Follow Your Feelings – Max and Worry Book Review
Follow Your Feelings is a new series written by Kitty Black and illustrated by Joss Rose. This series aims to start conversations about identifying and managing feelings in a healthy way.
Life Skills Resources
Life skills resources help us teach, learn and develop our knowledge and abilities. This means we can focus on being the best versions of ourselves!
The Power of Play
More than just a chance to have fun, play is serious business when it comes to a child’s development. Card games and board games can help teach your little ones academic, social, and emotional skills that they will carry with them throughout the rest of their lives.
Earth Day 2021
This Earth Day, the theme is “Restore Our Earth”. We have put together some fun activities to teach our little people about being sustainable and kind to the planet. Let’s all do our part to make the Earth a better place for everyone to enjoy!
It’s Mindfulness March – Free Printable Resources!
Throughout the month of March, we will be celebrating Mindfulness March and providing resources to our team and our community on how to be more mindful and take better care of ourselves.
Making finance fun for kids: Resources, tips and ideas to get little ones engaged
We’ve put together some of the best tips and tricks when it comes to introducing money to kids of any age!
10 Reasons to Take a Deep Breath Every Day
Practicing some deep breathing each day can decrease stress, relax your mind and body, can improve your sleep, and help ease anxieties, and much more. These are some of our favourite benefits of deep breathing.
Helping Foster Children Stay On Task
“Concentration is like a muscle that requires regular exercise to strengthen. Some kids are born “stronger” in this area than others, but all kids can learn strategies and engage in practices that help improve their ability to focus and sustain their attention”
– Dr. Jamie Howard
Children in out of home care often lack interest in learning and find difficulty in concentrating and staying on task. With 92% of children in care below average reading skills by the time they are seven years of age and struggle to catch up, it is important as mentors to help our children build and train their ‘concentration muscle’.
Here are some tips for our Pyjama Angels to implement in visits to help their children stay on task.
1. Set A Plan
It can be a good idea to create a plan for your visits. At the beginning of your visit you can work with your child to write out a set plan for the visit. This gives both you and your child the opportunity to decide what you will aim to achieve within your visit.
2. Set Time Lengths For Tasks
When setting a plan or just completing tasks, it is important to set appropriate time lengths for specific tasks. As a Pyjama Angel, you will get to know the typical time length your child will concentrate and focus on a task. Use your understanding to set appropriate time lengths on tasks you aim to complete.
3. Use Timers
When aiming to complete a task for a specific time, it can be helpful to utilise timers or stopwatches. Clocks or stopwatches can provide a visual aid for children, and help them understand when a task will finish.
4. Planned Breaks
It is also important to ensure that you build in planned breaks. After spending some time concentrating, it is useful to take a break – whether that be a small physical break such as throwing a ball around or trying a Brain Gym exercise.
These exercises can be utilised if child become distracted or simply as a planned break. These small physical activities will re-engage the brain and can help a child re-focus on a set task.
* Brain Gym exercises adapted from margdteachingposters.weebly.com/thinking-processes
Incorporating these tips will hopefully see your visits become more productive and time efficient, though it it important to remember that every child is unique and requires different techniques. Be patient and kind and see what works best for you and your child during your visits.
If you ever feel stuck and need any assistance or tips, our team is available for a chat at 07 3256 8802 between 9-5pm Monday-Friday.
