Successes and Celebrations
Happy New Year Kids Uncomplicated Families! As always, we want to start this newsletter off with some celebrations!
We’d like to celebrate a young boy and his family. This boy and his parents have been working so hard on his speech. He is producing so many more sounds and words and doesn’t give up even when things are difficult. He is getting more confident and is wanting to talk to other people. Way to go!
One KU mom has been providing verbal warnings before bed (e.g. “5 minutes, then bedtime”). Now her little girl has started using these warnings herself! When her mom is exercising, she will tell her “5 more minutes, then mommy is done”. Such a rewarding and fun success!
Meet our Team: Marli
As promised, we are now featuring Kids Uncomplicated staff members in our newsletters so you can get to know our team a little better.
Meet Marli, one of the incredible members of our speech and language team. One of the core values at The Uncomplicated Family is “Connect” which happens to be one of the parts of her work that Marli values the most. Marli says that she “loves being able to connect with all of our great families, not only to work on strategies, but to also to simply connect and talk about how they are doing in general”. For fun, Marli enjoys reading and sketching. Like many members of our KU team, she is also an animal lover. She loves to cuddle with her cat, Poe and catch up on the latest Netflix release.
Open and Closed-Ended Activities
Today we’ve attached a handout that provides examples of open and closed ended activities. Closed-ended activities are activities with a clear beginning and end point. An example of a closed-ended activity is a puzzle: the activity is complete when all the pieces are in the correct spot! Conversely, an open-ended activity does not have a clear set of rules and a clear end point. The child is free to play and explore the activity. Both types of activities have many advantages for learning and development. For example, closed-ended activities can support attention to a task and help provide structure for children to help occupy their time. Open-ended activities can be great for promoting creativity, curiosity and more. The tip sheet attached contains more information about these activities and some examples of activities you can try at home. Have questions about which activities would be most appropriate for your child? Your KU team is here to help!
Until next time,
The Kids Uncomplicated Team