Author: MY COMPUTER

Simple ideas to assist you and your child.

Below are a list of ideas for you to assist your child when consolidating various skills. This list is by no means exhaustible and all strategies can be adapted.
Around the home
Hang out washing together. “Will there be enough room to fit this towel?”
Sort clothing and match socks.
Set the table together, count the people and places needed. Talk about positions. “The knife goes on the right, next to the spoon.” “Nanna's plate is opposite yours.”
Wash the dishes together. Talk about the water temperature. Empty and fill the sink. Talk about the sequence. “We’ll do the glasses first, then the plates and the saucepans last.”
Talk to your child when they are dressing. “These shoes are a bit too small. “We’ll have to get a bigger size.” “Your hair is getting so long, we’ll need to cut it shorter.”
Do simple carpentry together. Talk about the size and shape of nails, screws and wood. Match screwdrivers to screws. Sort and count nails. “Can you get me four long nails please?” “Help me count the holes as I drill.” Let your child help you to bang nails into soft wood in rows and patterns and count them. Measure lengths of wood together. “Can you find a long flat piece for the top?” “I’ll cut this plank in half for two legs.”
Experiment with different ways of arranging furniture in your child’s room. Change the arrangements sometimes with your child's help. “Do you think the bed will fit against this wall?”
Play with magnetic numbers or shapes on the fridge.
Encourage your child to experiment with writing numerals for lists, recipes and phone numbers.
Talk about time and sequence and link to familiar events in your lives, like getting light, meal times, high tide and sun down.
Have a clock in your house and talk about times when you do things. “At 3 o’clock we have to get Sophie from school.” “We’ll get the cake out of the oven when the big hand is on 12 and little hand is on 2.”
Talk about different sorts of clocks; the oven timer, digital clocks, egg timers, the video timer, clock radios, alarm clocks and watches.
Set timers and alarms as reminders with your child.
Use the TV guide together and check when programmes are on.
Use a calendar to record appointments, birthdays and special events.
Talk about the days of the week, the months and the seasons. “Today is Tuesday. We go to swimming this afternoon.”
Use the calendar to count down to special events. “It is only 5 sleeps until your birthday.” “You’ll be 5 this year.”
Let your child experiment with calculators.
Keep track of your child’s height on a chart or door frame. Measure every few months and compare the last record. “You’re getting taller, you’ve grown 2cm since February.” Predict how tall they think they will be in 3 months.
In the garden, talk about the growth of plants and compare sizes. Count out rows together when planting and measure how far apart and how deep to plant. Compare sizes and shapes of vegetables grown.
Talk about chance in everyday life. “I wonder if Aunty Jen’s baby will be a boy or a girl?”

Provide a dress up box and allow your child to explore different
characters.
Make a scrap book together with drawing, photos, birthday cards, letters etc.
Write events on the calendar like birthdays and special occasions.
Play games: Play word games, board games, card games and computer games together.
Watch TV, read a story and discuss what is happening.
Write little messages to your child.
Provide a space for your child to write and draw. Use textas, crayons, chalk, paint and scrap paper. Display work on the fridge. Talk about what they have drawn and written. Make up a story about the
picture.
Have a message board and write a message to one another each day.
Choose a letter and create as many words as you can starting with the letter.
Search around the house for objects beginning with a chosen letter.
Find objects that rhyme around the home. Discuss what they are and what they do. Put the object name into a sentence. Count the syllables in that word.
Play I spy games around the house. Use initial sounds of words and rhyming words.
Play Letter bingo, snap, memory, letter hunts.
Bed and Bath time
Tell stories and sing songs. Make up actions together.
Read a range of books. Read favorites over and over, Encourage your child to join in and retell the story.
Talk about the pictures. Help your child to tell the story from the pictures.
Say or sing nursery rhymes, poems or songs.
Listen to tapes/CDs of books or songs.
Talk about what you did that day and make plans for tomorrow.
Experiment with float and sink and use appropriate language.
Fill and empty containers and use appropriate language.
Make bubbles and talk about them popping and floating.
Make small boats to play with.
Read plastic bath books.
Make up your own songs and nursery rhymes.
Bed time stories, find the longest/shortest word. Can you find a capital?
Look at the conventions of text. Discuss the title, pictures, text direction, capital letters and full stops.

