Enhancing Memory and Listening Skills Fun on Friday Draw What You Hear

This is my weekend to work the night shift.  So, I have to get in a nap today.  That means every other Friday, I get to give the kids writing, and other creative lessons.  One thing I have noticed is that their listening skills are not exactly great.  Why does that matter to me?  Well for one thing,  you can't follow oral directions well if your listening and memory skills are not up to par.  I for one can listen to a TV show, not watch it, and do something else at the same time, and still be able to tell you what happened.  That is because I have very acute hearing and listening skills.  I think it is a very useful skill, and I want them both to hone their skills. 

Today, I started with a very short story made up by myself.  I repeated it three times, and then they were required to draw what they heard me say.  They could not talk to each other, and could not ask me any questions.  They both got all details correct.  Both of them decided to color the sky blue, rather than just making it sunny.  To me this took away from the picture, but that is OK.

Here is the short story.  It was a beautiful Fall day.  The huge Oak tree only had a few leaves left on it.  It had 10 blue leaves and 5 red leaves.  Plus there were 20 acorns on the ground.

As we go on, through the months, the lesson will get harder with more details.  I also think I will have them listen to just noises, like water, birds, nature, etc and have them draw what they hear.  Also they will be required to write what I say. 

DJ is also doing a writing assignment on George Washington, and an Art lesson on perspective.  Caitlin did an Acrostic Apple poem and will be doing the perspective Art lesson as well.  Caitlin already posted hers to her blog. 

Have an awesome weekend.  Monday we will be at the museum for the Megaladon exhibit.  So, watch for pictures from that. 

Puzzles and Preschoolers

Puzzles can be a great way for your preschooler to learn memory skills, fine motor skills, spacial skills, cognitive skills etc. My 4 yr old, is the puzzle queen. I include them in her preschool lessons. For one thing she loves to do them. She started out with the simple board puzzles, she quickly became bored with them. So I said OK I will buy the 25 pc puzzles. I thought it would take a bit for her to get them, nope she mastered them quickly. She now is up to 100 pc puzzles, and she has mastered most of them. They do take her a bit longer, but she has memorized some of them already. It is funny because my son had absolutely no interest in puzzles, and really had to be forced to do them.

Lesson Plan for 1/29/09:

Reading: Chapter 2 of Ghost Town at Sundown
Language Arts: Commands and exclamations, punctuation
Math: Multiplication, division, subtracting across zeros
Writing: If you could be invisible, where would you go, and what would you do
Health: The ideal friend
Spelling: Lesson 17- put your spelling words in alphabtical order
Vocabulary: Lesson 17- write each vocabulary word, and meaning 2x each
PE: 30 mintues