The Story of Build ME Blocks
Build ME (Motivation and Education) Blocks began as a way to encourage reading in my then four and a half year old first born. Born with a personality with a zest for life, his energy was a challenge to contain most days. As the time was approaching for his start of Kindergarten, not as a means to have William excel in reading, though to give him an opportunity to get used to being in school and give him the opportunity to focus on the new life of school, I taught him to read before entering Kindergarten. The purpose of this was to help him see the familiarity as he began school—so that he could understand the basics of school. We learned to read by using paper balloons made of construction paper that were placed on our walls. We would review sounds, words and reading without pressure (mostly). Some days were hard and fun was not the first thing that would be seen. Though, we accomplished and succeeded. I have had the opportunity to help each of my children begin with the basics of reading before entering the Kindergarten level. Each had a different learning style, to some reading came easier, to others more of a chore. We conquered, had fun (mostly) and pushed through.
Time progressed and interaction between myself, my kids and our family progressed as well, there were times when the focus of motivation was negative and positive did not easily present itself. In his book, The Slight Edge, Jeff Olson shares, Social science says that as a child, you heard the word “no” about 40,000 times by the age of five, before you even start first grade. And how many times had you heard the word “yes”? About 5,000. That’s eight times as many nos as yeses. I was finding this statistic to be true and it was happening in our home, with my family. An Ah-ha moment presented and I knew something had to change, something had to adjust.
Wall of Good things came to be. We, the kids and I, we focused on the good things we did, myself included because let’s face it, I needed it too. We used one of our empty (emptier) walls, I bought some kid looking dry erase wall decals and we began noting our positives. It helped!
Using this method, it worked. Noticing that I needed change and the kids needed change as well, hence began my creativity. I am not artistic by way of art by any means—though I knew different “games” needed to be created to help continue to focus on the positives. Games that could be rotated, though the foundation needed to stick and be consistent. Special Agent Mission for Kids came to be and this is the “game” that we have found that has helped as a family, mom, dad and kids to keep on track.
Thank you for visiting our website! Please stay awhile and if you have any questions and or comments, contact me at [email protected].
