Friday, August 3, 2012

Preschool Prep for Social Skills | metromoms.net

by Meghan Campbell, OTR/L

Parents often look forward to the time when their children are old enough for preschool. What a great opportunity it is when your child reaches that magical stage of maturity when they get to go off and play and learn with others. That free time often translates into a welcome timeout for busy moms and dads, too. So the entire family should be excited, right?

Unfortunately, just because a child is age-ready to start preschool doesn?t always mean the child is socially ready too.

According to Martha D. Austin, pediatric occupational therapist and owner of WeeCare Occupational Therapy in Hoboken, New Jersey, there are three groups of children that often have difficulty with social skills in the school environment.
? those who have sensory processing challenges (diagnosed and undiagnosed)
? those who are young for their grade compared to their peers
? those who have had a lack of exposure to interaction with other children prior to beginning preschool

Challenges for little ones can include, but are not limited to:
? separating from caregivers
? sharing with peers
? respecting others? personal space
? playing together with friends
? communicating (verbally and non-verbally) effectively

With a little ?practice? young children?s social interaction challenges can be overcome.

Parents, caregivers, teachers and therapists can implement simple strategies and terminology to help develop and shape social skills through age-appropriate games and activities at home and in school.

Here are some opportunities using an adult-led craft activity where many social lessons can be learned if the activity is set up and prepared for ahead of time.

1 ? Set-up physically to encourage children to learn the difference between ?shared? space and ?personal? space. Craft supplies (paper, glue, scissors, etc) can be positioned in the middle of the craft circle. Individuals can work on their craft in their own space inside a hoola-hoop or another structured visual boundary like colored duct tape.

2 ? Each child can be assigned as ?captain? of a craft supply. This teaches the importance of being a leader and having responsibility.

3- Incorporate verbal communication into the activity. When a child needs a supply, he or she needs to ask that supply captain for it while exhibiting good manners using ?please? and ?thank you.?

4 ? Encourage eye contact. Some children have difficulty making eye contact (a non-verbal communication skill) with others, especially an adult. For those kids, it helps to tell them to look at a person?s nose. It?s not quite as intimidating and encourages looking at someone?s face when talking with or listening to others.

5 ? Avoid saying, ?look at me,? but rather touch your nose when asking them a question. That gets them to look at you without having to remind them that they are not making eye contact.

Incorporated into everyday activities to facilitate appropriate social skills, these lessons not only translate to preschool performance, but generalize to many other settings such as play dates in your home, Saturdays at the park and family gatherings throughout the year.

A flood of outreach to the occupational therapy community has followed parents? and teachers? heightened awareness of the potential social interaction struggles of young children.

To assist parents and caregivers, WeeCare Occupational Therapy in Hoboken has developed a curriculum of summer groups, including social skills groups that provide an intensive, yet fun way for children and parents to learn these skills together.

More information about these groups and other workshops can be found at http://www.weecareot.com/summer2012

Weekly discussions and tips can be found on Facebook at http://facebook.com/weecareot


WeeCare Occupational Therapy provides child-centered and individualized comprehensive therapy services, combining basic techniques with the latest advances in therapy. They are located in The Monroe Center at 720 Monroe Street, Studio C408, Hoboken, NJ. Free parking available.

Tags: education


Source: http://metromoms.net/2012/08/03/preschool-prep-for-social-skills/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=preschool-prep-for-social-skills

breaking bad breaking bad food network star jeremy lin WWE Sage Stallone Michael Clarke Duncan

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Home Improvement and Gardening Suppliers in United States: Market

