Summer School At Home with HeidiSongs: Getting Ready for Kindergarten Week 6
Welcome to week 6 of Summer School at Home with HeidiSongs! This post has lots of great ideas for helping your child get ready for Kindergarten at home using items such as LEGOS, books, toys, and music. We'll also give you more ideas for helping children practice separating from mom and dad.
So let's get going!
Summer Child Care Swap
Summer is a great time to talk to your friends about providing child care for each other.
Get together with a group of 3 or 4 families and arrange times to watch each others children. This will give your child an opportunity to work on their social skills with other children, practice listening to adults other than Mom and Dad, and give you a chance as a family to work on your goodbye and hello routines.
Be intentional about this time and talk about possible worries or fears about being away. Share your feelings with your child as well. Let them know how excited you will be to hear about what they did while they were away and how this is practice for starting school.
Write on the Walls
Did you know that glass mirrors work like white boards? Pretty cool huh?
If your child is getting bored with practicing writing their name, let them draw on the walls or mirrors. Use white board erasable markers on the mirrors and tack up large sheets of paper for walls. Newspaper, wrapping paper or even broken-down cardboard boxes work great for this.
Write out your child's name at the top of the work space. Point out the capital letter that begins their name and the rest of the letters in lower case. Have your child copy their name over and over again.
We found some awesome ideas on pinterest for learning letters and sounds. As a fun bonus these all use LEGO. Grab some blocks and the little LEGO lover in your house and start playing!
Letter Match Up with LEGO
We love this letter learning idea from Pre-KPages!
To use this activity with your child you will need:
- 52 Lego or Duplo blocks
- A permanent marker
Label the pieces with the lower case version of a letter and a second one with the upper case. When you are done you will have 26 lower case letters and 26 upper case. Put all the pieces into a bag or basket and have your child match the lower case to the upper case. If your child is able to write out letters, Pre-KPages has a great free printable to enhance the activity.
Letter Writing Practice with LEGO and Play-Doh
This looks like so much fun! All it takes to use this idea is play-doh and small Legos. Have your child roll out the play-doh and use the Lego pieces to stamp out the alphabet in capital letters.
To really amp up this idea try paring it with our singable songs and have your child sing the letter song after crafting one out or play-doh.
LEGO Letter Formation
From Discover Explore Learn comes this idea for using LEGO for letter formation.
Trace out the letters A-Z on individual pieces of card stock. Have your little one grab some LEGO. Review each letter with your child and talk about the sound the letter makes, what the lower case letter looks like, and name at least one thing that starts with the letter.
Then have your child form the letters with LEGO by placing the bricks on the lines you drew.
Count Along with The 1 to 100 Book
For the book lovers in the group, this is a great way to practice counting with your child. The 1 to 100 Book is a fun way to work on number identification and counting.
Our young star is on the hunt for 100 things to bring for the 100th day of school. You and your child can count and identify the number on each page and help him fill his bag with treasures.
As you read, have your child trace the numbers with their finger and say the numbers name. After reading through the book a few times, have your child collect 10 objects and count them out to you. When they get good at that, have them collect 20 and so on.
Number Match Up
We shared this idea with you before, but we think it is worth the repeat.
To play:
1. Deal a card out to each participant.
2. Have each participant gather the number of items needed to match the card. Counting cubes, blocks, or small toys all work great for this.
3. Collect all cards, shuffle and pass them back out.
4. Have participants find the pile of objects that match their new cards.
* To burn some energy and add movement into the game, play outside and spread the cards and objects out so that the participants can run around collecting objects and matching their cards.
Flash Card Fun
Being able to recognize the numbers 0 to 10 and basic shapes is a huge skill for your child to know before entering kindergarten. Our flash cards pair great with our Jumpin' Numbers and Shakin' Shapes DVD and might just be the tool your little one needs to get a handle on their numbers and shapes.
The best way to work at home with the cards is to help your child follow these tips:
Alphabet Action Read and Find
Our Alphabet Action book is a fantastic way to help your child practice their beginning sounds.
Each colorful page focuses on a letter. Read it together with your child and take turns finding pictures of words that all have the same starting sound.
For the "A" page I can see an apple and ants. On the second read through have your child tell you the letter and make the letter sound while doing the movements.
Good luck and have a great rest of the week!
-Heidi
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Looking for more learn at home ideas? Check out our previous Summer School at Home with HeidiSongs: Getting Ready for Kindergarten posts for:
Week 1
Click here to see our post on Free Kindergarten - Prep Summer School at Home, Week 1!
Week 2
FREE Kindergarten Prep Summer School at Home with HeidiSongs; Week 2! Please SHARE this valuable information with friends!
