How to Support Your Child at Home

• Teach your child to use the library: make friends with the school and public librarian who can be invaluable for guiding book choices.

• Allow your children to choose their own books: be aware of what kind of books your children enjoy most; it will make reading fun for them!

• Encourage someone significant in your child’s life to read books with them: parent, grandparent, sibling, or friend.

• Make reading a central activity: prioritize reading books over activities involving screens.

• Advocate for your child: have a conference with them and their teacher about their frustrations and their needs.

• Gain knowledge about the learning-to-read process: even if they're good readers, occasionally some children need help to succeed.

• Make mathematical thinking part of your routine: cooking recipes, activities with money, weather, sports statistics, shopping--these daily routines involve sequencing and patterns aka the foundation of algebraic thinking

• Incorporate math into reading time: there are books that incorporate teaching mathematical concepts, vocabulary and problem-solving skills into the familiar context of illustrations and stories.

• Have them work with building materials: research has shown that children who actively play with blocks do better at higher level math. Some examples are LEGO Bricks, K'nex, Q-Ba-Maze--translucent cubes to set up complex marble runs.

• Have family game nights: this involves analyzing, predicting, decision-making, and evaluation, even games as simple as Checkers. Find games that are strategically challenging for both you and the child

• Work on puzzles: Early puzzle play has been found to lay the groundwork abilities needed for future careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Some involve two and three-dimensional geometry, such as Fractiles, In the Ocean, and Pentominoes.

Help Your Children Become Responsible Global Citizens

• Have your child choose a country and research about its culture and traditions together!

• Deepen learning about the country by visiting its museums in person or virtually, attending cultural celebrations close to you, reading magazines like National Geographic

• "Visit” chosen countries by doing hands-on activities including

  • Global map drawing

  • Role-play cultural traditions and celebrations

  • Prepare its native foods

  • Learn songs, dances, games and folklore stories of the country

  • Practice words and counting in the country's language

• Have your child create a "travel journal" where they get to draw, document or report on all their experiences from the "trips."

Online Coding Resources

• Code.org.: a website that provides free computer science education. The coding tutorials are engaging and children who are ages 6 and up can complete the tutorials independently.

• Daisy the Dinosaur: This free IPad app that teaches children how to animate a figure by creating a sequence of commands in block programming.

• Kodable: free educational game for tablets that teaches coding concepts by challenging players to sequence commands that move a fuzzy creature through a maze at increasingly difficult levels as they solve them.

• Scratch Jr.: a MIT Scratch animation programming available for young children for free on touch screens. Along with an introduction to coding, your child can progress to more varied and complex characters, settings, and stories.

Robot Kits & Toys

• Bee-Bots: Tangible tech tools that teach children how to program a robot to navigate a path, avoid obstacles, or act out a story. Can purchase at https://www.bee-bot.us/beebot.html

• Dash & Dot.: Pair of interactive robots that can be programmed on tablets or Smartphones. Available at https:// www.makewonder.com/

• LEGO WeDo & Mindstorm: WeDo kits give an introductory experience to building and programming robots, while Mindstorm EV3 kits are next in complexity and challenge. Kits are available for home http://shop. lego.com/en-US/

Coding Board Games

• Robot Turtles http://www.robotturtles.com/

• Code Monkey Island http://codemonkeyplanet.com/

• Code Master http://www.thinkfun.com/products/code-master/