| Since you are your child’s first and most important teacher, you might
be wondering about the kinds of activities you could be doing at home to help
your child get off to a great start in kindergarten. These suggestions and
ideas are intended to be used in a relaxed matter to help your child practice
skills and further develop concepts previously presented at school. Take
your time exploring these activities and make them fun and engaging. Happy
learning!
Language is speaking, listening, reading, writing and thinking.
Encouraging any one of these will assist in the development of all areas.
Make reading daily with your child a homework habit this year. Reading
together daily is a time-tested and research-based method of helping young
learners develop early reading skills and a love of reading. Read for
pleasure, read to your child, read with your child, and let your child “read”
to you. Don’t take a vacation from reading!
To build pre-reading skills, encourage your child to listen for letter
sounds and find letters in words. Use books as tools to give your young
reader success with learning how to find meaning from printed materials and
to develop comprehension skills.
When reading with your child discuss the pictures, print and plot. Run
your finger along under the words as you read. Encourage your child to read
the words he/she knows. Have your child make predictions and ask questions
such as, “What do you think will happen next?” and “Why do you think he did
that?”
READING AND WRITING READINESS
*Recite the ABC’s using a chart and a pointer. Have your child point to the
letters as they say them. Eventually, have them add the letter sounds after
saying the letter name. When possible relate letters to classmates and
family member’s names. Example: Letter Name-A, Letter Sound-A, A for Allison
*Have ABC puzzles available for them. Have them say the alphabet while
pointing to the letters on the puzzle.
*Make letters out of Play-Doh.
*Have your child write letters in shaving cream. Use the large seafood trays
to put shaving cream in. The trays are also great for Play-Doh.
*Paint letters on the cement with water.
*Put magnetic letters on the fridge.
*Make letter cards (two of each letter) out of paper and play matching
games. Choose several pairs of matching letters and spread them out face
down. As your child turns over each letter, they must name them. If they
match, they keep the pair, if not, they are turned back over. Increase the
level of difficulty by matching upper and lowercase letters and have your
child say the letter sounds.
*Recite nursery rhymes, sing rhyming songs and read rhyming books.
*Play rhyming games whenever possible. Tell your child that you are thinking
of a word that rhymes with cat and begins with the letter “b.”
*Read the labels on household objects with your child, casually pointing out
the letters and sounds they make. Example: Doritos, Fruit Loops
*Locate print in the environment. Example: stop signs, familiar store and
restaurant signs, such as McDonald’s, pointing out the letters and sounds
they make.
*Encourage your child to experiment with print in writing.
*Help your child write their name correctly. First letters capitalized and
the rest in lowercase letters.
*Have a word of the day and post in on the fridge.
*Make a password and post it on different doors of the house or in the car,
etc. and have your child read the word to you before entering.
*Play “Hangman” using words from the word lists or sight words.
*Find words in magazines and newspapers. Highlight them or cut them out and
make collages out of them.
*Leave short notes of instruction or praise for your child, using words
familiar to them.
*Put a wipe-off message board on your child’s door and write messages to each
other.
*Encourage your child to write lists (Grocery, Christmas), letters and
stories.
*Have writing materials available to them when playing at all times.
Example: When playing kitchen, provide menus and little notepads to play
restaurant, and when playing with blocks/Legos provide paper so they can make
signs, etc.
*Use a chart with words and pictures to indicate your child’s bedtime,
household chores, accomplishments, etc.
*Encourage your child to consider themselves a reader and a writer! Praise
your child’s reading when they recognize familiar words and names. Praise
and accept their attempts at spelling.
MATH READINESS
*Whenever you use math, talk about it.
*Count whenever you can, anything you can!
*Read nursery rhymes and storybooks that incorporate numbers.
*Practice one-to-one correspondence by letting your child set the table or
hand out snacks.
*Play games that incorporate math such as “Chutes and Ladders” and other
board games.
*Point out shapes around the house and when doing errands.
*Have your child sort their toys by color, shape and size.
*Sort household items into many types of groups with your child. For ex.
Sort all the laundry and have your child tell how the clothes in each pile
are alike.
*Encourage your child to see patterns and sets in everyday living.
*Playing cards are also great for matching games and ordering numbers.
*Discuss the quantity and amount of household items you use. Point out or
ask your child to find numbers that indicate quantity on packages.
*Count various things around the house. Count shirts by ones, count shoes by
twos, count other objects by tens and fives.
*Encourage the use of the following concepts: more and less, younger and
older, larger and smaller, longer and shorter, and any other terms when
making comparisons.
*Practice the concept of left and right. When riding in the car you can
say, “McDonald’s is on the left” or when setting the table you can say, “Put
the spoon on the right side of your plate.”
*Whenever you check your child’s height to see how much they have grown, talk
about measurement.
*Let your child help with the measuring when cooking or baking.
*Talk about simple fractions whenever possible. Example: I have a whole
apple, I am cutting the apple in half.
*Set the timer for an activity to give your child a sense of how long it
lasts.
*Practice telling time with your child to the hour.
*Have you child do basic addition around the house. Example: "We have 3
green towels and 2 blue towels, how many do we have all together?"
*Give your child a snack that’s easy to count. Have them count the pieces
and subtract them as they are eaten.
*Sort a handful of change and have your child discuss how they are alike, the
same, and different.
*Choose a “coin of the day” and talk about what is shown on both sides.
*Start a penny jar. Use this for counting and estimating. Example: "We have
ten pennies in the jar, is that enough to buy a piece of candy that costs
five cents?"
*Put a large wipe-off calendar on the refrigerator and mark down special
events. Count down the days to each of these occasions. Recite the days of
the week and stop when you get to the day you are on.
*Make a 100 chart and practice counting out loud.
*Find out what your child is studying in school. Help them relate this
subject to their own or family experiences.
FINE MOTOR SKILLS
Fine motor skills can be defined as small muscle movements: those that
occur in the finger in coordination with the eye. These skills allow
delicate and finer manipulation of objects. Fine motor development takes
place after most of the gross motor skills are mastered. Fine motor skills
won’t develop over night, but with time and practice. Here are some
suggestions and activities for developing fine motor skills.
A child can be encouraged to insert their favorite CD into the computer
CD drive. The mouse and keyboard will also help improve hand and eye
coordination. Upright working surfaces promote fine motor skills. Examples
of these are: vertical chalkboards, easels for painting, lite brite, etc.
*Puzzles
*Coloring
*Cutting
*Gluing
*Stencils
*Tracing
*Any type of lacing
*Self-Care Skills: Buttoning, Fastening Snaps, Zipping and Tying
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