studying Games For Young Children

The fabulous thing about learning is that it can be fun. Many population think of learning as very boring - they think that learning requires endless hours of listening to monotone speeches and even more hours of falling asleep at books. learning does not have to be like this -- in fact, it should not be like this!

Teach your students that learning can be fun by incorporating learning games into your everyday chapter plan.

Learning games are fun ways to learn leading skills and knowledge. Some of the best kinds of learning are the kind that you can play without even realizing that you are learning straight through the process. Here are some exquisite learning games for preschool and grade school aged children:

Learning game 1: transfer change Game

To play this learning game, you need two or three players and also 15 pennies, 6 nickels, 10 dimes, and one die. This is an exquisite learning game for teaching youth about money combinations. The first player rolls the die. If the number 1 comes up, he takes one coin. If the number 2 comes up, he takes two coins, and so on. If he rolls a six, he is allowed to take six pennies, but then he must transfer 5 pennies for a nickel. After a while of having to do this exchange, he will learn to take 1 penny and one nickel on his next turn. Similarly, once a player has five pennies he must transfer them for a nickel, and two nickels must be exchanged for a dime. At the end, all of the players count their change. The player with the highest number wins. This game can also be played at a higher level with quarters and dollar bills or play money.

Learning game 2: Bean Plates

This learning games helps children learn and understand multiplication. Divide children into small groups and give them some paper plates and some dried beans. With this game, if you have 2 plates with 3 beans on each plate, then you have 2 X 3 = 6. Or, maybe you will have 3 plates with 6 beans on each plate. This is 3 plates times 6 beans or 3 X 6 = 18, etc. The kids can count the beans to double-check and to see that this is positively true.

Learning game 3: Shaving Cream Writing

For this learning game, you need foil or wax paper and a can of shaving cream (not of the gel variety). This game can get a wee bit messy, so be prepared. Lay out your foil or wax paper across a table, nice and flat. Allow the kids to spray a large pile of shaving cream onto the foil or wax paper. They can then dip their hands write into it and spread it nearby so that they practice writing by using their fingers. Both tactical and optic learners will benefit from this learning game.

Learning game 4: Ant Walk

This learning game teaches children to look intimately at the environment and to appreciate it on a whole new level. For this learning game, you will only need a piece of string, about a yard long at most. Give each trainee or trainee pair a piece of string, then tell them to set up a trail for an ant walk. The students can find an consuming piece of the schoolyard, preferably nearby a tree or garden -- somewhere with a lot to see - then the students get down low to the ground and pretend that they are an ant walking along the path of string. What do they see? What does the grass look like? What other bugs might be around? Why is there a hole in that part of the ground? Then, you can have each trainee or group share with an additional one trainee or group all of the marvels and sites along his ant walk.

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Free Kids Online Games - Make studying Enjoyable for Your little One With These Fun Kid Websites

Internet is full of free kids online games but seeing the right one can be a task which can take hours. Some plainly fall short on the potential of graphics and visuals whereas some may not be age proper for your young one.

But there are some very good sites on the internet which are worth the endeavor and time.There are some precisely good sites where you will find some very good games and activities, songs, stories, rhymes, recipes for kids, jigsaws and puzzles and plenty of other activities which for diminutive kids which kids will precisely love. These sites make studying so much fun for kids as its their favourite movie or cartoon characters which help them with their learning.

Here are the top 3 fun kid websites which precisely fall in the kind of some of the best free kids online games sites ready on the internet for diminutive kids -

1. Sesame Street

This is one of the fun kid websites which precisely falls in the top bracket with its fabulous variety of educational games it has to offer to diminutive kids which makes studying enjoyable for children.

The selection of games is very good. You will find games for alphabet learning, numbers,shapes and colours, match and sort games, colouring pages, stories and plenty of other fun games and activities to choose from .

Playing with characters like Elmo or Big bird at sesame street website is an enjoyable educational journey kids are bound to love.

2. British Council Site

This is another fun site which features a good variety of free kids online games, plenty of fun songs and funnier animation to go with the songs. Find songs for teaching kids their numbers, letters. You will find some beloved and customary songs and some very fun new songs for kids at this site.

There are plenty of activities on this site to help kids with their English learning.

3. Cbeebies

The variety of activities and games for diminutive kids is precisely huge on this site. plenty of good games, stories, colouring pages, recipes, approximately anyone you can think of for young children can be found on this site.

And its not just games, but playing these free kids online games with their favourite characters is what kids will love the most about this site. Long list of beloved characters like Bob the builder, Teletubbies, Tweenies all can be found here.

