• Kindergarten  Practice Ideas

     

    Letter Recognition 

    *Have a letter hunt at home!  Give your child a brown paper lunch bag and write a letter on the front of the bag.  Have your child"hunt" around your house for items that start with that letter (or cut things out of magazines) to fill their bag.  After several bags are full, have your child empty each bag and sort the items back into the correct bag.  It is a good idea to start with a few letters your child is familiar with to help their self confidence. 

     

    *Play letter recognition bingo!  When your child knows the letters, add in the sounds and/or ask your child to name items that begin with that sound/letter!

    *Hang letters on index cards around your house (in cupboards, on doors, etc...).  Have your child name the letters they find as they discover them.  See how many letter cards your child can collect!

    *Ask your child to go through magazines and cut out specific letters or ask your child to see how many times they can find a certain letter in a story or in the newspaper.

     

    Sounds     

    *Play sound bingo with your child

    *Ask your child to say the sound a given letter makes and give your child a sound and ask them what letter makes that sound).

    *Play "sound sort": say 2 words and ask your child to give thumbs up if they start with the same sound or thumbs down if they do not.

    *Ask your child to find pictures or objects that begin with a specific letter or sound.

    *Ask your child to teach you the "letter song" for each of our letters of the week.  Can they produce the correct sound for each letter?

     

    Writing   

    *To practice letter writing, ask your child to practice writing letters on dry erase or chalkboards (upper and lower case).  Call out letters in random order and see if your child can write the letters (this works for numbers too!)

    *Cook pasta and have your child shape it into letters.

    *Have your child write the letters in shaving cream (put on the table or on the wall of your shower!)

    *To practice journal writing and writing for our homework, it is  okay to help your child sound out the letters.  PLEASE DON'T TELL YOUR CHILD HOW TO SPELL WORDS!  It is very important that they learn to sound things out and write the sounds they hear.  Remind your child to talk like a turtle ("Turtle Talk")

    *Start with sounding out and writing one word (for example pizza).  Have your child sound out the word and illustrate a picture to match.  Gradually work up to sentences.  Don't forget a picture to match!

     

    Rhyming 

    *Play rhyming bingo.

    *Read stories with rhymes.  Ask your child to fill in the blanks with rhyming words.  "Do you like green eggs and ham?  Do you like them Sam I______?"

    *Play Rhyme Challenge!  See how many words your child can come up with to rhyme with a given word.  Then ask your child to give you a word and see how many words you can produce that rhyme.  See who's score is higher at the end!  This game is great for car rides!

     

    Counting and Number Recognition  

    *Ask your child to count out certain numbers of objects. 

     

    *Ask your child to recognize a certain number and then count out that many objects to match.

    *Count with your child and when you stop, ask them to fill in the missing number.

    *It is a good idea to practice number writing as well (see letter writing for ideas)

    *Practice recognizing the numbers on the calendar or on price tags in the grocery store.

     

    Patterns 

    *Use blocks, candy, cereal, etc... to have your child create and extend a pattern.

    *Start a pattern for your child and ask them to finish it!

    *Sing your patterns together (red, blue, red, blue)

     

    Sorting 

    *Ask your child to sort objects by SIZE, COLOR and SHAPE.  Cereal, candy and blocks are great to sort with.

    *Ask your child to help sort the laundry!

     

    Fine Motor 

    To practice cutting, writing, coloring and to strengthen those finger muscles:

    *Use Play Doh to strengthen finger muscles.

    *Use a "Light Bright" to help hand/eye coordination and strengthen finger muscles.

    *Practice cutting straight, squiggly, zigzag lines.  Move to cutting out pictures.

     

    Reading with your child 

    When reading with your child:

    *Ask them to help you read sight words in a story.

    *Ask them to make predictions about what the story will be about based on the cover and/or title.

    *Ask your child comprehension questions about the story (what happened, how did the story end, etc...)

    *Ask your child if they liked the book or not and ask them to explain their answer.

    *Ask your child to name the characters, setting, plot, problem(if any) and solution (if any).

    *Ask your child what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story