I love writing posts for my own blog here at SquiggleMum, but the blogosphere is a community and I also contribute elsewhere as much as I am able.  Community is about giving and not just getting.  Community is about belonging, supporting, encouraging, and coming along side.  (The pics above are of me meeting up with many members of the online community.  Still so many I’d love to meet, especially over there in the west!!)

This week I seem to be everywhere other than on my own blog – but that’s ok, because I’m out in the wonderful community of online Aussie mamas.  Here’s where you can find me this week.  I’d love you to come and be part of the community too by leaving a comment on these posts.

Find me at:

• Fat Mum Slim – the gorgeous through-and-through Chantelle has featured me in her Everyday Everybody segment.  Wanna know when I last spoke to a police officer?  Or what time I get to bed?  Or if I can keep a secret…?  (Oh and she did that sweet polaroid thing with my photo.  Love it!)

• Adventures With Kids – Come on a virtual tour of Australia!  This week it’s Brisbane’s turn, so I’m taking you on a tour of my hometown.  If you’ve ever thought about coming to Brissy for a holiday, check out this post for my tips on where to go and what to see.  There are a few cute pics of the kids and I too.  If you’re a local – feel free to add your suggestions on other highlights in our area.

• Parenting Australia – I’d really love your comments on this week’s post about setting boundaries with kids, especially boys!  It’s called Letting Go of No. I’ve always been firm with boundaries, but I’m starting to wonder if I need to relax a little with my son.  Any mamas out there with boys older than mine (17mths) like to share their thoughts?  Oh, and if you missed my Parenting Australia post last week on allergies, it’s here.  I interviewed my beautiful friend Beck who deals with her son’s allergies on a daily basis.

• Connect2Mums – if you’re a blogging mama, a WAHM or a mum with a small business – you’ll be right at home at Connect2Mums.  There are heaps of groups you can join up to, regular chat nights, comps and more.  I write the Connect2Bloggers column and also run the Christian mums group.  You’ll need to sign up, but it’s free.  I wrote about social media for the Connect2Bloggers column this week.

My son is 17 months old, and currently says these words (probably only a mother would even call them “words”):

dadad = Dad

gagga = cracker

nana = banana

ga = car or grapes

gigga = digger

mumum = Mum (this is pretty rare to be honest)

I realise that this selection of words makes my son seem like a stereotypical boy (food and cars)!  My point is that his speech is still at a very early stage.  However, the vocabulary he has through song far exceeds his spoken words.  He can’t quite say grapes (ga), but as we passed the huge melons in the supermarket the other day he started swaying from side to side tunefully babbling something that sounded incredibly like, “I love, you love, watermelon!” (a Justine Clarke song we often sing at home).  He does the same thing when we read Saturday’s page in The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  As soon as he sees the picture of the slice of watermelon he sways from side to side and tunefully babbles, “I love, you love…” all over again.

There is so much going on that little brain!  Not only is he is learning new vocab but he is making connections between objects and experiences, remembering words in sequence, understanding that words are made up of sounds, having a red-hot-go at forming those sounds with his own mouth, communicating his thoughts with others, and enjoying the whole process!  I didn’t sit him down with a watermelon flash card.  I just sang with him.

My daughter is almost 4.  She recently started kindy, but was home with me full time before then and has heard a lot of songs.  At this stage she can read (and write) her own name, and recognise personally significant letters and their associated sounds – but that’s about it.  She certainly isn’t “reading” yet.  However, her ability to recall lyrics is amazing.  This means that before she can even read she has developed her skills in recall and sequencing.  It also means she has an excellent vocabulary for her age, and she transfers words from songs into everyday conversation.

Like many preschoolers she loves to make up her own songs, and has done for some time.  Her songs are quite varied and interesting both musically and lyrically.  Sometimes she sings her own made up story.  Sometimes she sings about feelings.  Sometimes she sings about what she can see.  Often her songs demonstrate her understanding of story structure, rhythm, phrasing, and even rhyme (much to my amusement she sometimes makes up a word so that her lines rhyme as she sings).  Before she starts formal schooling she already has such a good foundation under her – through song.