If it is free kids online games that you are seeing for you will find a fabulous selection of fun kid websites at best-preschool-games.com

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3 Ways For studying Spanish For Kids

Exploring ways to make your child learn the Spanish language requires great effort. You should select the right method to start the studying Spanish for kids lesson. Knowing Spanish is not only for those who are planning to migrate to Spanish speaking countries but also for those who plainly just want to learn the language. Teaching your children at the young age is an ideal way to start because young minds are able to adapt literally to the lessons straight through the help of some media.

1. Dora the Explorer

Kids can literally instill in their minds what they see and hear from videos. If you want to help your children learn Spanish, let them watch the piquant kid's show, Dora the Explorer. It is an easy way for your child to learn the language and at the same time enjoy the show. However, you need to accompany your kids while watching the show so that you can justify to them in case they have some queries.

2. Interactive Spanish Websites

Most children nowadays love the computer and it is also a favorable way for studying Spanish for kids. This way, they can make their stay in front of the computer worthwhile. They can find distinct themes and being exposed to a Spanish website is beneficial in the long run. Without their knowing they will comprehend that the chapter has soaked in their minds.

3. Spanish Tutor

Hiring a tutor is a sure fire way for studying Spanish for kids. Although it would cost you some money, your children can learn the Spanish language well. In this method, your child will not only be exposed to the language but also to the culture. It also ensures that your child can learn the language faster.

Aside from the above-mentioned methods, there are other avenues where your kids can learn the Spanish language at astonishing rates. You can let them watch other Spanish shows in the television or watch videos. However, it is leading that you also provide them a Spanish-English dictionary so that they refer to it to fully understand the words. Remember to use videos that have sub-titles so that they would know the translation of the words.

On the other hand, if your child loves music and singing, you can buy her or him a Spanish music Cd or video. By listening enduringly to the music, he or she would learn some words day after day.

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Sticky studying For Kids Part One - Rhymes, Songs and Sayings

This report is a added application of the principle first introduced in the article, "Teach Your Children to Love You" but the subject of this report is our daughter, the younger, more spontaneous one.

For numerous reasons, Ginny and I had only two children. But we kind of got the full challenge of a larger family since our two were opposite poles of the globe concerning... Well, concerning everything. They were of dissimilar genders--one boy and one girl--and four years apart. We like to say we raised two only children! About the closest we could come to describing their sibling relationships were that they sometimes tolerated each other. One was a deep meditator who would only rejoinder after mental things through, sometimes for weeks. The other was a flash of gasoline on a fire who reacted spontaneously and often with good instincts. One wanted cake; the other wanted ice cream. One was always hot; the other cold. I could go on and on.

The prior article, "Teach Your Children to Love You," offered the principle that it is our accountability as parents to teach our children how to express their love and affection in ways that are acceptable even if they are not feeling especially loving. In other words, love is a commitment, not merely an emotional reaction. Since love is a commitment, we can control its expression--we are not at the mercy of having had a bad day. Back to our daughter.

The Story

Rebekah was headstrong and had not yet learned how to play nice--not atypical for a two-year-old. But then I found my self out of work for about three months. Nothing I did seemed to help me find a job. I was depressed each day as I watched our meager savings pour into the gas tank as I drove from place to place submitting my applications. I ultimately decided there must be some higher purpose to this time off. That's when my Rebekah's behavior caught my attentiveness more than normal. This girl needed help!

If we held her, she would push away and try to lean back as far as she could (murder on my back). If we tried to hug her, she resisted. She would rarely climb up into our laps or snuggle up with us. Fortunately I had learned my lesson: it was our accountability to teach her how to express the natural love she had for her mum and me. We love Rebekah and treated her fairly and very well so she had no cause to be unloving. She simply had not been taught nor had she learned to rejoinder more appropriately.

The Application Using Gaming Techniques

I was not without teaching and learning tools for I had learned much about the power of games to introduce and deepen learning. As I had worked to improve my teaching and my students' learning, I had discovered some of the components of gamesmanship: rules, repetition, ritual, rhymes, songs and sayings. I know there are treatises out there about game system but what I observed and practiced was sufficient for me. I have never looked into it beyond what I learned in the secondary classroom. So it was some of these hard-won techniques that I brought to bear on my daughter.

I can remember like it was yesterday the morning that I got on my knees before our sliding door out onto the patio and told Rebekah that we were going to learn a poem. Her reaction was, "unh uh," translated as "no."

