Growing an In-Sync Child

Growing an In-Sync Child by Carol Kranowitz and Joye Newman is a wonderful book that provides readers with simple and effective activities that can be used to help pre-school children’s motor development. The book is broken down into three parts: the importance of being in-sync, getting started with the in-sync program, and the in-sync activities. The first section gives you some background information about sensory integration and how it is important for your child to be in-sync. The second section introduces you to the program and how it works. The third section is where the activities are which seems to have the most important information. This section is broken down into subsections so that it is easy to find activities based on the skills of your child. Each activity page includes a description of the skills that the exercise develops and the materials that are needed. There are lots of activities that are simple and quick along with activities that are more complex. This makes it easy to fit these into your daily schedule and routine.

I do not have children of my own but if I did, I would be using the activities in this book. They are fun, interesting and can be worked into your daily routine very easily. Shape Rain is one of the activities that I really liked out of the book. In this activity you need to have 40-50 different shapes cut from different colors of construction paper. This does require more preparation but once you have them cut out you can reuse them. Also, it may be fun to let your child help you cut them out and you can make it into a fun project. What you do is toss the shapes in the air and put on some music. Tell your child that when the music stops then she can put her elbow on a yellow circle or her nose on a blue square. You can change it up and have her try some silly things to do. If you child has difficulty with shapes or colors you could tell them just to find a circle or just a blue shape. This activity is really flexible and is pretty simple to do. Also, as you clean up you could have your child pick up certain colors and shapes at one time. Be creative with these exercises. Don’t be afraid to try something new with these or change it to better fit your child.

I feel that this book is better used as a resource rather than a book that is to be read. It gives a lot of activities to help development but it lacks the completeness of information about these skills. I feel that Carol Kranowitz’s other book, The Out of Sync Child, is more helpful as an informational resource. If someone is looking for ideas on how to get their child moving and using their skills then this is a wonderful book to get.