nkidz Blog | nkidz

Our Favorite 5 Informational Nature Books for ages 0 to 4

-

March 29, 2022

Our Favorite 5 Informational Nature Books for ages 0 to 4

Our favorite books are CONSTANTLY changing and I love how passionate my kids get about certain books. We have the books with the spines falling off, we have pages ripping from being turned so often, we have characters that they race to literally put their hand on so they can claim it’s theirs for the time being. I’ve been trying hard to teach them to love books their whole lives so we’ve got quite a collection. Here’s a list of informational nature books that have captivated my kids at different ages!

Age 0

This age, its all about images that pop and touching and chewing 😉 so our favorite book has been “First Words: I Want To Catch A…” by Lisa M Gardiner. The pictures are interesting for little ones with a new insect on each page contrasted against a solid block of bright color. Its a sturdy board book so babies can’t rip the pages with their exploring. We love it for tummy time! And learning the names of different bugs makes this book age-appropriately informational.

Age 1

Once my kids get to walking and talking there’s something about musical books that they absolutely love. A favorite nature book like this is the classic “We’re Going On A Bear Hunt” by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. It is also one of our favorite empowering children’s books! This book is fun, has songs written to go along with it, easy to turn into a game… and it explores the environment outside! What sound does grass make? Swishy Swashy Swishy Swashy!

Age 2

Books really start getting fun for me and my kids around age 2 – my kids start to ask questions and participate in dialogic reading with me! We don’t stick to one page at a time, we don’t read the information straight through, we jump around and explore the pictures and ask questions. If the book can’t answer their questions I google information to keep them engaged with the topic! A perfect series for this is the “A First Discovery Book” series from Scholastic. I find my copies used from Amazon – the pages have fun realistic images printed on clear plastic pages so as you turn the page the scene changes. A favorite at age 2 is “The Seashore,” it’s a fantastic informational nature book with easily understandable text and super fun pictures.

Age 3

By age 3 my kids have had a lot of walks, mud play, and a chance to get to know the natural world in our backyard! They start to understand the seasons, and lifecycles of plants and creatures. “Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt” is a beautiful book with illustrations and a simple story that weaves in the collaboration of bugs and animals in our gardens. Written by Kate Messner, and art by Christopher Silas Neal; I’m hard pressed to say whether my kids like to read this book or stare at the bugs more. The realistic pictures are beautiful and informational about nature!

How disconnected from nature are your kids?

Age 4

Four year olds are often starting to pick up words by sight, or they have memorized lines from their favorite books. They often “read” books to themselves or to you and provide their own narration to the pictures. It’s a great age to introduce early reader books. We love the National Geographic Kids series – our current favorite is “Real Dragons” by Jennifer Szymanski. It has a “You read, I read” format through the book where the left side is more complex informational text and the right page is simpler so kids who are decoding words can often sound out some of the text themselves.

Reading with your kids is so important for their development, and for your relationship with them! I hope you enjoy some of these books, we sure do!

7 nature play activities to inspire kids off of technology

Cat Oliver

-

July 22, 2021

0

7 nature play activities to inspire kids off of technology

1. Go barefoot!

Scrapes, cuts, stubbed toes… all kinds of things happen to our kids feet when they don’t wear shoes. Schools require it for safety and liability reasons – so give your kids chances to learn about the world with their feet at home! Just let them run with shoes off at a place you never let them take their shoes off before. Let them get dirty outside, and be prepared to clean up the mess with them later. Skin is a great protectant from all kinds of things so if they step in dog poop, they’ll most likely be fine. Add a fun vocabulary and a science experiment to your barefoot excursions with a comparison of your haptic perception using your hands vs using your feet!

2. Masking tape bracelets/armbands.

Use masking tape to save some of treasures you can find in your back yard or on a walk. Petals from colorful flowers or leaves or seeds stick to masking tape, so start out by wrapping a strip of tape sticky side out on your kids arms or legs. Demonstrate finding something and sticking it to the band of tape – then let them go! Maybe they’ll make a pattern of petals, or just mush dirt into the tape. Whatever they do it’s a fun new way to explore and collect treasures from the outdoors.