I told her how breathtaking poems are and how they sometimes rhyme and gave her an example or two. Again I asked, "Wouldn't you like to learn a poem?" She did not.

I may lose a few of you on the next step but here goes. I told her that this was leading and that I would have to spank her if she did not cooperate. Yes, we spanked our kids when critical but we also had read up on the permissible way to spank so the spanking would sting but not bruise or injure.

The spanking thing convinced her and she ultimately agreed to learn a poem. The poem was: "Hugs are nice but kisses are sweeter."

Pulling together all the skills I ever needed to subdue an insane class of high school freshmen, I recited the brief poem with feeling and energy. Then I had her say it. She did, although reluctantly. We said it together a few times, changing the tone and emphasis, production it almost like a song sometimes. Then we said it back and forth. By the end of our session, she was giggling but I didn't push her beyond recitation.

We did this for some days as we made a game out of "our poem." Then came application day.

I swept her up off the floor and hugged her tightly as I said, "Hugs are nice." I then looked at her expectantly. She completed the poem and said, "But kisses are sweeter." Now you might think it just fell into place that she then kissed me on the cheek but I knew better. I didn't push it.

We played that game for a some time and one day she spontaneously kissed me. Gone were the behaviors of pushing away and averting her head from us as we picked her up or carried her.

I hope you are able to adapt this to your parenting challenges and teach your children to be loving and caring individuals. I'm sure many of you have techniques that are best or equally good. I'd love to hear them.

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Which Console Offers the Most studying Video Games For Kids?

Not all consoles are created equal. Some, with their processing power and storage space, cater to an older crowd. Others, aiming more for a casual, family-friendly set, rely on innovative controllers and kid-friendly graphics to offset their relative lack of processing strength. Both, however, have studying video games for kids and teens.

So which one's the best?

Flash back to a incorporate decades ago, when video games were a bit simpler. There wasn't the power or the storage space to create the expansive, immersive worlds we see on the current generation of console games. studying video games were also fairly limited, ordinarily flat and, if we're going to be honest: boring. You had, also, very itsybitsy choices in your choice of console. Nintendo or Sega were the only two systems to reliably retain and publish games for their consoles. Meanwhile, Pc gaming was expanding.

Parents were also ordinarily safe in the knowledge that if they purchased an Nes or a Genesis, games were unlikely to consist of much in the way of questionable content. The market, both original and studying video games, was vanilla. Safe, reliable, and not especially exciting. The exceptions to the rule were as a matter of fact caught by even a cursory discern at their titles - parents could reasonably expect games like "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Splatterhouse" to be unfit for their younger kids.

Things have changed. Today, there are six main arteries for video games and studying video games, each with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of games. Game makers' capability to create entire worlds to explore, both benign and kid-friendly (Mario or Zelda) and gritty and violent (Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil). As almost always, however, a smaller set of studying video games accompanied the flood of sports, adventure, action, and shooters. Which, then, is the best console for a family?

Well, quite a bit of a advice depends on what you're looking for in the console. If you're reading this article, however, you're probably looking for a family-friendly console, able to entertain and teach with fun studying video games, as well as offer up a original set of adventure and fantasy games, proper for kids. With that in mind:

For families with children in elementary and middle school, Nintendo's consoles (Wii, Ds) are ordinarily the best choice. Quite simply, Nintendo's consoles are the most kid-centric consoles available on the market. They have the motion-sensing controller (Wii) and stylus (Ds) that add a greater level of intuitive interaction, exquisite for the younger crowd. They have recognizable stars like Mario, Link, Zelda, and Sonic, that kids tend to love. Their colorful, lower-resolution graphics lend themselves to more cartoony graphics that children seem to inherently enjoy. Finally, both the Ds and Wii have a greater number of studying video games targeted and marketed towards positive age groups.

As always, use the Internet and do a itsybitsy research. I'd guess you'll find the consensus agrees that for family-friendly software, for studying video games that both teach and entertain, the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Ds are the two best choices for your family.

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Leapster2 studying principles Great solution For Kids Who Need Extra Help

For children having trouble with their studies (or for those who are very advanced), school can be painful for both kids and their parents. It can be frustrating and can leave kids dreading school - something parents want to avoid any way they can. So, what's a parent to do? Sure, there are tutors and workbooks and other former studying tools, but because these are similar to class time, they may be as ineffective as school it self. The clarification may be the Leapster2 studying theory - a fun, highly-interactive handheld studying system.

