Reading
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- Plan a trip to the library! Let your child choose to check out books of interest.
- Play a letter or word game. Hunt for specific letters or words on book pages, signs, menus, billboards, food containers, newspapers, license plates, or even on the computer keyboard. "Find the letter M on this page." "I challenge you! Your letter is S. For every letter S you find, you get a point. What letter do I get?" "Tell me when you see a sign that says 'open' on it."
- Write notes to your child and place them around the house for him/her to read. Maybe even write clues to finding a prize at the final destination.
- Play games with words. "Name all the words you can think of that rhyme with ‘cat’." "Tell me as many words that you can that start with T." Start with one word and think of another word that starts with the last letter of the previous word. Challenge each other to keep it in a category! For example, the category is animals. Start with Tiger. Now you have to think of an animal that starts with R, such as raccoon. Now it must start with N, like newt.
- Play Mad Libs. Visit this website to play online! This is a fantastic way to practice reading, writing, and using parts of speech!
- This website has great resources for reading comprehension!
- Practice editing using COPS- Capitals, order (does it sound right?), punctuation, spelling.
- Practice listening comprehension. The button on the left, below the books, will take you to a practice website.
Writing
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Math
- Sort, count, add more, and take away things (common objects such as keys, coins, hair accessories, paperclips, M&Ms, etc.)
- Play the Place Value game: write a number and ask what place each number is in. For example, for the number 2,739 the 9 is in the ones place, the 3 is in the tens place, the 7 is in the hundreds place, and the 2 is in the thousands place. Start out with easy numbers with only one or two places and see how high you can go.
- Count sets of coins. Count change after making a purchase.
- Role-play "store" and pretend to buy your child's toys with coins. Take turns being the customer and cashier.
- Make up math word problems for your child in all settings. “We are having 2 guests for dinner. How many plates do we need?” “If you and your sister have to share 6 cookies equally, how many do you each get?”
- If your child gets an allowance or if he/she gets paid for jobs around the house, keep track of how much money is earned and spent.
- Make flash cards to practice addition and subtraction facts.
- Keep a calendar and refer to it often. "How many days until your birthday?" "How many days until we get to go to the pool?"
- Play a number-finding game. For example, when on a road trip, challenge your child to find numbers in order, starting with 0 and going as high as they can.
- When first learning about money, hide coins around the house and when your child finds them, he/she can keep it only if they can tell you its name and how much it is worth.
- While at a restaurant, have your child add up the total. If the total has two digits in the dollars place (such as $34.76), have your child take the first number and add it to itself (3+3=6) and this will be a great introduction for finding out tips! (This method only works for a tip of about 20%.)
- Bake with your child! Have them use measuring cups and spoons. When they get better at fractions, hide some of the measuring cups. You might need 2 cups of flour but you only have 1/4 cup available.
Art
- Draw with: pencils, colored pencils, charcoal, sidewalk chalk, markers, or crayons.
- Paint with: watercolor paints, tempera paints, acrylic paints, corn syrup mixed with food coloring, even water on the sidewalk. (Remember a paint shirt! Tempera and acrylic paints and food colorings stain!)
- Make exploding paint bags.
- Paint on wet glue.
- Make bubble wrap stomp paintings.
- Make rainbow bubble snakes.
- Print your own T-shirts. (Inexpensive way to do it!)
- Make bracelets and necklaces with string or yarn and beads or macaroni.
- Use watercolor crayons to draw your own temporary tattoos.
- Create sculptures with found objects such as sticks, leaves, rocks, etc. from a nature hike or your backyard. Help your child with a hot glue gun!
- Make a fairy house in the garden by putting sticks in the ground in a circle or square and place leaves on top. Maybe an acorn cap can be a bowl and some moss can be a rug! Be creative! (Remember that your child's creative experiences are more important than a perfect flowerbed!)
- Make Peanut Pals
Science
- Experiment with water marbles.
- Make alien bubbles.
- Extract DNA from strawberries.
- Make balloon rockets.
- Microwave a bar of soap to make soap clouds.
- Make bouncing bubbles.
- Visit Petco or PetSmart and ask an employee about one or more of the animals there.
- Build a marshmallow sculpture with toothpicks or uncooked spaghetti. Challenge your child to make a tower of at least 2 feet tall or a bridge that will hold a certain number of paperclips.
- Make a layered drink. Find 2 or more different colors of drinks and pour them into the glass, starting with the one that contains the most sugar. The drinks with the most sugar will be the most dense, while the drinks with the least sugar will be less dense and will stay on the top.