3. Make your own paintbrush.

All you need for this is clothespins! Gather different textured items rom outside. The tops of grass, cattails, a bunch of leaves all work as paint brushes when you clip them together with a clothespin! Pain on tree bark with mud, or use real paint and paper. Being creative can take you lots of new directions.

4. Stained “glass” window painting.

Get a clear shower curtain, or just use your liner from your shower 🙂 and let your kids finger paint with washable paint. You can lay the curtain down in your yard or park and paint on the ground then lift it up to let the light shine through. You can also string the curtain up between some trees or hang it from some branches and paint it standing up!

5. Web making.

Spiders are everywhere and some species make amazing types of webs! Give kids a ball of yarn or twine and let them make a web the way a spider does! Tie one end of the yarn to a branch in a bush or tree and then let kids climb over branches or run around bushes leaving a trail of web wherever they go. It can even be fun for kids to rewrap the ball of string while you clean up when your done!

6. Collect a garland of treasures.

Twine is pretty awesome for collecting nature treasures! Take a 3 to 6 ft string of twine on an adventure outside with you. While you collect leaves or flowers gently twist a small section of the twine to create an opening between the fibers and insert the stem of the flower or leaf in the opening. Then let the twine twist back on its own and the nature treasure is held between the strings of twine! Once you fill up your twine, you have a garland!

7. Build a fort.

You can use a tarp and rope, or just gather long sticks! There are so many ways to make a small enclosure, let your kids explore and experiment building something they can hide in!

5 things to do to teach your child cursive in 1 month

Cat Oliver

-

July 6, 2021

0

5 things to do to teach your child cursive in 1 month

Follow these 5 simple steps to teach your child cursive:

Print out and use our Cursive A Learning Page – do it today it’s free!
Tomorrow print out our Cursive B Learning Page 🙂
The next day print out our Cursive C Learning Page 😉
The day after that print out our Cursive D Learning Page…
Do a new letter each day until you’ve introduced each Cursive letter of the alphabet. Then use our full Cursive Alphabet Learning Page and sit with your child, watching as they do the page.

Print to practice tracing the lowercase cursive alphabet on this free worksheet.

Ask yourself: What letters were more difficult? What letters did they forget entirely? Which letters took longer for them to trace? Practice the difficult letters again using individual pages. Within 30 days you’ve made the start to teach your child cursive! It only has to be five-ten minutes a day. Continue assessing your child’s mastery with the Uppercase Cursive Alphabet Learning Page and the Lowercase Cursive Alphabet.

Consistency and regular practice is all you need to provide for your kids to learn a new skill. Cursive seems like an outdated skill, but it is actually a fine motor activity that challenges our brains in a different way then writing in print. It has been studied by neuroscientists who consider it a very worthwhile activity for young brains for a number of reasons! Even Psychologists chip in saying it’s beneficial!

What do you think? Do you wish your kids spent more time learning cursive at school? Let us know in the comments what your experience has been!

3 Covid-19 Side-effects for Parents

Parenting

Cat Oliver

-

August 3, 2021

0

Covid-19 side-effects include the management of your child’s education content.

State by state and country by country effects look different. Kids around the world missed a full year of in-person education due to quarantines and shut down.

Parents are dealing with distance learning content, homeschool and in-person policy changes.

Some kids switched entirely to homeschool, with the US Census reporting almost a 200% increase in families that chose homeschool for the 2020-2021 school year! Homeschooling is entirely parent managed! Many kids have distance learning programs implemented through their school. They rely heavily on parent management! And even children with only brief shutdowns of school have to grapple with changed policies and procedures affecting how content is delivered and explored. New kinds of assignments and delivery methods reduce touch points. Parents are managing new essentials for attending class like hand sanitizer and extra face masks. And you parents manage your kid’s disappointment at not being able to sit next to friends at tables anymore.

Education looks so different from what it did at the start of 2019! Parents are experiencing education-specific Covid-19 side-effects.

You have to make health decisions for a population where the data doesn’t clearly show the risks.