SynopsisCanadeans, ?Home Improvement and Gardening Suppliers in United States: Market Snapshot to 2016? contains detailed historic and forecast retail sales value of Home Improvement and Gardening Suppliers in United States.The report provides an opinion to help companies in the retail industry better understand the changes in their environment, seize opportunities and formulate crucial business strategies.SummaryThis report is the result of Canadeans extensive market research covering the Home Improvement and Gardening Suppliers in United States. It provides detailed historic and forecast sales value of the market at channel level. ?Home Improvement and Gardening Suppliers in United States: Market Snapshot to 2016? provides a top-level overview and detailed insight into the operating environment of the retail industry in United States. It is an essential tool for companies active across United States retail value chain and for new players considering entering the market.Scope Overview of the Home Improvement and Gardening Suppliers in United States. Historic and forecast sales value for the Home Improvement and Gardening Suppliers for the period 2006 through to 2016. Sales comparison for all the channels active across United States Specialist Retailers market for the period 2006 through to 2016.Reasons To Buy Gives you sales figures for Home Improvement and Gardening Suppliers in United States. Allows you to analyze market, as the report offers detailed historic and forecast retail sales value, with a comparison of other retail sales channels active across Specialist Retailers. Enhance your knowledge of the market with key figures on sales value for the historic period. Allows you to plan future business decisions using the reports forecast figures for the market.

Original Post Home Improvement and Gardening Suppliers in United States: Market Snapshot to 2016 source Researchmoz Market Research
United States Reports

Source: http://www.healthcarestoreonline.com/wiki/home-improvement-and-gardening-suppliers-in-united-states-market-snapshot-to-2016

brandon jacobs brian dawkins emma roberts north korea news north korea news giuliana and bill giuliana and bill

86% Beasts of the Southern Wild

Just astonishing. A sympathetic look at what-to-me is a harsh reality: growing up dirt poor but seemingly having everything--enough to eat, enough love, enough fun, enough education. My god, Hush Puppy, the protagonist, even had her own house! But when you're living literally in the dirt, when nature shifts course your reality necessarily shifts with it. In this case, Hush Puppy's life is drowned. Wonderfully told tale from a child's POV. I liked it when the father told the doctor not to talk about his fatal illness in front of Hush Puppy. I like it that things weren't explained. That's exactly what childhood is like, living in the adult's shadow world. I loved the sensuality of the Bayou: buckets of crawfish and crabs dumped on the table and people cracking them open with their bare hands--no fancy crackers for them, thank you--the little girls dancing with the prostitutes, and truely, when the rescuers came and told them they had to leave their drowned houses and go to shelters, my middle-class eyes totally saw how a shelter would seem like an unreal sterile prison, not the salvation that the rescuers imagined it to be. The image of Quvenzhan? Wallis--who is mesmerizing as Hush Puppy--in her little blue pickaninny shelter dress said it all--her world was real and this rescued world is a weird construct.

August 1, 2012

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beasts_of_the_southern_wild/

how to cook a turkey yorkshire pudding larry the cable guy miracle on 34th street santa tracker monkey bread letter from santa

How consumer-electronics makers are faring

Makers and sellers of consumer-electronics devices have begun releasing their earnings reports for the latest quarter. Here's a look at selected companies that report unit sales on phones, tablet computers and other devices. Some companies including Samsung Electronics Co. do not release data on unit sales.

? July 19: Microsoft Corp. says it shipped 1.1 million Xbox 360 consoles during the April-June period, down from 1.7 million a year earlier.

Nokia Corp. says sales of smartphones dropped 39 percent from a year ago to 10.2 million in the second quarter. The company blamed "strong momentum" of competing smartphones. All regions showed a decline except North America, where sales of the new Windows-based Lumia line offset declines in traditional Symbian devices. Sales of all cellphones fell 5 percent to 83.7 million.

? July 24: Apple Inc. says it sold 26 million iPhones, 28 percent more than a year ago. It also sold 17 million iPads, an 84 percent increase. But average selling prices for both products were down. Apple sold 4 million Macs, a 2 percent increase, and 6.8 million iPods, a 10 percent decline.

TomTom says it sold 1.7 million personal-navigation devices in North America, down from 2.1 million a year ago. In Europe, it sold 2.4 million, down from 2.8 million. TomTom says market share was relatively flat at 45 percent in Europe, but down to 19 percent from 23 percent in North America because of a GPS chip product issue.

AT&T Inc. says it activated 5.1 million smartphones in its latest quarter, down from 5.5 million in the same period a year ago. Much of the decline came because AT&T subscribers are holding on to their phones longer.

