Ideas for at Home

Ideas to Build Skills at Home

· Talk about the colors/shapes/patterns in your clothing or food. Start with basic colors red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, black, white, gray, and pink. Later expand their vocabulary to include aqua, violet, scarlet, jade, maroon, fuchsia, lilac, silver, gold, etc. Shapes to look for circles, squares, rectangles, stars, hearts, rhombus (diamonds), ovals, and triangles.

· Talk about and name feelings your child has as they occur or in illustrations as you are reading stories. Go beyond happy, sad, mad, and scared to expand their vocabulary to include afraid, excited, angry, apprehensive, frustrated, etc.

· When eating a snack count the crackers/cookies/apple slices etc. then after eating 1 ask, “How many are left?”. Allow your child time to think about it & recount or count back by one. Repeat until it is all gone (zero).

· Compare sets—say “I have 3 pickles and you have 2 pickles. Which is more/less?” Follow up with, “how many more /less?” OR “How many more pickles do you need to have the same as I do?”

· Use an egg carton/muffin tin/ice cube tray for snack time. Have your child put 1 raisin/grape/teddy graham etc. in each compartment. Ask them “How many (raisins/grapes/teddy grahams etc.) do you have altogether? What if there were 2 in each compartment, how many would you have? Let them put 2 in each & count to find out how many.

· Make a leaf and/or bark rubbings of different kinds of trees (maple/oak/willow/poplar/hickory/locust/box elder/apple/cherry/plum/etc.). Talk about what you notice.

· Pick 3 dandelions OR leaves OR sticks and measure them. Then line them up by size—shortest to tallest or tallest to shortest.

· Play board games that have dice.

· Go for walks and listen to the sounds around you. Review safety rules for crossing the street.

· Visit the library or use your home library and read every day.