How to hold a pencil?

We have been trying to encourage our five year old to hold his pencil properly with the correct triangular grip but he prefers to hold it with his middle finger and thumb rather than his index finger.

So what have we tried?

In the Reception class they were told to use "tweeting" fingers to hold their pencil - so "tweet" like a bird with the index and thumb and then pick up the pencil - the novelty wore off! He recently came home with a paper aeroplane and worked out that it was the same fingers he needed to hold the pencil with so that might be another good exercise for children needing to encourage their index finger and thumb to work together.

We have tried triangular pencils but because his grip is only slightly off this doesn't help, ditto the triangular grip. The grippy pencil grip looked promising to start with - it did make him hold the pencil correctly but he found it awkward to position by himself each time he needed to pick up the pencil. Lastly, we tried the tri-go grip this has three clear spaces for the fingers and he could position is fingers independently and most importantly it did improve his grip.

What works best now? Telling him if I see him holding his pen incorrectly I will tell Miss B he needs to have more handwriting practice!

How have you encouraged your children to correct their grip?

New Products: People Who Help Us Glove Puppets

We are pleased to announce that Littlesheep Learning now stock even more of the popular flat people who help us glove puppets adding the postman, keeper and farmer to the range, plus the bargain people who help us complete set of nine puppets.

These simple flat glove puppets are a fantastic resource for both role play and teaching about occupations / jobs people do and are great for inclusion in story sacks. Size 28cm tall.

Other Spelling Help

From comments posted onto the Facebook link to yesterday's post about texting helping spelling it appears people are still sceptical!

If you would like a more traditional way of helping your child learn take a look at these Orchard Toys Spelling Puzzles now in stock at Littlesheep Learning. These lovely jigsaws have between three and five pieces and contain a lovely illustration with the word written underneath with each piece having one letter and a part of the picture. Children will enjoy completing the puzzle whilst learning to spell the word.

Older children might like the spelling game Pass the Word where they need to race against the timer to put together a word, trying to be quick as when the time runs out the letters have to be passed on to the next player.

Does Txt Speak Help Spelling?

Well according to a new report it does! These latest findings of an ongoing study at the University of Coventry contradict any expectation that prolonged exposure to texting will erode a child's ability to spell and instead suggests that pupils who regularly use text language - with all its mutations of phonetic spelling and abbreviations - also appear to be developing skills in the more formal use of English.

Children who are heavy users of mobile phone text abbreviations such as LOL (laughing out loud), plz (please), l8ter (later) and xxx (kisses), are unlikely to be problem spellers and readers, a new study funded by the British Academy has found. The research, carried out on a sample of 8-12 year olds over an academic year, revealed that levels of “textism” use could even be used to predict reading ability and phonological awareness in each pupil by the end of the year. Also, the proportion of textisms used was observed to increase with age, from just 21% of Year 4 pupils to 47% in Year 6, revealing that more sophisticated literacy skills are needed for textism use. The study conclusions will come as a surprise to many who believe that textisms are vandalising the English language.

The theory behind the research, carried out by Dr Clare Wood, Reader in Developmental Psychology at Coventry University, relates to one of the early developing skills associated with (and believed to underpin) successful reading and spelling development. ‘Phonological awareness’ refers to a child’s ability to detect, isolate and manipulate patterns of sound in speech. For example, children who can tell which words rhyme, or what word is left if you remove a letter, have particularly high levels of phonological awareness.

The forms of text message abbreviation (or ‘textism’) that are used when sending messages include:

• Shortenings: cutting the end off a word, losing more than one letter, e.g. bro = brother.
• Contractions: cutting letters, usually vowels, out of the middle of a word, e.g. txt, plz, hmwrk.
• G Clippings: cutting off only the final g in a word, e.g. goin, comin, workin, swimmin.
• Other Clippings: cutting off other final letters, e.g. I’v, hav, wil, com.
• Symbols: using symbols, including emoticons, and x used symbolically, e.g. &, @, ;-), :-p, xxx.
• Initialisms: a word or group of words is represented by its initial letter, e.g. tb = text back, lol = laughing out loud, gf = girlfriend.
• Letter/Number Homophones: a letter or number is used to take the place of a phoneme, syllable, or word of the same sound, e.g. 4, 2, l8r, u, r, c.
• Non-conventional Spellings: a word is spelled according to legitimate English phoneme-grapheme conversion rules, but not the conventional one used to spell the word, e.g. nite, cum, fone, skool.
• Accent Stylisation: a word is spelled as it is pronounced in casual speech, e.g. gonna, wiv = with, av = have, wanna, elp = help, anuva = another.
• Missing Apostrophes: left out either in possessive or traditional contraction form, e.g. dads, Im, Ive, cant.

