A friend asked a while back what kind of learning things I did with my kids to prepare for Kindergarten. I'm no expert, but I'm glad to share what we've done. I think preparing your kid for school starts very early, in fact once they are in school you still need to be very actively involved to make sure they are getting a quality education. This is something most parents probably don't think about when they think about having kids. I sure didn't!
Your school experience is not over like you hoped!!!
It totally amazes me how much kids learn just from observation. Before you know it they are pointing things out and telling you what they are. But there are many simple ways we can help them along. Learning is fun when you are little! Sierra is absorbing so much of what is going on in the world around her and just thirsting for more! Flash cards have no stigma to a 2 year old - they can be fun! We don't do a lot of flashcards, but we have some fun ones we've picked up for cheap that we get out now and then (Rhyming, Opposites, Phonics with fun pictures of animals, etc.). Often at Sierra's age it's just all about putting them in and out of the box, but I talk about them with her. It's good to have books and toys that get you teaching things laying around. Don't underestimate what your children can learn even when very young. We sing, we read, we talk about everything, we draw and describe and give our kids lots of love!
I may be one of few left who believe this, but I don't think a kid has to attend preschool to get ready for kindergarten! Sure it's good for kids to get interaction with other kids their age, but I think getting love and nurturing at home gives them quite a boost too. Expensive preschools were not an option for us, I wanted to do a Joy school or a home preschool, but I had no car, and I had a hard time keeping my ideas simple enough to do any kind of structural thing consistently. I'd try to stay up late and prepare stuff, but I needed my sleep more! I did make a list of Kindergarten level books that fit into different subjects I wanted to teach by month and checked them (and a lot more!) out from the library throughout the year. But thanks to my sister-in-law and brother in-law I got a recommendation and a weekly ride and Lily and I attended a Mommy and Me Preschool with Lily's younger cousins one day a week (with summers off) for almost 2 years (until Sierra was born). It was a really good experience and Lily grew a lot from it. I think a
Joy school would have been great, but if you can't get other mom's together it's good to have some kind of play date experience. I am SO grateful we had cousins nearby, church friends and wonderful neighbors!
A friend from church told me about a book called
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. So when Sierra was first born and we weren't going to preschool - Lily and I began that. I posted about it
here. I am really glad that we made the effort to teach Lily to read before she started Kindergarten! It may not be for everyone, but Lily was ready, and I feel like there are such higher expectations and so many new things to get used to that having that head start really helped to make the transition easier. I'm grateful that Mike really encouraged it and supported me - we both felt like since reading is the foundation for lifelong learning what could be more important? Now Lily is reading really well and is in the top 2 readers of her class, I think it's given her a boost of confidence my shy girl could certainly use in a class of over 30 kids! I missed the deadline for getting Lily into a free preschool offered by the school when I first had Sierra, but I'm kind of glad I did and we focused on reading instead! I found out from the mom of one of Lily's classmates who attended that preschool that, though you'd think it would... the at-school-preschool didn't teach the letter sounds or prepare her for Kindergarten or the entrance assessment at all, and her little girl is struggling a bit now and putting pressure on herself to get to a higher reading level because she's the only girl in the reading group she is in. That mom revealed some other communication breakdowns from the school that made it hit even more home to me how important it is to be involved and communicate with your child's teacher about their progress and expectations. It doesn't all come home in a handout, and I'm lucky I can chat with other moms and the teacher when I pick Lily up from school, and that Lily has told me things that prompted me to ask more questions at times -or we wouldn't have been working on all the things we should - like math!
My mom always says it's important to provide kids with an "active environment". I don't think that means you have to have too many things going on at once. I think letting them get play on their own and get bored once in a while fosters creativity. But it certainly helps to provide toys, music and ideas and help them change things up when needed. We've felt it is important to limit the TV, and other screen time. I have no worries about our kids learning to use the computer and don't always want them on mine so I also limit that! But when we do let them watch and play on our computer or Ipod we try to pick things that are educational or higher quality entertainment.
Starfall is a great resource for learning and phonics online. And we've loved the TV program
Signing Time for teaching little ones to communicate early on (especially Baby Signing Time)! Sometimes watching shows geared to them with them gives you a better idea of how to explain things to kids at their level. I totally recommend
Go Potty Go for explaining potty training! Got that from the library. :) Use the free resources that are available! Read to your kids every night! I think the key is to just make a little effort for a short time of each day to focus on your kid and teach them something one on one. Do it when they're showing an interest and keep it laid back and fun - stop when they lose interest. My thought is: Some days you may think you didn't do anything, but if you make it a habit to listen to them and explain things that are going on around you - you are teaching your child. When you feel so busy don't sweat it - they need to see good examples of grown-ups working hard too because that's life!
List of learning things to do:
Sing ABC's
Draw shapes (Mike drew all different shapes and kind of tested Lily on them at different times ever since she was little. Just giving your kids blank paper to draw on instead of coloring books all the time gets them to be more creative with their drawings too! Sit down and draw together.)
Sing songs with motions and numbers
Get some Cd's of sing along songs that don't drive you crazy (
library!)
Get books with pictures and words, collect favorite bedtime stories to read again and again
Play school
Read!
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
Starfall.com
Practice Writing (Chances are they will practice writing on their own - signs, letters, resternaut menus (and I mean resternaut!) be ready to help if they ask but don't over correct -encourage them so it's fun)
Watch
Signing Time
Letting your child have some unstructured play (we do this a lot - gotta get our work done!)
Play with other kids, take them to church, and story time - give them experiences with kids their age and environments where they have to sit and listen
Explain things in the world as you experience them, explain big words as they come up (I ask if she knows what a big word means and I try to explain it to her rather than avoiding using it)
Use the library! (I love reserving what I want online and just picking it all up from the hold shelf when it comes in!)
Set an example (read your own books for fun -
I need to do this more!)
Give praise, show enthusiasm and share your love of learning with your kids!
Other good resources I've used:
Math Activities website:
education.com/activity/preschool/math/
Kindergarten Here I Come Calendar downloads a calendar of ideas to prepare for Kindergarten
Awesome homeschool blog I check out now and then - this lady makes me feel so inadequate- I am in awe of her!
ourhomeschoolfun.blogspot.com
Here are some learning things I've made and used with my kids:
Book List by Topic/Month/Season (the books titles were recommended for Kindergarten from various Internet sources, but I used my topic ideas to find many more and reserved them online a couple weeks before I wanted them - I didn't do it nearly as structured as I'd planned, but I think it was good checking out many books about one topic at a time.)
100 number chart (front)
All About the Number X (back - laminate together & use dry erase marker)
Counting Spots
Lily's Week Calendar - because she was driving me crazy asking what day it was all the time :)
Potty Chart - Might as well throw that in. I made this a long time ago, but have shared it with a couple people. My original idea was to laminate it and color in the characters Lily chose to decorate it as she had success to add up to a prize. I made a boy version too and left the characters off for you to customize yourself :)
with Lily's favorite characters,
girl,
boy
Stuff I've made to help with Kindergarten homework:
Writing lines
Writing Alphabet with arrows
Dotted line alphabet
Writing Numbers to 20
Writing Numbers to 25 repeated
What adds up to x?
0-6,
7-12