There are many ways music and literacy complement each other, and several studies have proven these connections.  Learn to sing, and sing to learn I say!  If you’re interested in further information on this topic, try the work of Robert A. Cutietta, author of Raising Musical Kids: a guide for parents (2001). Cutietta claims the patterns of words, rhymes, and tonal qualities inherent in songs are incorporated easily and naturally by children as they learn to speak and eventually to read.  Based on what I see in my own children – I completely agree.

Singing with your kids is bound to boost their language development.  How well you sing is unimportant.  How often you sing is. So to quote The Carpenters (which I can’t believe I’m doing)… “Don’t worry that it’s not good enough, for anyone else to hear.  Just sing, sing a song… la la la la la…”

This post is part of Share A Story – Shape A Future 2010

and is featured over at The Book Chook today.

Game #1 – Can you find…?

We played a simple finding game, with “snipping” of course!  We took turns asking questions and cutting out the matching picture.  Can you find a spotty shoe? Can you find a boy with a lollypop? Lots of good learning, language and skill building going on here – but really we just played for fun!

Game #2 – Snap

We folded A4 paper into quarters and “snipped” along the folds to make game cards.  Then we glued on all the matching pictures we’d cut out and played SNAP!  Much of the language we had used in describing the pictures in game #1 resurfaced.

Game #3 – Memory

We had 20 game cards all up, which is more than I would usually use for a game of memory with a 3yr old.  However, because she knew the pictures so well from the last two games she coped with it wonderfully.  Hmm… lollypop boy and spotty shoe – that’s not a match Mummy! I think she had a name for every game card.

We had a great time together and my daughter was a little disappointed when her brother woke up.  I hadn’t planned any of these games.  They just naturally flowed out of a simple request for “snipping” and a quick evaluation of the resources we had available at the time.  I didn’t teach during them either.  I just let the learning happen, and was pleased to come along for the ride.

(One day she’ll work out that they’re not called “snissors” even though they are for snipping…)

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If you enjoyed this post check out these other indoor activities:

• Junk(mail) For Dinner
• Salt Pictures
• Little Apprentice

There are very few things in our home which are solely mine, and my laptop is one of them.  It got a special mention in my 100th post, and in my blogaversary post.  It was even the star of one of my earliest posts about maintaining a sense of self!  But my gorgeous, purple, blossom patterned Dell Inspiron does NOT usually look like this:

Do you have any idea, any at all, how relieved I was when I discovered my son had only used the WHITEBOARD marker from my blogging wall calendar?!!  Exhale.  The pen marks rubbed straight off.  No big deal.

And I was reminded again that stuff is just stuff.

In this fourth edition of Literacy Lava, you’ll find ideas for nurturing creative thinking, ways to use magazines with your kids, ideas for raising book-loving boys, what to do if your child is not into writing, how to encourage your child to love reading, ways to promote inquisitiveness through hands-on learning, how to help kids make connections through story extensions, and all about getting kids to tell stories through moviemaking. Don’t forget to check out the Online Extras page, and the Activity page for kids.

I’d love you to go and download your own copy.  Read it on the screen, or print it off if you like and read it over a cuppa!  I really enjoyed many of the articles in Literacy Lava 4 and I know it will be a useful resource for parents, teachers, aunts & uncles, grandparents and carers.  Happy reading (for you and your kids)!

PS – if there’s anything you’d like to read about in the next issue of Literacy Lava let me know in the comments below.

Don’t walk in front of me;

I may not follow.

Don’t walk behind me;

I may not lead.

Just walk beside me

and be my friend.