To vaccinate? To not vaccinate? Sports teams? We don’t know all the risks for young children, versus the risks for older children. Data is growing. But the picture is unclear because it is getting more complicated as the strains of Covid-19 adapt. Trends are different around the globe. Face-masks are criticized as problematic in speech development for young children. But isolation is linked with psychological consequences, especially relevant for children’s social-emotional learning and development. So is it better to keep your kids home where they don’t have to wear a mask? Better to send them to a social environment with face mask policies? That’s one of many points of contention parents have to consider. And your choices affect your children, people too young to decide for themselves.

Beyond Covid Masterclass can help you consider your options.

We don’t have the answers to these deeply personal questions. Each family has to consider the information in their area and weigh the risks as best they can. If you want more information about reflecting on your family’s school situation so you can make the best choice for your kid consider our Beyond Covid Masterclass.

This is a time of added stress. Parents have possibly life-altering choices to make. This stress is one of the extra Covid-19 side-effects for parents.

Family routines have changed.

We’ve looked a little at some hard and stressful Covid-19 side-effects. Lets consider some positive things!

Grocery pick-up is available everywhere within 24 hours, sometimes as quickly as 2 hours! Grocery delivery is widespread as well! That’s a time consuming chore that has been taken off our plates as parents – for free in many places! This summer I am loving staying in my air conditioned car while grocery employees deliver my selections to my trunk.

My family spent so much time outside this past year! Our only vacations were camping, and we did almost daily hikes. Reconnecting with nature has been a positive side-effect for us.

We have become more aware of our health and our bodies, my kids know more about how viruses and bacteria operate. They independently wash their hands at appropriate times! That’s some positive growth for us.

What has changed in your family routine? I know there are many hard things, but do you have some silver linings to the clouds?

3 switches to make sitting at the table fun for your little learner

Cat Oliver

-

July 30, 2021

0

3 switches to make sitting at the table fun for your little learner

It’s amazing how much time we adults spend sitting. Really – it’s pretty crazy when you compare US with a four year old. My kids almost NEVER sit for extended periods of time. If they are around friends who are also sitting, they might do so as well but they end up kneeling and bouncing or leaning their upper bodies entirely on the table top. Sitting just doesn’t come naturally, we learn how to do it! I’m a huge fan of going outside for our art and experiments, but sometimes you just need to sit at the table. So here are 3 ideas to get kids willingly sitting at the table!

1. Switch to sitting at the table at snack time

Set up your Read Together activities, your Connect-the-dots, or your letter tracing practice at the same time as you serve a snack! Its kind of ridiculous how powerful a plate of sliced banana with peanut butter (or any topping) is at getting the attention of little learners! Use their natural hunger drive to get their attention and gather them to you. Then while their mouths are busy show them the activity you want to do together! Model and explain while they eat. When they are filling their tummies they are more inclined to follow your lead!

2. Start out with some drum rolls

Sound is a powerful hook! Invite your kids to do a LOUD drum roll with their hands on the table then lower it to soft and then go loud again before asking them to stop. Explain the activity you want to do together and offer to do more sound activities as they complete different steps! When you turn a page in the book you are reading make a rising “whooooooop” sound together, or do another soft drumroll. Do the sounds they like to make and let them get loud as long as they sit well together!

3. Bring animals with you

Bring along a favorite character, or a new animal character, or a stuffed animal and arrange the animals to be sitting at the table. Get your kids to join their animal friends and let the animals be a part of your activity with imaginary conversations, with them as the models for completing any activities or tasks you have planned!

Keep in mind, kids are always going to have a varying range of attention spans! Sitting at the table and staying still is something even some adults struggle to do! Your child may be wired to be more active, so taking activities outside and sitting on blankets on the floor are all awesome ways to give them less structure while you introduce learning activities at home.

How disconnected from nature are your kids?

Outdoor Education

Cat Oliver

-

July 17, 2021

0

How disconnected from nature are your kids?

A few years back I read an urgent call-to-action book by Richard Louv, The Last Child in The Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Nature-deficit disorder? Never heard of that before… but then reading Louv’s words struck a chord:

“A kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon Rainforest – but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move.”