So what do you think does txting help or hinder spelling?

New Products: Counting Song Mitts

Just a quick blog post to let everyone know the popular counting song mitts - 5 little ducks, 5 little speckled frogs and five little monkeys are all now back in stock at Littlesheep Learning AND we are now stocking the teaching song mitts for the favourite rhymes 5 little men in a flying saucer, 5 currant buns in a bakers shop and ten green bottles standing on the wall.

These puppets are great to assist children learning about numbers, counting, songs and rhymes - helping them to develop communication, imagination and fine motor skills and by providing a visual aid which makes songs and stories more enjoyable. They are fantastic as a material for acting out stories / the demonstration of different situations and role play scenarios and for including in story sacks.

Snow!

According to the news reports thousands of schools across England, from the north to the south, face closure and disruption in the cold weather but ours was open despite the snow so it was business as usual here at Littlesheep Learning.

Apparently at school today there were about 30 of them in the nursery, reception and year one (all combined into one class due to the absences of staff and children stuck in the nearby villages) and the curriculum included lots of outside play time (they made several snowmen and big snow balls), making hot chocolate for the whole school (including having squirty cream and marshmallows on top!) and lots of fun was had. It might not sound much like learning but they worked out how many people they were making hot chocolate for, what ingredients they would need - and wrote a list, some of them went to the shops to get the ingredients (money skills) plus of course lots of gross motor activity.

Whatever the weather at Littlesheep Learning we dispatch your parcels as soon as possible (usually next day) - you might want to take a look at this special weather game if you want to help your children learn to dress appropriately to the climate!

Money Lessons for Children

I was just reading this article about how primary school children are going to be given lessons on managing debt from next year. Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has disclosed details of the new programme, which starts with lessons on how to save money in a piggy bank and continues through primary school with lessons about current and savings accounts and how to budget.

At Littlesheep Learning we have several products to help teach children about money. The Magnetic Money Chart, Money Snap, Pop to the Shops and Piggy in the Middle, all help children learn to start to learn the value of coins, money 'sums' and budgeting in a fun way.

January Sale Now On!

The January Sale is now on at Littlesheep Learning.

Save up to 30% on a range of books, games and fine motor activities.

Our favourites items are Fine Motor Fishes (reduced from £15.50 to £10.50), the Going to School book (reduced from £2.50 to £1.50) and the Timestables Lotto game (reduced from £9.99 to £8). What are your favourites?

All items subject to stock availability and the sale will end on 31st January 2010!

If there are any other Mumpreneurs / WAHMs who want me to promote your sale - please do add the details in a comment!

Writing Thank You Letters

Hopefully everyone will have had a lovely Christmas and everyone will have received lots of presents. Now we are in the new year in many families thoughts turn to writing thank you letters. I can remember sitting as a child handwriting my missives to the friends and family who had given us presents and now it is me trying to persuade my reluctant writers to carry on the tradition.

With the advent of computers into family life it is sometimes easier to get our eldest to type his messages as until recently writing was not something that he enjoyed. Typing a letter onto a computer is less personal if it is just the name and present details that are changed and it doesn't show the child's developing handwriting (although we did leave in the creative spellings!) but it does get the job done.

Having done our letters and felt proud that they are all in envelopes ready to post I then stumbled across this link on Filth Wizardry about a website where you can generate a font of your child's handwriting. You download a printable template for your child to write each letter of the alphabet (plus the common punctuation marks), scan it in and upload the image and wait for your font which you can then use in all of your documents. As I said - we haven't tried it yet but there are some great examples on the Filth Wizardry post so you can see how it works. I think we will try this for the birthday thank you letters later in the year - so watch this space!

Stocking Fillers

Check out our Stocking Filler Guide for Gifts under £5

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to all our readers

We would like to wish all our readers 10% off their Christmas shopping at Littlesheep Learning - Quote Christmas2009 at checkout (offer ends 20th December 2009)

Ethical Christmas Gifts

As readers of our blog will know, we recently posted about Crash Bang Wallop being featured in The Green Familia Christmas Guide as a suggested stocking filler for children.