Play with a ball together and count how many times it bounces or is caught. See how high you can throw it or how far you can kick it.
Throw the ball to one another and say a word that starts with a chosen sound. Keep going until no one can think of a word.
Play on the seesaw and talk about balancing, light and heavy, high and low, up ad down.
Look for patterns in nature. Talk about veins on leaves, spider webs and butterfly wings. Count petals and insects legs. Count and sort leaves.
Compare shadows at various times of the day. Experiment to make shadows bigger or smaller.
Talk about changes in the park with each season.
Cooking
Guess how long it will take to cook things. “If we put the cakes in the oven now, do you think they’ll be done when Play School is finished?” Use oven timers and egg timers together and talk about oven temperature.
Make dough or biscuits together. Roll into different lengths, cut into shapes such as circles, stars, triangles and squares. “Will all these biscuits fit on the baking tray?” Share the biscuits. “How many for each person?”
Use kitchen scales, measuring cups, jugs and spoons. “We need 2 cups of flour and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Now you add 1/2 cup of milk. That’s the smallest cup.” Let your child experiment with weighing objects on the kitchen scales.
Make gingerbread men. “How many currants will you need for his face?” “How many gingerbread men do you think the dough will make? “Let’s count them.”
Make fruit salad or fruit kebabs together. Sort the fruit. Cut it into halves, quarters and smaller pieces. Guess how many pieces of fruit will fit on the kebab, then count. Make patterns. “First the banana, then the apple, next the pear. Can you copy the pattern on your kebab banana 1st, apple 2nd, pear 3rd? Keep it going.”
Cut a pizza into wedges and count the fractions made. Share the pizza. “How many pieces for each person?”
Cook simple things together. Read and talk about recipes. Give your child simple instructions to follow.
Encourage your child to find simple ingredients in the kitchen. Using directional language.
Measure ingredients and discuss associated language. “The bowl is nearly full.” “We only need half a cup of butter.”
Make extra dough for your child to explore and make letters and numbers with.
Talk about what happened during the day at meal times.
Get your child to retell the procedure for the recipe. Use connecting language such as first we, then, last.
Share what you have made with a friend and get your child to tell them the procedure you used.

Water Play
Play with plastic bottles, cups, jugs, sieves, watering cans, straws and other
containers in the bath, sink or a bucket.
Talk about their sizes and shapes and compare them. “Which container do you think will hold the most water?” “This short, fat jug holds more than this thin, tall bottle.” “Do any of the containers hold the same amount?”
Talk about full and empty. Pour water from one container to another. Guess how many cups of water will fill a container, then measure to find out.
Blow bubbles and talk about their sizes and shapes. Bend wire to make different shaped bubble blowers. “You can blow lots of tiny bubbles with this one.”
Have tea parties with toys. “Lets give teddy the biggest cup.” “Does your cup have more tea than
Barbie's?” “Oh dear. The teapots empty you better fill it up again.”
Guess which things will float and sink and test to find out. Sort and compare them. “This long feather floats on top of the water because it’s light. The pebble is small but it sinks to the bottom. It’s heavier.”
At the Beach or River
Dig holes in the sand. Fill with water. Make pathways and channels to the sea to catch the water.
Make sand castles in different shapes and sizes. Make sand castles or mud pies for each person. Count how many you have made.
Empty and fill different sized buckets and containers with sand and water.
Collect shells and talk about shapes, sizes, patterns and colours. Sort them into different groups and make patterns. “These ones look the same but these are different. “I’m going to arrange my shells in a circle with the orange one beside the pearly one and the yellow one next to it.” “Now I’ll repeat my pattern again.
Orange, pearl, yellow. How does your pattern go?”
Talk about the way shadows and shade change over time. “We’ll have to shift the umbrella soon to get more shade.”
Talk about the water; how hot or cold it is, how deep or shallow. “The water’s up to your middle now. “Don’t go out too deep.”
Go fishing together. Sort sinker and hooks by size and weight. “Can you find me the largest hook and the heaviest sinker for this line?” “I’ll need to cut a small piece of bait to fit this hook.”
Talk about the thickness of fishing lines and the length of the cast. Count the amount of fish caught. Compare sizes and shapes.
At the park
Explore playground equipment together and give different directions for your child to follow. “Let’s go up the ladder, 1,2,3,4,5 steps. It’s quite high. Now down the big slide at the bottom.” “Can you go through the tunnel and over the bridge? I’ll meet you at the other end.”
Throw frisbees, ice-creams lids and balls and compare how far the go. Aim at
targets and compare distances.
Play hopscotch and talk about directions. Use words like start, finish, left to right, up, down.