I thought to myself – when was the last time I lay in a field? And I could not remember. I could remember that grass was itchy and how the feel of grass on my neck irritates me, but I couldn’t recall a single time I enjoyed a quiet moment of observation of the sky. I don’t think of myself as disconnected from nature. I’m always walking, on the move, hiking out to the lake, hiking back to snacks… I intentionally get outside on purpose knowing it’s good for me and my kids to be active. But I’m not outside regularly enough for it to become something that includes leisure. Do you remember laying in a field? Have your kids done that?

Research has been showing the benefits of time spent in nature, for attention, for mental health, for over-thinking (linked with mental illness) and more cognitive functions. More research is considering how nature can be used as therapy for behavior or sensory issues and disorders in children, specifically children with autism and ADHD.

Between 2015 and 2016 over 11,000 Americans participated in a study of how they interact with nature or are disconnected from nature, as part of an effort to understand the changes in our society and perhaps facilitate better interactions with our environments. The Nature of Americans National Report: Disconnection and Recommendations for Reconnection found that the majority of those surveyed thought they benefited from time spent outdoors. Some interesting findings between kids and adults surveyed were that adults tended to have a perceived inaccessibility to nature – often that nature was far off in remote places waiting to be enjoyed alone. Kids thought of nature as the bushes by the front stoop, the pile of leaves in the backyard. And overwhelmingly for all age groups experiences of nature were remarked upon and remembered because of the simultaneous social experience that coincided because the walk outside was with a relative or the camping trip was with friends.

Two really important things we can do as parents are

1. Remember nature is all around us.

Kids don’t need a long drive to the expensive Grand Canyon Hotel to experience wonder in nature. It’s us as desensitized adults who need to be reminded of how cool Earthworms are in our own yard or how crazy it is that Roly-Polys turn themselves into a ball for protection! The habit of observing nature in small doses with our kids brings joy to them and to us.

2. Go outside together.

Inside our homes theres always something to do, something to pick up, something to clean… but if we go outside to a park with our kids we can immerse ourselves in an experience that calms our minds, allows our attention to focus on less stimulations that demand a response from us! We can focus on them, too. It’s easier to have quality time together outside.

Check out our 7 nature play activities to inspire kids off of technology and our Adventure Bingo series!

5 Empowering Children’s Books We Love

Parenting

Cat Oliver

-

July 14, 2021

0

empowering children's books — A nice stack of empowering children’s books we love!

1.We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

Text written by Michael Rosen. Illustrations created by Helen Oxbury.

“Oh-oh! A forest! A big, dark forest! We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!”
Michael Rosen

2. The Digger and the Flower

Text and illustrations created by Joseph Kuefler.

“Dozer blew a big puff of smoke and cut the flower down… When the smoke cleared, Digger saw something in the rubble. ‘Little seeds!’ he said.”
Joseph Kuefler

3. The Day the Crayons Quit

Text written by Drew Daywalt. Illustrations created by Oliver Jeffers.

“When Duncan showed his teacher his new picture, she gave him an A for coloring… and an A+ for creativity!”
Drew Daywalt

4. Giraffes Can’t Dance

Text written by Giles Andreae. Illustrations created by Guy Parker-Rees.

“Sometimes when you’re different you just need a different song.”
Giles Andreae

5. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Text written by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. Illustrations created by Elizabeth Zunon.

“The darkness was best for dreaming.”
William Kamkwamba

Learn to Read with this Phonics Primer

Reading Skills

Cat Oliver

-

July 14, 2021

0

Years ago the National Right to Read Foundation tried to encourage American education policy and curriculum back toward simple phonics drilling and instruction. There are 26 letters in the alphabet, 44 sounds those letters make in the English language, and 70 common ways to spell those sounds. But I challenge you to answer honestly – did you know the English language was made up of 44 sounds? I was an English teacher and that factoid was never a part of my education while pursuing my license. Teaching young children how to spell sounds and decode sounds based on the letter combinations is called phonics instruction, and it’s not really done in a straightforward way anymore. As of right now – there’s no set nation-wide instruction on how to teach so kids learn to read. It\s often left up to teachers and parents. So I hope this helps you feel empowered to teach your children how to read!

