Human beings have been telling stories for several millennia. And, as parents, we’ve all heard about the benefits of telling stories to our children. The only problem is that, as with so many things, no one ever teaches us how to tell a story. The best that most of us can do is to emulate our parents’ and teachers’ storytelling, assuming that they were skilled storytellers.

Although imitating skilled storytellers is a good way to learn, it’s also possible to apply a few basic principles.

Follow these simple tips, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a great storyteller.

1. Modulate your voice

Obviously, droning on in a monotone is never exciting. Try changing the tone and timbre of your voice (e.g. high and squeaky, low drawl, etc.), the rhythm, the accent and the intensity.

2. Act out different roles

This really is an extension of #1. If you’re going to go as far as modulating your voice, you may as well go all the way and act out different characters, changing your voice accordingly.

3. The pregnant pause

A carefully timed pause can really build the tension. You probably want to pause right before a major transition in the story so that your child literally begs you to tell what happens next.

4. Use your face

Smile, grimace, contort your face or make a sad face. You can use facial expressions to embellish and convey the words that you are reading. Research has shown that human beings exhibit a repertoire of approximately 3,000 facial expressions, irrespective of culture.

5. Dress the part

If you’re telling a story about Santa, why not dress up as Santa or at least wear a Santa hat? Better yet, have your kids dress up as some of the characters.

6. Use props

If you’re telling a story about the sea, you could let your child hold a seashell up to their ear to “hear” the sea. These “psychological triggers” will make the setting come alive. Also, get your children to touch and feel the props.

7. Set the mood

Ever notice how the music in a movie makes it ten times more suspenseful, sad or scary? Actually, usually we don’t notice the music, but it has a huge impression on us nonetheless. You can set the mood for a scary story simply by dimming or turning off the lights. Or you could softly play African music if you’re telling a story set in Africa. To create the atmosphere of an ancient temple, burn some incense.

Conclusion

In olden times, stories were more than just words on a page. You can recapture some of that magic with your storytelling. When you stimulate all five senses and create memorable moments, you’ll notice that your kids really remember the child stories you tell them…and clamor for more.

Copyright 2006 Paul Arinaga

Paul Arinaga is founder of the Child Stories Bank.
http://www.child-stories-bank.com
The Child Stories Bank provides FREE original children’s stories as well as resources to help writers create and get their stories published, and a directory of child storybook illustrators.

Educational toys are fun for babies and provide another tool to stimulate learning and brain development in your infant. There are many ways to teach a child and tens of thousands of educational toys on the market to help parents in the endeavor. The challenge for parents, child care providers and educators is to choose from the vast array of educational toys available in a way that creates a balance of learning techniques, is age appropriate, and most of all fun. This article will provide basic facts about; how babies learn, types of educational toys available and examples of each.

How Babies Learn

It is quite surprising the rate at which babies learn and develop. Learning begins in the womb and continues throughout childhood. In early life how a child learns centers largely around the relationship with the parents. At least until the child starts preschool, the job of stimulating and satisfying baby’s desire to learn falls primarily to the parents.

While babies respond to their parent’s voice there are many other sounds they find interesting. When parents are choosing educational toys for babies they should look for toys that have sound, colors that are bright and contrasted like red, black and white, and have interesting textures that babies like to touch.

Sounds

Babies’ respond to sound and some of the best educational toys include rattles and musical toys. Soothing music such as lullabies is usually best. Auditory and musical toys are known to stimulate logical thinking and imagery in babies and in adults for that matter.

One good educational auditory toy is the Electronic Metal Keys. These keys are good for a child 6 months and up. The Electronic Metal Keys are an imitation of the parent’s car keys. However, the Electronic Metal Key toy is safe for the child to chew on and has a push button that emits sounds like a car horn, doorbell, ignition, and remote control door.

Sight

Bright colors in educational toys stimulate baby’s vision. Look for toys with strong color contrast and patterns. A good one to look for is a colorful crib mobile that emits music, has different textures, curves and symmetry.

One such educational toy is the Bath Time Fishing toy. This item is appropriate for babies 12 months and up. It’s a great prop to use during a baby bath. Making the bath as fun as possible can also help overcome any resistance or fear your child may have during the bathing process. The toy is bright in color, has a rod and reel, and the strong magnets attached to its tails allow for easy catching. Bath Time Fishing is priced at around $16.00 dollars.