Shopping
Look at coins and notes in your wallet. Talk about them and count money together. Sometimes let your child pay and receive change. “Here’s $2.00 for the icey pole. Don’t forget the change.”
Talk about the sizes and shapes of containers. “Can you get the biggest packet of Cornflakes?” “Let’s try those biscuits in the square tin.”
Weigh and count fruit. “We need 8 bananas. Can you count them into the bag for me? I wonder what they will weigh? Let’s check”
Look at scales in different places such as the fruit and vegetable shop, the butchers, the post office and at home.
Play shops together with toys or real groceries. Sort things onto shelves, make prices, buy things with play or real money and help with the change.
Count fruit and vegetables as you put them in bags.
Let your child use the shops scales to weigh fruit and vegetables.
Unpack and sort the shopping at home. Talk about the size and shape of items as you put them away.
Write or draw a shopping list together. Encourage your child to find things on the list while shopping.
Look at junk mail catalogues and talk about things you might buy.
Read and talk about signs and labels.
Look at the labels.

Making Things
Talk about colours, shapes and patterns when painting.
Fold and cut paper to make paper dolls, paper chains and patterns. Talk about the shapes and repeated patterns. “My chain is red, blue, red, blue. What colour will go on next? Can you make a chain with two different colours?”
Thread pasta, leaves, shells or beads onto string in patterns to make necklaces. Compare different lengths. Talk about the order. “Put the blue bead first, the red one second, the green one third.” Count the beads. Talk about patterns, “Our necklace pattern is leaf, shell, shell, leaf, shell, shell. What should we thread next?”
Paint patterns all over large sheets of paper and use to wrap presents. “Do you think we have enough paper to wrap this book? What could we wrap with this piece?”
Play with clay or playdough. Make shapes and talk about them. Change shapes. “Let’s squash this ball into a flat shape. Now can you roll it into a ball again?” Roll snakes and compare lengths. “What can you find that is as long as your red snake? Which is the longest snake we made?”
Make objects for characters. “I’ve made 3 bowls for the 3 bears, a great big one for the Dad, a middle sized one for the Mum and a tiny little one for Baby Bear.”
Make things from junk materials and boxes such as furniture for a doll’s house or a model town.
Use empty boxes to make towers and compare heights. “Let’s see how tall we can build the tower before it falls.”
Do sewing together. Sort and count buttons.
Make dolls’ clothes from scrap fabrics. Measure to see how much you will need. Take your child’s measurements with a tape.
Make letters and numbers out of various materials. Using playdough, dough, paint, threading, chalk, sand, rice tray, pasta pieces, leggo counters.
Toys and Games
Sing and say counting songs and number rhymes such as Five Little Ducks.
Read books about numbers, shapes, colours.
Follow plans to build things using toys such as Lego, Meccano or model aeroplane kits.
Make towers and buildings with blocks. Make roads and pathways for toy cars and trains. Talk about shapes. “You have made a very straight road. I’m going to use this curved block to make it wind around the corner. Which block could we use for a bridge?”
Do jigsaws and talk about the shapes and the way they fit together. “We need a blue piece with a straight edge on one side and a curved bit to fit here. Can you find it?”
Play simple board games such as Snakes and Ladders using dice or spinners. Talk about chance. “Oh no, I’ve thrown a 2. Now I have to go down this big snake. What bad luck.”
Play computer or arcade games and keep track of the scores.