Help Your Kids Learn to Read With this Primer

The National Right to Read Foundation doesn’t have an operating website anymore, but the information they created about Phonics instruction still exists and here’s the link to their Phonics Primer! It’s a free pdf for download and printing.

Step 1: Assemble your Materials. There’s a recommended list of materials in the primer, but I started just by printing out and laminating a plain text alphabet and flashcards of individual letters. Easy peasy!

learn to read phonics materials — How we learn to read -simple phonics materials!

Step 2: Practice the 5 short vowel sounds and the regular consonant sounds every day. Practice the sounds by drilling, which is showing the letter, saying the sound, and having them repeat the sound before moving on to the next letter. In a few months my son was doing this completely by himself!

Step 3: Drill 2-letter blends using short vowel sounds and consonant combinations!

Step 4: Once blending of two letters together is automatic, you move on to simple three letter blends – three letter words! Drill words until automatic!

Once your child can decode three letter words you have a lot of options of simple books to start reading with them, allowing them to do a lot of the reading to increase their confidence! The BOB Book series really consistently uses words kids with an understanding of phonics can decode.

Move on to Steps 5 – 12 (learning the other sounds and letter blends in the English language) at a good pace for you, Step 13 is when the Phonics Primer introduces decodable stories so if you’d like to stick to the Primer exactly download it here and print it out!

How to Connect to the Alphabet with your Toddler

Reading Skills

Cat Oliver

-

July 13, 2021

0

Learning the alphabet is not always straightforward. Our oldest knew the letter O and loved the letter O for a long time before learning to recognize the other letter shapes! I think it had to do with his obsession with octopus and a lesson at preschool drawing an octopus 🙂 I began to pay attention to what made him connect to the alphabet when I observed his love of the letter O.

Flashcard creators have seen the value in using animals and silly characters like unicorns or zombies to get kids to connect with the alphabet for years and years – because it works! So our first tip is just that – associate letters and sounds with animals or beloved objects that are examples of the letter .

1. Associate your child’s beloved animals or objects with a letter and letter sound.

As the parent of your kids you know your kids better than anyone – you know what animals light them up and what toys or trees or objects they have fallen in love with! When you practice or review letters and sounds (we recommend this method to learn to read with a phonics primer) an easy action step is to mention the animal or object in the same breath as the letter sound. Expert tip: focus on the short vowel sounds for the main five vowels, use a beloved animal or object that has the correct or most common sound for the letter! For example it is irregular for an X to make the sound of a Z, so don’t use Xylophone to connect with X. One of our sons is named Axel, so we say “X makes a “ks” sound like Axel’s name” emphasizing the “ks” sound as we say Axel’s name. If you take five to ten minutes right now I bet you could have a list of words for each letter sound that makes your kid smile at every letter! Don’t focus on picking words with the sound at the beginning of the word – just make sure to emphasize the sound as you say it so your kids connect to the alphabet sounds while you’re showing them individual letters.

2. Connect to the alphabet regularly, on a schedule your kids can predict and also look forward to.

Regular practice and review of phonetic sounds and their corresponding letters is linked by research to improved reading comprehension. So set up a routine your kids can look forward to! We pass out stickers every time they practice letters. Also I try to use breakfast as the predictable pre-activity. The kids know that when they finish breakfast they can get a sticker if they do some learning practice! They pushed away from a new thing that they weren’t masters of at first – we all get apprehensive over new things. So be consistent. And pretty soon you’ve got willing participants who are telling YOU the sounds of each letter and giving examples in speech of the sound in words! My boys fight over who gets to practice first 🙂

