| How Parents Can Help At Home |
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• Let your child use scissors, playdough, modeling clay, crayons, and pencils to strengthen small motor skills that are used for writing.
• Make an alphabet set with lower and upper case letters for each letter A-Z. Also, make a picture for each letter that begins with the sound for that letter.
• Let your child use old magazines and catalogues to find pictures that begin with different sounds of the alphabet, A-Z. Make a booklet. Let your children use the scissors! Let your child put the book in alphabetical order. If your child knows all the letter sounds, write the words by each picture.
• Let your child use beans, coins, buttons, or any small objects to help with counting 1 - 10. If your child can do this easily, have them count 1-20 objects. Then have them count larger amounts by grouping the objects into sets of 10 and counting by tens.
• Let your child practice writing the numerals 0 -10 and the letters Aa-Zz (Upper and lower case). After your child feels confident writing the letters, encourage your child to write his / her name and other words. Make sure that your child only uses one upper case letter at the beginning of their names. (All other letters should be lower-case.) Help your child form the letters and numerals correctly by beginning at the top and writing in a downward motion while holding the pencil correctly.
• Make a color word set - red, blue, green, yellow, brown, orange, purple, black, white, and pink. Let your child match the word to the color.
• Read stories to your child! READ! READ! READ! Ask him / her to tell you what happened first, next, and last. Get him / her to tell you what went on in the story. Have your child retell the story in his / her own words. As you re-read stories your child will have memorized parts and be able to "read" it with you. Let your child read sight words that are memorized and one letter words as they are encountered in stories.
• Review rhyming words. Read nursery rhymes and poems to your child. Say a word like "cat" to your child and ask him / her to give you a word that rhymes with (sounds like) "cat." Example: cat, hat, mat, that...
• Review the calendar - days of the week, months, and dates. You may want to let your child draw or color a pattern on your calendar. Adding to it each day.
• Make a numeral card / word set and a number set 0 - 10. Use the numeral / number word set to match to the number of dots sets.
• Let your child practice patterns. Make a pattern and get your child to continue the pattern.Example: *^*^*^ or **^^**^^**^^ or *^"*^"*^"
• Make shape cards with the shape name and a drawing of the shape: square, diamond, heart, circle, rectangle, triangle, star
• Print or type the words to songs. Let your child read them.
• Put a money jar in your kitchen. Each day let your child reach in and take out a coin or coins. Let your child tell you the name of the coin. The money is put back in the jar. When your child easily identifies a penny, nickel, dime, and quarter, let him / her tell you the value of the coin they get out of the jar. Then you can say that a bowl of cereal costs 6 cents and have him / her count out the correct amount of money.
• Be a story teller. Make up stories about anything that you can imagine. Be creative and have fun!
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