We are pleased to announce that What a Performance -was also rated on Day 28 - gifts under £20 AND Bus Stop was featured on Day 29 - gifts under £10.

So why are Orchard Toys winning recommendations in Ethical Christmas Gift Guides - they are just games right? WRONG! These educational games have ethical credentials because they are made in Britain AND they are made from durable recycled board. They are hardwearing, long lasting and most of all fun!

Check out the rest of the TGF Ethical Christmas List to get lots of Christmas gift ideas.

Put on a Panto!

The pantomime is a great British Tradition and this Robsinson's Put On A Panto site contains a fun game that takes children through the steps of putting on their very own pantomime at home - from planning, to practising to performing.

It takes you through everything you need - first choose your favourite pantomime (Snow White, Peter Pan, Cinderella or Aladdin), then you can print the script, follow directions to make your own costumes and props, add your details to print out your poster or invitation. The site even takes you through practicing (younger children could mime along to this script rather than having to learn their lines!) with some fantastic special effect sounds.

Plus, it even features the chance to enter a competiton to win tickets to your local pantomime up to the value of £250. Oh yes, it does!! (Sorry - couldn't resist). Entering the competition is simple;

1. Simply take or dig out a photo of your favourite panto costume


2. E-mail the photo before 30th November 2009 to amodernmother (at) gmail (dot) com with PUT ON A PANTO in the subject line. The winner will be selected by a third party before 4th December 2009, and the winning entry gets tickets for 2 adults and 3 children to a 2009 local pantomime (or equivalent) worth up to £250.

Good luck (for full details see A modern mother).

If your children would rather put on a puppet show using the Cinderella script Littlesheep Learning have fairytale puppet sets including Cinderella (and lots of other ones too!).

Great Toy Guide Top 100 Toys Under £10

We are pleased to announce that Doodlebugs has been reviewed and placed in the Great Toy Guide Top 100 Stocking Fillers in the pre-schooler (3+) category.

The article states that Doodlebugs is a great game that helps kids learn about colours, shapes and numbers.

See here for the full review.

The Orchard Toys Doodlebugs Game is simple but very exciting, game to match the same colour or quirky 'doodlebug' character cards to the last card played. Take a look and get your award winning stocking filler game today.

Top Parent Bloggers

We are pleased to announce that our blog has jumped a massive 38 places to number 49 in this months Tots100 index - we suggest you go and take a look at all the blogs listed there are some great reads!

British Mummy Blogger Carnival

We are very pleased that our post on Preparing for a New Baby has been added to this weeks BMB carnival - Thank you Yummy Mummy Tips. This weeks carnival has a birth / birthday / rebirth theme and there are lots of great posts there to read - so take a look.

Friendly Baby Competition

If you sign up to receive the Friendly Baby monthly newsletter before the end of December you can win two Usborne first experience books from Littlesheep Learning.




Friendly Baby is the simple choice for cloth nappies, and natural and eco baby products.

Featured on Family Friendly Working

I am pleased to say I have been profiled as the Mumpreneur behind Littlesheep Learning on Family Friendly Working - do go and take a look there are a lot of very inspirational Mumpreneur Profiles on there - Mums at all sorts of different stages of their business careers.

While Shepherds Watched

'While Shepherds Watched' sell Handmade Children’s Nativity Costumes and today they opened for the 2009 Nativity Play season.

Lucy, who started the business in 2006, says "I am so pleased to be able to offer tunics made from Fairtrade Organic Cotton for the first time this year. After working closely with Bishopston Trading I now have a 'limited edition' range of Fairtrade certified cotton tunics that are just perfect for Shepherds, Joseph, Mary, Inn Keepers - just about any traditional Nativity role! I team these with appropriate head dresses and head bands, and you have distinctive, unusual and beautiful costumes for your little star. The quality of these skilfully made outfits is unrivalled, which means the costume will last and last."

'While Shepherds Watched' has always aimed to be the best place to buy affordable, great looking, handmade Nativity Costumes. Let them take one of the worries of the festive season away, and leave you free to enjoy seeing your little star shine!

Driving my Tractor