(Albert Camus)

Yesterday the show opened with regular presenter Matt updating his blog on his laptop before sending a quick text to his co-presenter Karen, grabbing his digital camera and heading to the park!  Of course, the computer, phone and camera were all box constructions lovingly handmade out of recyclables.  I shared what I was seeing on fb and twitter.

and received lots of comments and positive tweets:

My readers were largely supportive of Play School’s hi-tech segment, but elsewhere online reactions ranged from bewilderment to outrage!  I for one fully support Play School’s inclusion of current technology in appropriate ways for the purpose of teaching our children about effective communication. It wasn’t an episode about playing computer games.  It was an episode about ways of sharing information, and helping our kids to understand the similarities and differences between online, offline, written, spoken and non verbal types of communication.  Like it or not, mobile devices are going to play an enormous role in our children’s lives, and our kids will need to be effective communicators in the digital world.

Here’s my daughter on her own box-construction laptop at 18mths of age:

And here’s her progression of laptop use from age 2-3:

Laptops, iphones, and other devices are a completely normal part of our world at home, and so they are completely normal for our kids.  Our three year old daughter already understands more about laptop usage than I did at thirteen (hang on, were laptops even around then…?).  I’ve posted about this before here.  As she grows it will be important for her to learn not only about the practical side of using technology, but also about the nuances between different communication platforms.  What we post on a blog is different from the information we would put in a txt and slightly different again from an update on facebook playbook (hehehe…. that was clever PS writers).  I applaud Play School for incorporating this understanding into their Communication theme this week.

What about you?

A couple of weeks ago the results of a ten year Australian study were released, refuting once and for all the notion of Mummy Brain.  But I say the phrase will stick around, because most of us know that our forgetful and even irrational behaviour following the birth of a baby has nothing to do with brain changes and everything to do with sleep deprivation. Duh.

Saying you have “mummy-brain” is coded language for I-can’t-sleep-I-can’t-concentrate-I’m-struggling-don’t-judge-me.  That’s quite a mouthful, huh?  Mummy-brain is much easier to say, and is well understood by other mothers.  We cut each other slack when we hear that phrase, for good reason…

Jump over to Parenting Australia for the rest of the article.  Do you think the term “mummy brain” will stick around?

(PS – pic is of me just home from hospital following my son’s birth in 2008, seriously sleep deprived!)

He could post anything, anywhere.

He posted things in the bin

and the toilet

and the dishwasher

and the laundry basket

and the sink.

He posted through the verandah slats

and out of windows.

The boy’s mother made him a postbox so that he could post sensibly,

but the boy was not interested in sensible.

He was interested in interesting.

It’s interesting to post necklaces in toilets.

It’s interesting to post toys in the bin.

It’s interesting to see Mummy’s reaction.

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Anyone else been through this interesting phase and have any suggestions to share?  It’s driving me crazy!

Backyard baking is so much fun.  Props required?  A bowl and maybe a large spoon.  Your child might need a little encouragement to get started, but after that they will run with the activity for quite some time.  If you have cooked with your child they will probably take to this activity more readily.  Here are some open ended questions you can use to help the activity along if necessary:

• What are you baking today?
• What ingredient will you need next?
• How much of that ingredient will you need?
• What will you do with your mixture?
• How do you know when it’s ready?
• What does it taste like?!

Make sure you establish some ground rules, especially if there is anything in the garden unsafe for your child to pick (be wary of plants with milky white sap).  My daughter decided to make “Weed Soup” for her recipe.  She picked leaves and flowers from weeds, and also added macadamia nuts, bark and a range of other different leaves.  She sang “Stir up the cooking oh deedle-deedle-dum…” (a Playschool cooking song) while she worked and served the soup up in plastic cups when it was ready!

For an extension on this activity you could encourage your child to write down their “recipe” when they’re finished.  A simple recording of their recipe only involves writing a title at the top for them, and allowing them to draw their ingredients.  For slightly older children you can label their ingredients under each picture.  If your kids love this activity why not make a recipe book and glue in each different recipe?!