Over the Holidays, the Elgin Community Network organized a Community Thanksgiving Dinner. They collected turkey and dessert donations, recruited volunteers and expected to feed close to twelve hundred people a free Thanksgiving dinner. Our family volunteered for the morning shift, excited for the opportunity to give of ourselves.
I have been driven for many years, in all I do, to find ways to help children be more confident and successful. Writing Being Visual was a long, labor-intensive process especially for me as a visual learner. I truly believe that when we understand the way our visual kids think, we can help them be more successful. When I hear from parents that have read and applied visual learning techniques, I am enormously grateful to be a part of this important conversation.
Want to keep your kids busy while you get ready for the holidays? Here are some fun ways to keep your kids busy on the upcoming days off.
Scissors and Snowflakes: Kids of all ages can enjoy the fun of making snowflakes with scissors and paper. The act of paper folding, careful cutting (use age appropriate scissors) and observing the ensuing patterns are great visual tactile activities. Have everyone in the family participate, and decorate walls windows or packages with snowflakes that don’t freeze, but will warm you all winter long.
One of our favorite family traditions happens while we’re eating Thanksgiving dinner. Once the food has been laid before us, in its entire delicious splendor, we say a prayer of welcome and thankfulness. Then serving platters are passed around and food is heaped on every plate. As we begin to dig in, savoring all
Today, much to our daughter’s delight, our grandson displayed an outpouring of all the ways he’s been learning to write. Brayden attends a great preschool and has been consistently exposed to letters, numbers and opportunities to write. Being a kinesthetic, active little boy he does write but often prefers more physical, social activity. Yet, today was a special day. Brayden sat and wrote and wrote and wrote his name! With much delight and pride in what he was doing, he wrote all the letters in the correct order again and again.
The physical act of writing is essential to success in the classroom and in life. As literate beings we need to know how to read and communicate using the written word. I still remember being in elementary school and filling pages and pages with evenly spaced, continuous circles and lines, in preparation for cursive writing. As an artist kid, I rather enjoyed those assignments and still find them in my current day doodles.
Dyslexia is a learning “disability” with strong ties to visual-spatial learning. Dyslexics think in pictures, struggle with language and may even struggle with sequencing. These learners can have brilliant visual- spatial abilities and need some extra help developing reading and literacy skills. These are a few activities you can do at home to help your child improve their learning skills and gain confidence:
I am excited to say, Being Visual was recently featured in Parenting Magazine. After previewing the book and a one on one interview, the October issue included an article “The Right Stuff: Cranking up the creativity at home now = success later.”