3. Read together.

I know, I know. It’s another thing that becomes hard to schedule and it’s an easy thing to drop off the bed time routine! I drop it all the time! But really the most significant factor in kids ability to grow in reading comprehension is whether or not they understand meaning behind words – and they learn language and meaning most quickly from their parents. As you read and talk with your kids you explain things all the time. You’re constantly reinforcing links to prior knowledge for them. You are the foundation of their language learning and therefore – you are the foundation of their reading skills. While you read point to letters they may recognize and sounds that are in words they love. Use books to connect to the alphabet 🙂

A much cited issue in lower socio-economic families is less child-directed speech and less conversation between parents and their children. This influences the SES vocabulary gap researchers and interventionists are constantly trying to address. By age 5 children who have had less opportunities to talk about a wide range of topics with their parents show an average of almost 2 years less vocabulary comprehension. so build those conversations into your days – and let books be your guide to child-directed conversation! Check out books we recommend on our blog. Let your kids ask you about the pictures! Let them ask what a word means and give them new examples of words they already know as you read. When you create connections for your kids in small, daily moments you are building them a strong foundation for future learning.

Use our Free Lowercase Alphabet Tracing Learning Page and Uppercase Alphabet Tracing Learning Page to practice letters and sounds!

Alphabet-tracing-practice-w_-logo-w_o-outine-of-letters-2

uppercase-Alphabet-tracing-practice-w_-logo

1 BIG way the pandemic affected kids

Research

Cat Oliver

-

May 13, 2021

0

The Pandemic Affected Schools

Mask wearing. Vaccines. Lines for toilet paper. We’ve all been affected by the pandemic, no one more than our kids who were shut out of schools. Their routine was disrupted, our routines were disrupted. Kids thrive within structured environments. Decreasing stressors helps everyone learns better! Schools are set up to help kids in many ways. They provide snacks so kids aren’t hungry when teachers teach. Schools strive to include creative, fun decorations to inspire kids to connect with new content. Teachers work their butts off to arrange group activities so kids can learn and share skills with their peers. And then suddenly with the pandemic kids were yanked out of their schools. We’ve seen all kinds of side-effects – increased depression and anxiety, social isolation, weight-gain, political polarization, etc.

Lets Talk About Instructional Time

So with all the ways the pandemic affected kids (and all of us) – where can we look to take steps to recover? One common affect of worldwide school shutdown is a decrease in instructional time. And most likely a decrease in new school content for most children around the world. We have to look critically at the information we have on decreased instructional time to prepare for what information will probably arise as studies come out analyzing the pandemic’s effect on school achievement.

Students haven’t had a regular amount of time with a teacher in front of them. A teacher teaching them new information. Enough time for them to learn, master, absorb and use new information. We’re here to encourage you. Parents – you can supplement instructional time! You already have managed instruction yourselves! With schools back open you can supplement instruction with quality practice at home together. It’s important! Why do we know this? Pre-Covid research on instructional time ties it to gains and losses in achievement.

Pre-Covid Research

One study from an economist, Paul Thompson, analyzed test scores and data from 2007 to 2015 as schools in Oregon moved towards four day school weeks, earlier start times and an average loss of 3 ½ hrs of instruction per week. His data showed that the decreased instructional time was the main factor contributing to both lower reading and math test scores, with even lower scores among boys in both areas and lower reading scores in low-income students. What kind of effect has a larger loss of instructional time had on your kids?

Research on literacy in low-income schools done by Figlio, Holden, and Ozek concludes that an increase in instruction by adding an hour to the school day significantly benefits achievement. So from this pre-covid research, we can extrapolate that if our kids lose a small amount of instructional time, there’s a small loss in learning and achievement. We can also extrapolate that if we add an hour of instructional time, there will be small gains in achievement. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel. Heading back to school is going to be great for our kids learning, but we can support our kids learning gains by practicing a little more with them at home.

Covid-19 made parents become teachers.

Parents are now teachers suddenly (and with no preparation). Schools canceled new content, delayed new content, and adjusted new content in ways that led to a decrease in instruction for kids. So this one big way that the pandemic affected kids can also affect how they recover learning as they get back to normal school routines. Parents – you don’t have to stop being teachers just because school is back. You can add to your kids learning gains, and increase their achievement at school, by keeping them practicing new skills and new content at home.