The Leapster2 studying theory is the one and only theory of its kind. Much separate from video games and even other educational electronics, the Leapster2 studying theory provides a wholly customizable studying palpate that is self-paced and automatically adjusts to a child's abilities and skill levels to challenge them without breathtaking them. The best part is that as the child is playing games with all their popular characters on the handheld's involving touch screen, they're studying new skills in reading, language, math and science (or brushing up on what they've already learned). And, there are abundance of tutorials and guides to help them if they get a minuscule lost along the way.

For kids with short attentiveness spans who grow bored quickly (pretty much all of them!), the Leapster2 studying System's corresponding online activities are a great way to keep the fun going without a run to the store for new games. Parents will love the convenience and kids will love the variety, challenge and obvious feedback for a job well done via the Internet. At home and on the go, young students will find the Leapster2 studying theory a great way to learn new concepts while strengthening skills learned in school. It's also fully compatible with the other 30 Leapster games.

Parents who choose to buy the Leapster2 to give their kids an scholastic boost if they're having a tough time in school will also get the peace of mind of knowing their kids are studying from a firm dedicated to their needs. LeapFrog products are industrialized by population who understand the importance of development the educational palpate a fun one for children so that they'll stick with it and learn more and keep their skills longer. So, either school's out for summer, your child needs more study time, or your industrialized child needs more involving lessons, the Leapster2 studying theory will help you originate the most customizable program you'll find in an educational handheld.

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Accelerated studying For Kids straight through Superlinks studying Styles Rapidly Solves Reading And studying

Accelerated learning for Kids straight through Superlinks learning Styles can swiftly end parent discontentment when a child is struggling in school. A child needs to learn to read, and that includes phonics, fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary skills. They need to continue to improve in reading in every grade level up straight through college, so when a teen has to take an Act or Sat College prep test they perform a high score. Along with that a child must learn to write, spell, do math and master science, collective studies, art, music, health, and P.E. Most subjects rely on reading skills.

Whether in pre-school, Grades K-12, or college, when a child or teen has strangeness in any of these areas, he or she can develop low self-esteem and a lack of motivation. Sometimes the child may even feel there is something wrong with him or her or feel "dumb," or "stupid.". Every day that a child does not get the important reading and learning help in any subject, the child falls added and added behind.

Once a child falls behind the other students, only receiving reading or learning help at the same rate that others are learning, how can that child ever catch up?

Whether a child is in quarterly or special education, is gifted, is in an Ell or Title I program, or is diagnosed with dyslexia, Adhd or Add, the child experiences the same pain of frustration.

One of the keys to reading and learning success is accelerated learning straight through using a child's adored Superlinks learning styles and brain style. By accelerating the rate of providing reading or learning revision and help, children have made measurable, proven gains and not only caught up to others, but even rose above grade level.

Using a Superlinks learning style account and brain hemispheric preference to find your child's fastest way of learning, and then teaching in the way the child's brain learns the best can end discontentment and pain, and turn that child into a lifelong learner who enjoys the gift of reading and learning.

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How to generate an Optimal studying Environment for Your Child with Autism

Understanding the way your child's brain works is crucial to being able to furnish an optimal learning environment. Below is a brief summary of some of the investigate about the brains of citizen with autism. Then you'll find easy, practical ways to implement this knowledge and generate an optimal learning environment at home.

The Science
Autism is referred to as a "spectrum disorder" because there is such a wide unlikeness among citizen with the diagnosis. Researchers using technology that allows them to be able to see how our brains are structured also see that the brains of citizen with the label 'Autism' are vastly distinct from one another. Because of this, some scientists have recommend we need to look below the level of the brain's structure to the way individual neurons (brain cells) are wired to find the "miss-wiring" that affects all citizen with autism. Researchers have found evidence that the way some neurons are related in the brain of citizen with autism may lead to a low signal-to-noise ratio. This means that many of the signals brain cells are sending to each other may be accompanied by "noise", like static in a radio signal. This is one explanation for why children with autism come to be hyper-aroused (overwhelmed) by sensory facts and why they may find it more sharp to pick between two distinct sources of information. For example, it is often more difficult for a child with autism to be able to listen to the educator when other children in the class are making noise. Studies recording brain electricity in autistic citizen have shown that even when they are trying to ignore distinct aspects of their environment (such as noise in the classroom) their brains retort to this facts in the same way they retort to the facts the child is trying to attend to (the teachers voice). The question for many children with autism seems to be one of "filtering", that is, they are less able than typical children to filter out sensory facts that is irrelevant to what they are trying to focus on.