Play simple card games such as Snap, Concentration and Fish. Talk about the numbers and suits. Sort the cards. Keep score.
Play Dominoes or Mahjong. Count the dots and sort and match the tiles.
Play with stacking cups and posting boxes. Talk about sizes, shapes and colours. “Where do you think this blue triangle fits?” “Let’s put the smaller red cup on top of the larger yellow one.”
Sort plastic animals and make fences and paddocks for them. “I’m putting all the sheep over here in this paddock and the cows in this one. Can you make a paddock for the horses?”
Family and Friends
Make a photo album and write some labels together.
Write letters, phone or email friends.
Encourage your child to draw pictures for family and friends.
Make birthday cards, thank you cards and invitations to send to friends.
Let your child help you dial numbers and talk to family and friends on the phone.
Use the telephone book to look up numbers.
Put paper by the phone for writing messages.
Going out
Join a library and choose books together. Go to story telling sessions.
Join a toy or video library. Choose toys and videos to take home and watch and play with together.
Visit museums, galleries, zoos and parks. Get your child to recall what you did and share with a family member.
Point out road signs when driving. Read number plates.
Use the street directory together to find places. Talk about maps.
Read house numbers and street signs.
Catch the bus or train and look for the signs and timetables.
Use street directories, maps and atlases together to plan trips and holidays. “We’re going to Albany for our holidays. Here it is on the map. It’s a long way from here. It will take about five hours to get there.”
Look for numbers at the stations.
Use buses and trains sometimes. Look at the timetable together and plan how long the trip will take and when you’ll arrive. Talk about the cost of fares. Look at a map of the route and count the number of stops until yours.
Talk about distance. “It won’t take very long to get to the city, it’s not far from here.”
Look for numbers when you are out and about on houses and letterboxes, on car number plates, on restaurant tables and menus, on signs.
Let your child put coins in parking machines and talk about the length of time you can park in spaces.
At the post office, talk about stamps and prices. Choose envelopes or satchels to fit the size and shape of items to be sent. Pay bills.

Outdoor play
Place letters around the yard. Jump, hop, to the letter chosen.
Draw letters on concrete using chalk.
Build letters using sand and mud.
Run and collect the correct number of beanbags for the syllables in a word.
Letter hunt around the backyard.
Find objects beginning with specified letter in the backyard.
Make the shape of a letter using their body.
Stamp, jump, throw a ball etc for the number of syllables they hear in a word.
I spy game using initial sounds or rhyming words.
Whilst jumping over a skipping rope, sound out simple words using the letter sounds. C-a-t makes cat.
Things you can reinforce with your child.
Recognising what is a word or number.
Counting written words.
Counting the syllables in words.
Detecting rhyming words.
Producing rhyming words.
Hearing initial, medial and final sounds in consonant-vowel-consonant words.
Recognising written letters.
Beginning to accurately write letters.
To orally blend letters together to form words.
To orally separate consonant-vowel-consonant words into their letters.
Understand the conventions of print and texts.
The elements within a story and how to sequence ideas and sentences to create and retell a narrative.
Reading and writing numbers to 20 and beyond.
Using various mathematical language to describe and compare.
Adding and subtracting objects.
Counting forwards and backwards from any number.
Recognisng an amount of objects up to 6 without counting. (Subitising)
Developing a range of strategies to solve simple problems.
Developing an understanding of the 1-9 number system.
Being able to count objects 1 to 1.
Recognising quantities of more, less and the same.
Comparing heights, size and weight.
Estimating.
Children learn through exploring their world and reinforcing a concept in a variety of contexts. By taking
advantage of the incidental situations, children are applying their knowledge and developing their skills everyday.

Gemma Beale Pre-Primary teacher Woodvale Primary