Favorite Product: Crayons

Who doesn't love a box of crayons? I've seen people old and young alike sit down and instantly start coloring. They are one of the most basic items because they are great - you can nurture creativity and work on fine motor skills while having fun.

Here are some ways to use crayons to help encourage your preemie's development:

1) Start early - as soon as your preemie can hold an object, give him/her a crayon. Place a piece of paper in front of your preemie and help him/her make a mark on the page. Any effort should be praised. In the beginning your preemie will probably just make light, random marks or dots. And that' great!

2) Drawing lines - once your preemie can hold the crayon somewhat effectively, encourage him/her to draw a line across the page. And then down or up. It helps to draw dotted lines to follow or at least show a start and stop point.

3) Learning colors - since crayons come in pretty much every color, they are a great way to help your preemie learn colors. You can ask for crayons of a certain color or request that he/she colors with a certain color. Older preemies can practice putting colors in order from lightest to darkest.

4) Scribbles are important! Don't worry if your preemie has absolutely no concept of how to color an object. That will come with time. Praise all efforts at coloring across an area. Make it fun!

Happy coloring!

Learning Colors Activity: Color Jump

We have been working on naming and correctly identifying colors in our house lately so I thought I would share some of the activities that we have come up. This seems to be an area that my daughter is having trouble with so we are trying a lot of different games and projects to keep her interested and learning.

This first activity is called the color jump (she is really into jumping). For those who are less mobile (or less obsessed with jumping), this activity can be touch the color, stand or sit on the color, etc. Anything that will work for your little one.

Here is a picture of the "game board." Please excuse the fast tape work on the ground. My little one saw what I was doing and quickly came over to "help" so I had to be fast.

I started with five colors however you could start with more or less depending on your child's level.

1. First I showed my daughter each square and told her what color it was. Than I had her stand to one side. As I called out a color I told her to go and jump on that color.
2. I started with yellow since she knows that color best. She was very happy to go over and jump on the square.
3. While playing I would first wait to see if she went to the right color and then help her if she needed it.
4. We've played several times and it keeps her interest longer than looking at a color book or sorting bears.

Imitating Movements

One of first ways that children learn how to speak and communicate is to copy or imitate movements that they see.

By helping and encouraging your preemie to imitate movements, your can improve eye contact, interaction and communication. Find various times throughout the day to encourage your preemie to imitate various movements. Start by doing the movement yourself a few times and then encourage him/her to do the same movement. Make sure you praise any attempt at imitation.

Here are some activities and movements to get you and your preemie started:

• Clapping
• Waving
• Blowing a kiss
• Brushing hair
• Knocking down blocks
• Stirring with a spoon
• Brushing teeth
• Blowing bubbles
• Pushing a car
• Banging blocks or other objects together
• Pushing buttons
• Throwing a ball
• Putting a hat on

Encouraging Imaginative Play

Teaching your preemie how to use his/her imagination can be one of the most frustrating and fun things to do. Imagination doesn't come easily at first. My daughter in particular is a very linear thinker - if something does a specific thing than she will do it. Getting her to interact with a toy without any rules or prompts is much more difficult. So we start slow and continue to work on it. Here is a look at one of her new favorite games along with specific examples how we use it to encourage imaginative play as well as speech and fine motor skills.

Here is a picture of our pretend zoo:

As you can see, we subscribe to an open floor plan. Our animals are free to roam about when they need exercise. We also like to give them plenty of changes to their living areas so we occasionally build tall towers are extra tall wall pieces when necessary.

1) Fine Motor - Using large building blocks is a great way to built a preemie's fine motor and planning skills. Encourage your preemie to put the pieces together however he/she wants. There is no perfect building or zoo cage for that matter.

2) Imagination - Talk about what you think the animals want to do. In the beginning you can help guide the activity. Are the animals thirsty? I give my daughter a mega blocks piece and encourage her to give the animals some water. Do they want to play? Maybe they want to jump. Then my daughter will help each animal jump. Sometimes they jump on the ground and other times they like to jump on the blocks.

3) Speech/Communication - Talk about each of the animals in the zoo. Name them and talk about what sound they make. Work on action words like sleeping, eating, or drinking by having your preemie help the animals do each thing. As he/she makes the animal jump say "look the animal is jumping. He is jumping very high." This will help your preemie make the connection between the word and the action.

Working therapy into every day

I don't know about you but as the parent of two preemies, I have always felt this enormous pressure to constantly be working with my kids on various developmental skills. Both of my kids have been or were in physical and developmental therapy for several years. The amount of things to work on can seem long and never ending. Trying to fit therapy time/skill building into your day can seem impossible but it can be done. Here are some tips to get therapy time into every day.

1) Play time is therapy time - Preemies spend a lot of time playing. Play time is the absolute perfect time to work on various developmental and physical skills. I normally try and work on one particular skill at a time. My daughter is currently working on trying to crawl so as soon as she is on her tummy I pull her into a crawl position and let her work on that for a few minutes before she starts playing with her toys independently. If you are working on teaching your preemie how to "share" objects than sit in front of him/her and start giving him/her toys and then asking for them back. Trying out one skill at a time throughout the day can go a long way towards helping your preemie develop and help you keep your sanity.

2) It's all in the set-up - If your preemie is working on a specific skill, set-up his/her toys to help facilitate that. For example, if your preemie is learning how to look from one side or the other - place his/her toys so that he/she has to look one way to see them. Put toys farther away if you want your preemie to try and reach for toys or move towards them.

3) Set a timer - We all get busy with the demands of life so it can be hard to remember to actively work with our preemie on something. If you need a small reminder than set a timer. When it goes off that is your cue to work with your preemie on something specific.

4) Short periods of time - You don't need to constantly work with your preemie on various skills. Most preemies do better if they only have short amounts of time where they are actively having to work on something. It also helps them remember a skill if they work on it several times in a day rather than a long period of time once a day. Work with your preemie a little and then let him/her play independently.

5) Sibling help - Older siblings can be a great help for teaching your preemie new skills and working with them on certain things. My son is four and a half and he is my daughter's favorite form of entertainment. I have often asked my son to come over and play a game with my daughter so that she stays interested and continues working on a particular skill. He loves to see her try new things as much as I do so he is also a great cheerleader for her.