The consequent of this is that all stimuli are given equal priority by the brains of those with autism, causing an astonishing flood of sensory facts that the child must handle. The brains of typical children learn to filter out irrelevant stimuli early on in life, so by the time that they go to school, children are able to focus their attention on what they are asked to focus on. It is very hard for many children with autism to learn in environments where there is a lot of competing sensory facts (including noises, sights, touches, smells, etc.) such as a classroom.

Children with autism are taking in a lot of facts all the time; this means that at some stage, they have to sort straight through this facts to see what they unquestionably need. Studies have seen that citizen with autism tend to do the sorting straight through at a much later stage in processing than neurologically typical people. This is like going down the aisles in the supermarket and putting one of all things into your cart, then arriving at the checkout and discarding what you do not want to buy. This causes a "processing bottleneck". Studies using technology that allows us to see which parts of the brain are being used in single tasks help us to see that this is what is happening inside the brains of citizen with autism. There is more performance in the brain regions designed for lower-order processing (going straight through the supermarket aisles) than in brain regions for high-order processing (moving straight through the checkout and going home with the items on your list). This may expound why children with autism often show vital challenges in areas of high-order processing (e.g. Memory, attention, organization, language, etc.), because they spend so much time trying to deal with the basic incoming sensory facts that they don't get time to practice the high-order mental processing other children their age are practicing. Thus the brain of the child with autism starts to create differently than the brain of his typical brother. There is some evidence that this processing style is already present when children with autism are born, even though the concurrent behaviors may not be recognized until 18-24 months later.

Psychologists call this style of processing (over-relying on lower-order processing) "weak central coherence." Central coherence describes the ability to process incoming facts in context, pulling facts together for higher-level meaning often at the expense of memory for detail. Weak central coherence then is the tendency of those with autism to rely on local feature processing (the details) rather than taking in the global nature of the situation. For instance after viewing selfsame pictures and then being asked to remember what was in the photograph a typical man might recite the scene as "a forest at sunset" while a man with autism might remember "shiny leaves, orange light and a subject you could hang a swing from". This processing style is the calculate citizen with autism outperform citizen without autism on specific tasks. One of these tasks is The Embedded Figures task. In this task, citizen might be shown a line drawing of a car which everyone can identify as such. When asked to point out the three triangles in the picture, citizen without autism are much slower than those with autism. This is because the typical citizen can not see "past" the car to label all it's constituent parts. The citizen with autism will identify the three triangles quickly because this is how they are practiced at looking the world.

Research sharp citizen with autism ranging from studies of how individual brain cells are related to how citizen perform in psychological tests paints a photograph of the world occupied by those with autism as fragmented, astonishing and filled with "noise". This is corroborated by autobiographical reports from citizen with autism. Comprehension the autistic child's fragmented and astonishing world shows how important a child's external environment is when designing treatment and schooling for children with autism. It also explains why children with autism crave order and predictability in their corporal environments.

Physical environments with higher amounts of sensory stimulation (e.g. sharp visual displays, background noise, etc.) will add to the "noise" in an already overloaded sensory system making any new learning extremely challenging--like trying to learn Japanese in a shopping mall. The extent to which rooms can be tailored to meet the needs of these children is extremely little in a typical classroom setting, mainly due to the nearnessy of other children and the subsequent size of the room. Even fluorescent lighting has been shown to sway the behavior of children with autism. These environmental considerations are whether overlooked and their importance underestimated when placements are recommend for children with autism or it is beyond the scope of the school district to furnish any other type of corporal environment.

The Easy Part
The First Step along the road to construction a widespread treatment program for your child is providing him or her with an acceptable environment in which to learn. Ordinarily this means Simplify! Here's what to do:

1. Dedicate one room in your house to you child with autism. It could be your child's bedroom or other room (not too big, 12' x 12' is plenty, and smaller is fine depending on the age of your child). The room might even only be dedicated to your child with autism for part of the day (for instance if he or she shares a bedroom with a sibling) this is Ok too. Do the best you can with the situation you have.

2. Take off all electronic toys from the dedicated room. This includes televisions, video-games, and whatever battery powered (including singing / talking books and things that flash!) These toys can be over-stimulating for a child with autism and do not encourage social interaction.

3. Make sure you have incandescent light bulbs not fluorescent one. Fluorescent light bulbs flicker at a rate most of use tune out but that can be extremely over-stimulating for citizen with autism.
4. Clear some space. Ideally you want the floor to be a free, clear open space on which you can play with your child. Have the minimal whole of furniture you can in the special room. Also simplify the whole of toys you have in the room and if possible put them all on shelves or in a closet.