Fine motor play

Fine motor play educational toys are used to stimulate coordination in baby’s finger and eye movements. One such toy aimed at developing the hand-eye coordination is “Counting Pals”, which is aimed at babies 6 months and up. Counting Pals are 10 soft and squishy colored blocks. They can be stacked, tossed, chewed by the baby. Counting pals also provides animal illustrations that will enchant the baby. Counting Pals educational toy is priced at around $12.00.

Cognitive Skills

There are some educational toys that promote cognitive skills in babies, which is to say they stimulate the child’s memory, how they picture things and their problem solving skills. Educational toys like building blocks, activity boxes or puzzles are a good purchase for your child. The puzzles can deal with numbers, letters or pictures; it does not matter, but they should be fairly easy for a baby to grasp and manipulate.

Many children, perhaps your own, exhibit difficulty processing sensory information including: touch, taste, smell, vision, and hearing. As many as 5% of the school age population exhibit characteristics of sensory processing disorder (SPD), sometimes known as sensory integration disorder.

Further, many children with autism, ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), learning disabilities have SPD coexisting or underlying these conditions. Research has shown that as many as 40% of children with ADHD display symptoms of SPD.

If you are a parent of a child with special needs, perhaps you are struggling with the added stresses this can have on the family.

• Your family relationships may be affected.
• Siblings may be envious of the extra attention provided to the child with special needs.
• Mothers may feel that fathers are not involved.
• Fathers may feel unfairly blamed, when in their opinion, they are struggling to support the family.
• Extended relatives, while intending to provide support, may instead offer conflicting advice, or just not understand the needs of the child and the family.
• An already tight family budget may be stretched even greater to cover the added expenses associated with providing the best possible care for the child with special needs, and the family as a whole.

Only by sharing information and working together can we have adequate recognition and support for those impacted by SPD. Search the internet. Resources exist on the internet through non-proft foundations, and parent connections groups. It is my hope that all children grow up with the courage and wisdom to share their natural talents for the betterment of the world,

…express understanding and respect for humanity

…appreciate and extend the work done by previous generations of people.

Christopher R. Auer, MA is the author of Parenting a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder: A Family Guide to Understanding and Supporting Your Sensory Sensitive Child (New Harbinger, 2006) Additional information at http://www.spdresources.com or email spdresources@comcast.net

And you thought your family and children were so safe inside the home environment cozily protected from potent health hazards! But did you know that the source of asthma, lead poisoning, and many such types of chronic health conditions could lie within your home environs?

According to recent survey it has been revealed that your family especially the kids are threatened with major health risks if the design/architecture, built and maintenance of your home is improper.

So while planning out a new home or a home remodeling/renovation make sure that your home planner or design architect makes use of healthier home building techniques and technology. This shall ensure that your family and kids residing in such healthy homes are much more healthier and safer!

You might incur higher expenses while constructing a healthy and environmental friendly home as compared to normal homes. But the health and life of your children and family is supposed to be of utmost importance above anything else!

So while you are busy with your home plans or home renovation ideas spare a thought on the following points to build a healthier and safer home.

<+>Budget your home plans keeping in mind that you have to use non-toxic or less toxic building materials that are a bit more expensive than general building materials.

General building and construction materials (particularly glues, paints, varnishes, insulators, etc.) are usually loaded with toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as urea, formaldehyde, lead, asbestos, carbon monoxide, etc. derived from petroleum. If inhaled continuously these toxins accumulate in the body leading to serious health problems.

<+> While constructing cabinets and countertops or for sheathing, sub-flooring and roof decking the ideal choice is solid wood but if it is too expensive go in for exterior grade plywood only instead of particleboard/fiberboard that contains toxic glue mixed with wood chips.

<+> Avoid vinyl and wall-to-wall carpet flooring. Vinyl floors contain poly vinyl chloride (PVC) a harmful chemical while fully carpeted floors accumulates dust, dust mites, molds, etc. all of which are potent causative agents of allergy, asthma and other chronic respiratory problems. Instead use healthier floor alternatives as cork, solid wood, marmoleum, tiles, bamboo, and so on.

