BOOST YOUR CHILD’S COGNITIVE SKILLS WITH ORIGAMI
If you are looking for a family activity requiring minimal supplies and effort, origami should be next on your to-do list! Origami might seem too challenging or even not stimulating enough for children, but there are plenty of accessible and delightful shapes to keep your kids endlessly entertained. Plus, they will not be able to stop themselves from filling your home with paper swans, dragons, and more! Not only is origami a simple activity that just requires paper, but it also offers a variety of benefits to children and adults alike. Discover how origami can boost your family’s brains and the perfect way to start folding! Practice patience and mindfulness. No running, jumping, or yelling involved. Children can partake in a soothing activity requiring their undivided attention when practicing origami. Origami is even considered a form of focused attention meditation, which involves concentrating on a single object to induce a relaxing state. Calmly focusing on folding a piece of paper into a unique shape requires you to be present in the moment and can be a fantastic way to introduce mindfulness to your family. Improve hand-eye coordination. Origami also helps younger children better understand spatial concepts such as measurements, shapes, and directions. Studies show that origami helps children improve their dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and spatial reasoning skills.
Encourage a mathematic mindset. The shapes and measuring involved in origami are also an incredible way to implement geometric concepts, terms, and formulas. For older kids, you can make origami a geometry lesson! Use different geometric formulas and apply them to various paper shapes. This will help students better visualize and understand these mathematical concepts. Get started. There are endless resources online or at your local library to create age- appropriate origami activities. While you can purchase special origami paper, you can also use standard paper and scissors to cut sheets into the proper size. Fill your table with a rainbow assortment of colored papers and let your kids pick the origami shape of their choice. Before you know it, origami rabbits and birds will be lining your shelves!
We Are Ringing Our Bells Once Again! Let Us Uplift Our Community Together This Christmas
While the sun is still simmering here in Arizona, no one can help themselves from getting into the Christmas spirit! Amid the sunshine, we are still listening to Christmas carols, decorating our Christmas tree, and lighting our favorite holiday candles. Of course, another seasonal tradition in which we always participate is ringing our bells to help raise money for The Salvation Army. You will find us ringing the bell from the Wednesday after Thanksgiving to the Wednesday right before Christmas! We have been volunteering for The Salvation Army for years now, and you may have read about the history of The Salvation Army’s red kettle some newsletters ago. We have long supported The Salvation Army because instead of money going all over the country to unknown places, all the donations are used to support our local community. For the holiday season, the dollars and change that go into the red kettle bring toys, food, and
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Dennis & Lisa Jones
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