These are the first step towards creating an optimal learning environment in which to work with your child. Parents running a home-based Son-Rise Programs are coached additional on how to generate a customized learning environment and Son-Rise program playroom. The straightforward measures described here will aid in soothing your autistic child's over-active nervous system by making the world digestible and manageable and set the stage for social interaction and subsequent learning.

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Sticky studying For Kids Part One - Rhymes, Songs and Sayings

This article is a further application of the principle first introduced in the article, "Teach Your Children to Love You" but the field of this article is our daughter, the younger, more spontaneous one.

For numerous reasons, Ginny and I had only two children. But we kind of got the full challenge of a larger family since our two were opposite poles of the globe concerning... Well, with regard to everything. They were of distinct genders--one boy and one girl--and four years apart. We like to say we raised two only children! About the closest we could come to describing their sibling relationships were that they sometimes tolerated each other. One was a deep meditator who would only acknowledge after reasoning things through, sometimes for weeks. The other was a flash of gasoline on a fire who reacted naturally and often with good instincts. One wanted cake; the other wanted ice cream. One was all the time hot; the other cold. I could go on and on.

The prior article, "Teach Your Children to Love You," offered the principle that it is our accountability as parents to teach our children how to express their love and affection in ways that are proper even if they are not feeling especially loving. In other words, love is a commitment, not merely an emotional reaction. Since love is a commitment, we can control its expression--we are not at the mercy of having had a bad day. Back to our daughter.

The Story

Rebekah was headstrong and had not yet learned how to play nice--not atypical for a two-year-old. But then I found my self out of work for about three months. Nothing I did seemed to help me find a job. I was depressed each day as I watched our meager savings pour into the gas tank as I drove from place to place submitting my applications. I finally decided there must be some higher purpose to this time off. That's when my Rebekah's behavior caught my attention more than normal. This girl needed help!

If we held her, she would push away and try to lean back as far as she could (murder on my back). If we tried to hug her, she resisted. She would rarely climb up into our laps or snuggle up with us. Fortunately I had learned my lesson: it was our accountability to teach her how to express the natural love she had for her mom and me. We love Rebekah and treated her fairly and very well so she had no cause to be unloving. She simply had not been taught nor had she learned to acknowledge more appropriately.

The Application Using Gaming Techniques

I was not without teaching and studying tools for I had learned much about the power of games to introduce and deepen learning. As I had worked to enhance my teaching and my students' learning, I had discovered some of the components of gamesmanship: rules, repetition, ritual, rhymes, songs and sayings. I know there are treatises out there about game law but what I observed and practiced was adequate for me. I have never looked into it beyond what I learned in the secondary classroom. So it was some of these hard-won techniques that I brought to bear on my daughter.

I can remember like it was yesterday the morning that I got on my knees before our sliding door out onto the patio and told Rebekah that we were going to learn a poem. Her reaction was, "unh uh," translated as "no."

I told her how fantastic poems are and how they sometimes rhyme and gave her an example or two. Again I asked, "Wouldn't you like to learn a poem?" She did not.

I may lose a few of you on the next step but here goes. I told her that this was prominent and that I would have to spank her if she did not cooperate. Yes, we spanked our kids when significant but we also had read up on the permissible way to spank so the spanking would sting but not bruise or injure.

The spanking thing convinced her and she finally agreed to learn a poem. The poem was: "Hugs are nice but kisses are sweeter."

Pulling together all the skills I ever needed to subdue an insane class of high school freshmen, I recited the brief poem with feeling and energy. Then I had her say it. She did, although reluctantly. We said it together a few times, changing the tone and emphasis, development it practically like a song sometimes. Then we said it back and forth. By the end of our session, she was giggling but I didn't push her beyond recitation.

We did this for several days as we made a game out of "our poem." Then came application day.

I swept her up off the floor and hugged her tightly as I said, "Hugs are nice." I then looked at her expectantly. She completed the poem and said, "But kisses are sweeter." Now you might think it just fell into place that she then kissed me on the cheek but I knew better. I didn't push it.

We played that game for a some time and one day she naturally kissed me. Gone were the behaviors of pushing away and averting her head from us as we picked her up or carried her.

I hope you are able to adapt this to your parenting challenges and teach your children to be loving and caring individuals. I'm sure many of you have techniques that are great or equally good. I'd love to hear them.

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