<+> Always make use of strictly low-odor and non-toxic paints containing highly reduced amounts of VOCs such as paints comprising of just clay and pigments. Paints are usually loaded with high quantities of lead. Avoid using such paints completely.

<+> Avoid using resins and glues that contain formaldehyde especially urea formaldehyde.

<+> To build the foundation, walls and roof panels of a healthy home make use of thick, natural, hygroscopic and breathable plasters and stuccoes such as clay-treated wood chip placed over sand and fine gravel instead of using foam boards or poly vapor barriers. This renders efficient indoor humidity control thus preventing the formation of molds. In this way you can also avoid the accumulation of harmful radon gas inside your home.

<+> Avoid building bedrooms/living rooms over the garage space of your house. Toxic gasoline fumes can outgas from the fuel tank of your car and infiltrate into the bedrooms.

<+> Install carbon monoxide testers/detectors especially near furnaces, fireplaces, and garage areas of your home. Radon testers must be essentially placed in the basement areas of your home as this harmful radioactive gas occurring in soil can seep into your home through the foundation.

<+> For construction of a healthy home only hire registered professional home planners and home builders/contractors who have the required knowledge of building and planning healthier homes based on strict building guidelines.

Article by: Regal Services Editorial. Regal Services offers Best Cad Conversion Services. For your Paper to Cad Conversion services, trust Regal for an error-free and affordable service.

Approximately five percent of the school age population has a disorder known as Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Some of the more typical behaviors to look for include:

• Responds to being touched with aggression or withdrawal (hates to be kissed or hugged unless they initiate it)
• Irritated by tags, seams or other variations in clothing
• Socks must be on in a certain way; often hates to wear shoes
• “Picky” eater; may get stuck on certain foods and/or avoid others
• Over or under sensitive to smells (may sniff people, objects and/or food)
• Uncomfortable in loud or busy environments (malls, sporting events,ect.); often may cover ears with hands; Or may seek out loud sounds (turn up the volume on radio or television)
• Has significant difficulty with transitions and/or resists new situations
• Displays problems with muscle tone, coordination, motor planning (figuring out how to make your body do what you want it to)
• High or low tolerance for pain· Poor fine motor (small muscle movements- like handwriting, buttoning) and/or gross motor skills (i.e. jumping, skipping, throwing a ball)
• Avoids schoolwork and/or group activities· Controlling behaviors especially around certain stimuli
• Often hates variations in temperature or texture; hates taking a bath; washing and combing hair may seem “painful”; often refuses to wear a coat when it is cold outside or overdresses when it is warm outside

Often a child with SPD is seen as having significant behavior problems, low self-esteem, trouble concentrating, trouble making friends, having frequent tantrums, and./or having learning problems. Frequently these same children are labeled as being “aggressive”, “withdrawn”, “clumsy/awkward” or another negative label when SPD is not correctly diagnosed; and often symptoms of SPD overlap with symptoms of other diagnoses such as ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, and fragile X.

Other behaviors might include impulsivity, decreased attention, increased distractibility, hypotonia, anxiety and/or depressive symptoms, high and/or low activity levels, low self esteem, selective hearing or a hard time listening, uncoordinated, ect… SPD is usually professionally identified with a thorough assessment and treated by certified Occupational Therapists (OT).

OT helps children with SPD develop the ability to understand how their body perceives different sensations so that they can better organize their sensory systems to be receptive to these stimuli and allow for new skills to be learned more easily. OT is conducted in a sensory rich environment (including opportunities for swinging, spinning, oral-motor activities, tactile activities, visual and auditory activities). The goal of OT for a child with SPD is to help that child manage their responses to sensations in order to behave in a more appropriate and functional manner and to enable him/her to better participate in “normal” activities of childhood and daily life.

Parents should be encouraged to participate in their child’s OT plan of treatment by communicating with their child’s Occupational Therapist often regarding their family’s priorities for treatment and what they can do at home and at school to help their child become more “regulated” and coordinated, as well as ways to advocate for their child’s unique needs.

Christopher R. Auer, MA is the author of Parenting a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder: A Family Guide to Understanding and Supporting Your Sensory Sensitive Child (New Harbinger, 2006) Additional information at http://www.spdresources.com or email spdresources@comcast.net