Week 3
Click here! FREE Kindergarten - Prep Summer School at Home, Week 3
Week 4
Click here! FREE Kindergarten - Prep Summer School at Home, Week 4!
Week 5
Click here! FREE Kindergarten Prep - Summer School at Home, Week 5!
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So let's get going!
Summer Child Care Swap
Summer is a great time to talk to your friends about providing child care for each other.
Get together with a group of 3 or 4 families and arrange times to watch each others children. This will give your child an opportunity to work on their social skills with other children, practice listening to adults other than Mom and Dad, and give you a chance as a family to work on your goodbye and hello routines.
Be intentional about this time and talk about possible worries or fears about being away. Share your feelings with your child as well. Let them know how excited you will be to hear about what they did while they were away and how this is practice for starting school.
Write on the Walls
Did you know that glass mirrors work like white boards? Pretty cool huh?
If your child is getting bored with practicing writing their name, let them draw on the walls or mirrors. Use white board erasable markers on the mirrors and tack up large sheets of paper for walls. Newspaper, wrapping paper or even broken-down cardboard boxes work great for this.
Write out your child's name at the top of the work space. Point out the capital letter that begins their name and the rest of the letters in lower case. Have your child copy their name over and over again.
We found some awesome ideas on pinterest for learning letters and sounds. As a fun bonus these all use LEGO. Grab some blocks and the little LEGO lover in your house and start playing!
Letter Match Up with LEGO
We love this letter learning idea from Pre-KPages!
To use this activity with your child you will need:
- 52 Lego or Duplo blocks
- A permanent marker
Label the pieces with the lower case version of a letter and a second one with the upper case. When you are done you will have 26 lower case letters and 26 upper case. Put all the pieces into a bag or basket and have your child match the lower case to the upper case. If your child is able to write out letters, Pre-KPages has a great free printable to enhance the activity.
Letter Writing Practice with LEGO and Play-Doh
This looks like so much fun! All it takes to use this idea is play-doh and small Legos. Have your child roll out the play-doh and use the Lego pieces to stamp out the alphabet in capital letters.
To really amp up this idea try paring it with our singable songs and have your child sing the letter song after crafting one out or play-doh.
LEGO Letter Formation
From Discover Explore Learn comes this idea for using LEGO for letter formation.
Trace out the letters A-Z on individual pieces of card stock. Have your little one grab some LEGO. Review each letter with your child and talk about the sound the letter makes, what the lower case letter looks like, and name at least one thing that starts with the letter.
Then have your child form the letters with LEGO by placing the bricks on the lines you drew.
Count Along with The 1 to 100 Book
For the book lovers in the group, this is a great way to practice counting with your child. The 1 to 100 Book is a fun way to work on number identification and counting.
Our young star is on the hunt for 100 things to bring for the 100th day of school. You and your child can count and identify the number on each page and help him fill his bag with treasures.
As you read, have your child trace the numbers with their finger and say the numbers name. After reading through the book a few times, have your child collect 10 objects and count them out to you. When they get good at that, have them collect 20 and so on.
Number Match Up
We shared this idea with you before, but we think it is worth the repeat.
To play:
1. Deal a card out to each participant.
2. Have each participant gather the number of items needed to match the card. Counting cubes, blocks, or small toys all work great for this.
3. Collect all cards, shuffle and pass them back out.
4. Have participants find the pile of objects that match their new cards.
* To burn some energy and add movement into the game, play outside and spread the cards and objects out so that the participants can run around collecting objects and matching their cards.
Flash Card Fun
Being able to recognize the numbers 0 to 10 and basic shapes is a huge skill for your child to know before entering kindergarten. Our flash cards pair great with our Jumpin' Numbers and Shakin' Shapes DVD and might just be the tool your little one needs to get a handle on their numbers and shapes.
The best way to work at home with the cards is to help your child follow these tips:
Alphabet Action Read and Find
Our Alphabet Action book is a fantastic way to help your child practice their beginning sounds.
Each colorful page focuses on a letter. Read it together with your child and take turns finding pictures of words that all have the same starting sound.
For the "A" page I can see an apple and ants. On the second read through have your child tell you the letter and make the letter sound while doing the movements.
Good luck and have a great rest of the week!
-Heidi
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for more learn at home ideas? Check out our previous Summer School at Home with HeidiSongs: Getting Ready for Kindergarten posts for:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
----------------------------------
Follow me! Did you enjoy this post? Do me a favor and share it with your friends! And follow this blog by signing up for my email updates here, or follow on Bloglovin', or follow me on TPT! I'm also on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube, too! Don't forget to sign up for our email newsletter for special deals and promo codes that you won't find out about anywhere else.