? July 25: Nintendo Co. says it sold 710,000 Wii units in the April-June quarter, down from 1.56 million a year ago. Nintendo is coming out with a successor, the Wii U, this year. It is forecasting 10.5 million units for the full fiscal year, which ends in March 2013. The company, meanwhile, sold 540,000 DS units, down from 1.44 million a year ago, and it sold 1.86 million 3DS units, up from 710,000 a year ago.

? Wednesday: Garmin Ltd. says it sold 3.9 million GPS navigation and other devices in the second quarter, up 4 percent from a year earlier.

Coming up:

? Thursday: Sony Corp.

? Aug. 22: Hewlett-Packard Co.

? Sept. 27: Research In Motion Ltd.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/consumer-electronics-makers-faring-230649861.html

kings island red hot chili peppers tour orange juice photos doomsday clock nate robinson sharia law

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

How livable is the Red Planet? NASA's Curiosity Mars rover seeks to find out. (+video)

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet on Saturday night, will look for water molecules, measure radiation levels, and seek other signs of habitability.

By Nola Taylor Redd,?SPACE.com / July 31, 2012

This illustration depicts the moment immediately after the Curiosity Mars rover touches down on the Red Planet.

NASA

Enlarge

Mars, our next-door neighbor in the solar system, hasn't given up many of its secrets yet. But when NASA's newest Mars rover, Curiosity, lands on the Red Planet next week, scientists hope to unlock a few more.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // --> This 11-minute animation depicts key events of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, which will launch in late 2011 and land a rover, Curiosity, on Mars in August 2012.

The centerpiece of the?Mars Science Laboratory mission, the Curiosity rover comes packed with a slew of instruments to study not only today's Martian surface, but also the surface of the past.

The overarching strategy of NASA's Mars Exploration Program has long been to follow the water, and Curiosity is no exception. Following up on clues provided by previous missions, the newest rover will seek answers to questions about climate, geology, human exploration, and of course, whether or not the Red Planet could have once hosted life.

Where might Martian life make its home?

Curiosity?won't be searching for life directly. Project scientist John Grotzinger pointed out that such a search would require more sophisticated scientific equipment than even the advanced rover carries, if not a full-scale sample return mission. Instead, Curiosity will be searching for places where life could have evolved. [11 Amazing Things NASA's Huge Mars Rover Can Do]

"Curiosity is not a life mission," Grotzinger told SPACE.com. "What we are doing in this mission is exploring for habitable environments."

Because water is considered essential for the development of the only life known to exist ? life on Earth ? scientists are focusing on?wet areas, past and present.

A potentially habitable environment would also contain chemical and mineralogical signatures suggesting the presence of an energy source that microorganisms could have used at some point. It might also boast signs of organic carbon, thought to be one of the building blocks of life.

The previous rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, were equipped to search for only water in the environments they explored. Grotzinger compared them to robotic geologists.

"Curiosity is both a robotic geologist and a robotic geochemist," able to look for more than just water, he said.

Of course, even if Curiosity finds ample environments where life?could?have flourished, that doesn't necessarily mean that it?did.

"It's entirely possible to find a habitable environment that was never inhabited, because life never originated," Grotzinger said.

Either way, the rover can help pinpoint some of the best Martian environments to search for life on future missions, perhaps making them less hit-and-miss.

What made a wet Mars dry?

In its distant past, a warmer Mars likely sported a thicker, wetter atmosphere, with water running across its surface. Today, the planet is dry and dusty, with most of its water thought to be trapped beneath the surface.

Curiosity will land at the base of Mount Sharp, which rises 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the center of the Gale Crater. Named for planetary geologist Robert Sharp, the mountain has layers that will be open to exploration by the rover.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/XkJuxXC1r_I/How-livable-is-the-Red-Planet-NASA-s-Curiosity-Mars-rover-seeks-to-find-out.-video

ll cool j deadmau5 phoebe snow jennifer hudson tribute to whitney houston nicki minaj grammy jason whitlock beach boys

Venezuela diplomat in Kenya to be held for six days

A Kenyan court ruled Tuesday that a senior Venezuelan diplomat is to be held by police for six more days to allow further investigations into the death by strangulation of the acting ambassador.

"The court rules that the respondent be detained at Gigiri police station (in Nairobi) for a period of six days," said judge Florence Muchemi.

