6 Fun Things to Do With San Mateo Preschoolers

Parents with children in any San Mateo preschool may already know of many fun family options, but here are some hidden - and not so hidden - gems right in our own city.

1. The playground at Coyote Point Park on Coyote Point Drive is excellent for children of all ages, with equipment for everyone from toddlers to middle schoolers, including sandboxes,swings, slides, and more. You do have to pay for parking, but you can bring a picnic and make a day out of it, since it is in such a lovely location.

2. The *Curiodyssey" Museum (formerly called Coyote Point Museum) at the park is small enough that your preschooler will not feel overwhelmed or get lost but provides interesting exhibits and live presentations about animals and animal habitats. They focus on animals native to the Bay Area and provide many hands-on learning activities for young children.

3. Safari Run is a unique children's fitness center, which helps children learn at an early age how to stay fit, but making it as fun as possible. While they cater to a wide range of children, they include Little Cub camps for kids 3-4 years old during the summer, and a preschool playground during the school year. Preschoolers can jump, run, play, climb, and more, all in a safe, supervised location.

4. Another playground, the Sunnybrae Playground, has a separate area for preschoolers so that they don't get trampled or intimidated by older children. Along with the more traditional offerings like slides, swings, and play structures, there is also a playhouse with chalkboard roofs for children to draw on as well as multiple toy cars that can be "driven" around the park. The one downside to this park are the lack of bathrooms, but it is near several businesses with restrooms.

5. Indoor gyms for toddlers can be a stimulating play environment for children from birth to age five. Preschoolers love the songs and feel safe with the caring teachers. Parents enjoy the cleanliness and the structure provided by the professionals. There are a number around the Peninsula and it's worth looking into.

6. Any list of fun things to do with preschoolers in San Mateo is bound to be park-heavy because there are so many parks around that cater to younger children. Ryder Court Park, on J. Hart Clinton Drive, is another excellent choice for preschool-aged children. They have a separate area of the park to play in, with safe spongy turf instead of messy sand or tan bark. In the summertime, there are some water features that preschoolers love to run through.

If you are able to do all of these fun things with your preschooler, you have enough activities to fill many weekend days with your little ones!

There are many fun activities to do with preschoolers. Sending your child to a San Mateo Preschool is also another great way to expand their horizons on a daily basis as they continue to learn and grow.

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Sibling Jealousy in Preschoolers

It is common for parents with preschool aged children, to tear their hair out over sibling jealousy. Preschoolers can be the best of friends one moment and then suddenly world war three explodes the next. And if we consider that most siblings usually spend a lot of time together, it is easy to see why jealousy can arise.

What causes Sibling Jealousy in Preschoolers?
Preschoolers do not develop many social skills until the age of 6 and are still learning to share, take turns and empathize with others between the ages of 3 and 5. It is important to know that between these ages, young children do not understand, recognize and express their own emotions.. Preschoolers are in the process of learning about their environment, often develop insecurities and fears that they do not know how to verbalize, and need a lot of a motivation and encouragement in order to develop healthy self-esteem and self-confidence. So if most preschoolers face these issues, their development becomes more complex when a sibling in the same developmental stages is thrown into the mix.

There are many reasons why sibling jealousy may arise. One sibling may try to assert their personality or opinions. One may feel jealous and left out since their younger brother or sister arrives. Or a sibling may feel that their parents give the other more attention, whether this is truly the case or not. Or simply, jealousy can arise due to preschooler's innate inability to share, take turns and empathize.

It is impossible to avoid sibling jealousy altogether, as it is a normal part of any sibling relationship.

However, there are certain things parents can do to prevent a negative environment from escalating or ease the effects of jealousy when it arises.

Talking to your children and setting firm and fair family rules, can go a long way in preventing some elements of sibling rivalry. As parents we take for granted, that our children understand that their sibling needs personal attention. In reality, young children need to have this explained to them. Telling your children why you are spending time with one child can help to ease feelings of jealousy that they do not understand.

In the same way, rules must apply equally to all children in the family and siblings should be disciplined with the same consequences. When disciplining our children we should try to be fair and not assume that one child holds the blame when we do not know the circumstances. It is common as parents to make comparisons or create competition between siblings without even realizing.

By modeling positive values and behavior, we teach our preschoolers how to behave. As parents we are responsible for showing preschoolers how to interact with respect, use communication skills to show their feelings and that everyone has their own valid place in the family structure.

Abigail Simmons is Author of Positive Parenting Secrets Book. She has helped many parents solve their parenting problem using her practical positive parenting techniques. To learn more about her parenting tips and techniques, please visit http://www.101parentingresources.com/

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Teaching Letters and Sounds to Preschoolers Is Not Just Teaching the ABC Song

I have been a speech-language pathologist for 25 years. When I am doing speech therapy with children as young as three years old to correct error sounds in their speech, I am very aware that since they are not yet readers, they do not have the same understanding of sounds and letters that older children already have. Some preschool children are aware of letters and may know the alphabet song. The connection between a letter and a sound, however, is not typically something that children learn until they attend pre-k or kindergarten. This is much later than the connection should be made. Letters and sounds are different concepts and it is as important to teach the connection between the two as it is to teach the letters themselves. I teach the letter name paired with the written letter and then teach the sound that the letter makes. These are all taught at the same time to give the children a full understanding of the connections and give them good basic knowledge to help them learn reading skills more easily.

Parents will generally teach their children the classic alphabet song that is sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. A song is a great way for people of any age to memorize information. It is important to also pair what the children are singing to a picture of the letters as they are singing them. If there is no concrete connection made between the letter that is sung and heard and the letter that is written and seen, then the children are just learning a random song. Learning the label for a picture or an object is how these preschoolers have already learned the vocabulary that they know. Parents have provided labels to things in the child's environment. All children should have an alphabet poster or chart of some kind that should be brought out when the ABC song is sung. They should be taught to touch each letter as they are singing it. This will avoid that single "LMNOP" cluster that they clearly think is one letter.

The next step for the children to learn is that every letter makes a sound. This phrase will help them learn that there is a difference between a letter and a sound that it makes. The same chart can be used when teaching the children that each letter makes a sound. I like to use a song that I heard in a pre-k classroom with all of my kids in speech therapy. I take the sound that they are targeting and put it into the song. The song is to the tune of "hot cross buns" and it would go like this: "D says duh, D says duh, every letter makes a sound and D says duh." This can be used with every sound. I use the short vowel sounds when singing the vowels. When vowels are long they say their own letter name. The children will learn the rules for when a vowel says its own name when they learn rules for reading in school. The short vowels are found more often, so I believe it makes sense to expose the children to this When singing vowels use short sounds "a" (as), "e" (bed), "i" (in), "o" (on), "u" (up). These tend to be harder for kids to learn for reading and writing and any jump-start is helpful. The pre-k classroom picks one letter each week to target and then does activities all week with that sound. Art activities, searching for things that start with that sound etc. I suggest that parents do the same thing. As the weeks progress, you add to the length of the sound song and mix the letters up so they are not learned only in order. This work on pairing sounds and letters will give your child a great jump on early reading skills. We tend to forget that just because a child can sing the alphabet song doesn't mean that he knows his letters. He simply knows a song if the written letter and the sound of the letter is not taught at the same time.

I have been a licensed speech-language pathologist for 25 years. I have specialized in early intervention speech and language therapy for much of my career. My goal is to help parents with their concerns about their child's speech and language development by providing resources and information. I currently have a blog with other topics in the areas of speech and language development. Check out these topics at: http://www.topicsinspeechandlanguage.blogspot.com/

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