines at Copyblogger on how to make your articles and stories come alive. Jesse Hines gives examples on three ways to tweak your writing with resumptive, summative and free modifiers. It's a great brain tweaker.

This is an excellent article and I highly recommend writers of all genres read it.

Also his blog on June 2 Five Tips for Good Writing from C. S. Lewis is outstanding. The study of your craft is never over.

Write it down,

Carma

Prize in Children's Literature - $10,000

I have some exciting news. Straight from Children’s Book Insider in the “At Presstime” section, comes this gem.

Milkweed Editions is currently accepting submissions for the 2008 Milkweed Prize in Children’s Literature, for the best manuscript for children ages 8 – 13 that Milkweed accepts for publication during the calendar year by a writer NOT previously published by Milkweed. Submissions must follow regular guidelines for middle grade novels and be received by Milkweed by the end of 2008.

The $10,000 cash advance is part of any royalties agreed upon in the contractual agreement negotiated at the time of acceptance. For more details go to http://www.milkweed.org/

Also Milkweed is accepting novels for ages 8 – 13 that are between 90 – 200 pages. No picture books or poetry for this age group. Visit the web site for more information and submission guidelines.

There is more…..

Fun For Kidz is an activity magazine that publishes 6 times a year for ages 6 – 13. They are looking for activities that deal with timeless topics such as pets, nature, hobbies, science, games, sports, careers and simple cooking. Each issue revolves around a theme. They are looking for lively writing and need articles of approximately 500 words. Articles accompanied by good photos are given preference.

For upcoming theme lists go to http://www.funforkidzmagazines.com/

The CBI is such a great newsletter. If you would like to learn more about this great newsletter and how to subscribe, surf on over to Write 4 Kids

Write it down,

Carma

Brain Exercises for Children

The mind is a beautiful thing - especially a child's mind. The following article by Sarah J Holt explores a variety of ways to exercise a child's brain so they will develop better learning skills. It wouldn't hurt the adults either. Enjoy the article.

As children are growing up they are developing thinking, as well as behavioral, patterns. Using these 6 brain exercises for children is one way to help them develop these skills for better functioning and mental abilities for life.

Word Searches/Crosswords

They make many books for kids that contain word searches and crosswords. These are great activities for children to exercise their brains by using the focus and thinking that they require. Crossword puzzles are also a great family activity, where one person can read off the clue and tell how many letters are involved and everyone else can guess.

Memory Exercises

Working with memory exercises can be one of the easiest brain exercises for children, since it can be done in the car while driving or almost anywhere else. Starting when they are young we naturally do these exercises by teaching them how to spell their names, and what their phone numbers and addresses are. We can expand on this by having them work on remembering poems, songs, and the names from family trees.

Memorizing helps children use their brain to focus and retain the information. It also is a very useful skill since a lot of education is based on memorizing, such as learning the number facts for math or learning a list of spelling words.

Obstacle Courses For The Brain

We all have heard of obstacle courses that require physical exercises, but we can also set up ones that include brain exercises for children. An obstacle course for the brain can combine both physical and brain exercises, or focus exclusively on the latter. You can make stations along a physical obstacle course where they can only proceed to the next station after they complete a mental task, such as a short crossword puzzle or word problem. You can also set it up where they have stations throughout the house where they have to complete a series of mental tasks all lined up along the floor or a table.

Write Or Draw Left-Handed (Or Right-Handed)

A great way to exercise the brain is to use the non-dominant hand for writing or drawing. This can be fun to see who can tell what was written or drawn afterwards. Another option is to draw a picture where one-half is done with the dominant hand and then afterwards it is copied onto the other half by the non-dominant hand. These are brain exercises for children that encourage both sides of their brain to work together.

While brain exercises for children can be simple and fun the payoffs can be huge. By using these brain exercises the children are learning to exercise an important part of the body.

Sarah Holt writes for IncreaseBrainpower.com. For more Math Games, and to get the Brain Power Newsletter and other free gifts, visit: http://www.IncreaseBrainPower.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sarah_J_Holt

How about you? Do you have any special brain games?

Write it down,

Carma