It’s the Season
The day started off a little rocky as a couple littles didn’t want to leave mom after such a long break. Understandable!! Kudos to the mommas who knew they were safe and it would be ok and chin up and sent and them on inside. Hazel was laughing before she hit the door and jasmine was fine in five minutes.
These are the pivotal times we can begin to build resilience in children. If you weren’t 💯 sure they would be safe then that would be a hard pass – but here- they are safe. Good job mommas! I know it was hard. ❤️
We started Christmas crafts today. Though I am not a huge craft fan I do have my 17 year old granddaughters preschool ornaments hanging on my tree. I get it.
Today we did a directed drawing Christmas tree. As I was talking about making short and long strokes with the paint marker I noticed something. Several of the littles were drawing their lines on one side of the tree trunk and then drawing the other side instead of a long line across the trunk .
With all my years of child development I was like “ Debbie !! This is something ! What does it mean?” I was drawing a blank so I phoned a friend 🤪( my business partner in Early Childhood Solutions) and said “ HELP !! What is it ??!” She replied “ Remember the importance of crossing the midline?” O. My. Goodness !! Yes !! I remember !!
From therapies for kids :
So, what is crossing the midline?
- It is easiest to think of the midline as an imaginary line down the middle of your child’s body from head to between their feet.
- Your child can reach across the body from their right to left side (and vice versa) when they can cross the midline.
Crossing the midline is important because:
- When children can do this activity, they are using both sides of their brain to coordinate smooth, controlled, complex movement.
- It is important to combine movement patterns that cross the body for daily tasks such as reading, writing, and tying shoelaces.
- It is needed for tasks that involve both hands, where they work together to do a job.
So!! This makes complete sense with what I was seeing. You can help children begin to cross their midline more naturally by being intentional with activities designed to cross the midline.
Are y’all as excited as I am ?? This is why we do small groups and observe children. If I had plopped this activity down and walked away I would have never noticed this really important developmental step we need to work on. I hope I’m always curious.
So here are the trees – our first Christmas craft. They will come home on polar express day with many more Christmas memories to bring out each year.
I prefer Christmas crafts that are authentic and not cookie cutter. Hopefully you will appreciate these Christmas memories.