Many parents ask me for activities to do with their children at home.  The first and most important thing you can do at home to help your child be successful at school is to read to him/her every night.  If you don’t have time to do anything else—read a story and discuss the pictures with your child.  Point out details in the pictures and ask them questions about the art work.  Show your child where the words are and where you begin reading on each page.  I cannot stress the importance of this activity enough.  Beyond that, here are some skills that we are working on in the classroom with some suggestions for fun things to do at home to help your child learn the skills.

1.  Write first name correctly.   Of course, traditional paper and pencil practice will help with this, but let’s shake it up a bit.  Create a writing box for your child with markers of all kinds, pens, fancy pencils, stationary, colored paper, etc. to use for writing practice.  Let them write “letters” to people and mail them.  Another fun activity is to spread pudding on a plate and have your child write with his/her finger.  Reward him/her for hard work by letting him/her eat the pudding!  Writing can also be done in pans of rice.

2. Coloring/Cutting.  These skills simply progress along with more practice.  The more your child uses writing tools and scissors, the better developed this skill becomes.

3.  Reciting the alphabet and counting.  These are fun things to practice in the car.

4.  Understands left to right progression.  When you are putting on shoes, pants, shirts, etc. refer to left hand, right hand, left foot, and so on.

5.  Sees likenesses and differences.  When reading to your child, ask questions about how things in the pictures are the same and how they are different.  Look at two objects and talk about how they are the same or different.

6.  Recognizing letters and sounds.  There are so many ways that you can work on this.  Discussion while reading a book is probably the best.  There are workbooks, movies, and computer games you can buy that make fun activities to practice letters and sounds.  I also have several movies and computer games you could check out from me.

7.  Sorting and Classifying.  Let your child sort different things at home.  Socks, buttons, silverware, beads, etc. are all fun things to sort.  Talk about why they sorted the items the way they did.