The prosecution had on Monday requested the court to grant it permission to hold Dwight Sagaray, first secretary at the embassy of Venezuela, for 14 days.

"The 14-day period will be unnecessarily too long, and the security of the defendant may be at risk," Muchemi ruled.

Sagaray was arrested Saturday by police investigating the death of Olga Fonseca Gimenez, 57, the Venezuelan charge d'affaires and acting ambassador, found strangled in her Nairobi home on Friday.

In her ruling the judge said the 24-hour period for which police are allowed to hold a suspect without charging him was insufficient for thorough investigations into the case.

"The investigating officers could not have done much within the time stipulated in law," she said, adding that if Sagaray was released he would "definitely influence junior personnel".

As a diplomat, Sagaray should be eligible for diplomatic immunity, but this was waived before his arrest, Kenyan officials have said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-diplomat-kenya-held-six-days-144916614.html

space ball jim mora the weeknd echoes of silence gio gonzalez san francisco fire patti labelle the weeknd

(workathometopics.com) Welcome to Work at Home Topics. Free ...

July 31st, 2012 aprylfoxe04 Posted in Home Based Businesses | Comments Off

Expertise and information would be the keys to creating a success out of any home-based business endeavor. In case you are along the way of start or happen to be working on a house business, read every one of the following tips which were created to assist you to at your residence business quest.

Share your skills! You started a house organization because you feel comfortable ample with a service or product setting out all on your own. A wonderful way to enhance your company on the market would be to share your knowledge with others. Create your blog, offer you free of charge advice as well as give face-to-experience demonstrations close to your community. Function as the specialist and buyers will come.

Get yourself a skilled site. The website name must correspond with the name of your own company. Pick an expert website-hosting organization. When you purchase a ?environmentally friendly? 1, you may place a ?natural? emblem on your site announcing your site?s eco-warm and friendly reputation. also, your company cards and collateral needs to be as effective as what a large firm would use.

It is wise to participate the expertise of a professional accountant very early in your home business occupation. even the most basic home-based business manager is within an a lot more intricate taxation situation than a salaried personnel. An income tax specialist can make certain you avoid any stumbling blocks expecting you in home organization management, and make sure you meet all of your current tax commitments.

Join home business conversation teams and forums on the web. not only is it the best way to system with like-minded pros, but it is an alternate way to get the brand and item out there to other people. You will never know in which a make contact with will take you or what sales could are caused by a connection that you simply make.

Maintain very careful documents of how many miles you set in your automobile! The IRS allows a substantial credit to offset the a long way that had been driven for the organization but you must be in a position to prove those a long way had been, the truth is, enterprise mls. Keep a sign reserve in your vehicle and use it to document the details of your driving a vehicle.

While you might have significant expertise on the planet of entrepreneurship, you ought never to presume you could ?shortcut? your path to success in your new project. definitely, your encounter in real life will remain you in excellent stead with regards to advertising, buyer relations and so on, however you should start with the clear page of papers whenever.

When establishing your property place of work, make sure you don?t have wire connections randomly noticeable through the entire space. getting cables strewn all over the offic not only makes it tough to handle your units, it is also a security risk. there are many goods available which can be used to maintain your cords neat and tidy.

Set these details to good utilization in constructing your home business and you are sure to benefit from everything. Stick to every one of the tips as designed and gain monetarily, now and in the future. Incorporate many of these suggestions to your company strategy and you may see fantastic things occur.

Buying cheap wholesale nike jerseys from official Wholesale Jerseys Store now with Easy-to-take Delivery service, Safe Payment & Outstanding Customer Support.

(workathometopics.com) Welcome to Work at Home Topics. Free advise on work at home jobs. ? Blog Archive ? Utilize These Pointers To Your House Business Strategy

Source: http://mynetworkmarketingadventure.com/workathometopics-com-welcome-to-work-at-home-topics-free-advise-on-work-at-home-jobs-blog-archive-utilize-these-pointers-to-your-house-business-strategy/

bernie fine matt leinart cyber monday 2011 cyber monday 2011 turkey pot pie turkey pot pie southern university