Number Knowledge

In kindergarten, your child will be taught to recognize, write, and order numbers up to 30, as well as be introduced to numbers up to 100.  They will also be taught to add and subtract single digit equations.  One of the most important things they will learn, however, is base ten.

I didn't understand how base ten worked until I got to college and took a class called "Teaching Elementary Math." I had this great aha moment and finally understood why we're supposed to carry the one.  Until then, most problem solving for me had been simply going through the motions.  I didn't "get it."

For those of you who may still be in the same boat, base ten just means that we as humans group things into ten.  Think about how we count.  1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..what's next?  We add another place value and say 10.  1group of ten and 0 ones.  Then we have 1 group of ten and 1 one (11).  Then 1 group of ten and 2 ones (12).  This system works on for infinity.  Every time we get a group of ten, we bundle it together and put it in the next place value.  10 tens makes one hundred.  10 hundreds makes 1 thousand.  And so on...

Why base ten and not base 5 or 6 or 20?  Before there was written language, people used their hands to represent numeric value.  Count your fingers and you've got your answer. I guess it got to hard to bargain for 500 hundred sheep with just the hands so they figured out how to write things down :)

To prepare your child for this, give them lots of experience with numbers.  Base ten is a hard concept.  Don't try to make you 3 year old an expert.  The most exposure they have to how numbers work, however, will give them a great foundation to build upon.

*Read lots of number and counting books.
*Count items around the house.  How many people are in our family?  How many birds to you see?  How many toes do you have?
*Build walls/roads/towers with blocks, ten blocks each.  Count then individually, then count by tens.
*Get an old egg carton.  Label the inside of the egg holders 1-12.  Give your child beans or something similar and see if they can fill each egg holder with the right number of beans.
*Write numerals with a marker on a hard paper.  Have them glue beans, sand, or salt onto the lines.
*Have your child use pipe cleaners (chenille wires) to create different numbers.
*Let your child make a number book.  Staple ten pieces of paper together.  On each page, write a number.  Your child can glue magazine images, draw pictures, or glue precut shapes onto each page to match the number.  If you want it last awhile, use contact paper to laminate the pages (or head to Mardel's).
*Go on a number hunt.  Find one of something in your house, then two, then three...
*Get some goldfish and have your child count them.  How many fish do they have in their ocean?  Tell a story about a big shark (Mom) wanted to gobble up the fish.  Oh no!  The shark came and ate a fish!  How many are left?  Then another big shark named (fill in child's name) came and ate one too!  Now how many are left?Use your imagination and be silly!

Below is an activity Maggie and I did today to count down the days until we leave for Ireland.  We made a chain out of paper, but before we taped it together, she watched me write down the numbers on each piece.  There were 53 links, and as I wrote each number, I said it out loud, emphasized the pattern.  I could tell she caught on  in the teens because she said "fourteen, fiveteen, sixteen."  In the twenties and thirties, I showed her how each number in the ones place grew by one, but the number in the tens place stayed the same.  Exposure, exposure, exposure.  Every night, she'll get to tear one off, which will also let her practice counting backwards!

Kindergarten Prep: Teach Your Kids to Use Scissors

This is a simple skill that is used a lot in kindergarten, but stay at home moms may not think about it as an activity to do with their own kids. Your child will be using scissors quite often when they get to school, and cutting is usually not the ultimate objective in the activity.  Students will cut out objects and then do something with them, like ordering smallest to largest.  If your child is already proficient with scissors, it will clear the way for other academic objectives.  Plus, kids love to cut.  Preschoolers could spend hours just cutting paper.

Get a pair of kid's safety scissors at your local grocery store ($1.88 last time I checked at Walmart).

Teach them safety rules about the scissors:

1. Stay seated while cutting

2. No running with scissors (ha ha)

3. When passing scissors to other people, hold the blades, not the handle.

About 2 1/2 to 3 is a good time to introduce scissors, depending on your child's development and trustworthiness with potentially sharp objects.

Harder paper is easier to cut, so pick up some construction or scrapbooking paper while you're at Walmart.  

When cutting shapes, kids will try to move their hand around the paper, instead of turning the paper in relation to their hand.  Help them to use one hand to hold the paper and move it as they cut.  

Draw straight, wavy and jagged lines on a paper for them to cut along.  

Let them dig through old magazines and cut out pictures of things they like.  Let them glue the pictures onto paper to make a collage.  You can make color collages, nature collages, animal collages, use your imagination!

The Wonder of Playdough

Play dough is a fabulous thing.  Buy it or make it, roll it or squash it, it is a toy and a tool that can be used for a lot more than just making pretend tacos.  Playdough can be a great way to enhance your child's learning in a lot of different area.  It is a great way to build hand strength and small motor skills.

There are a lot of different ways to learn, through listening, speaking, creating, music, physical movement, etc.  Anytime that children can use two or more different ways to learn an idea, the more quickly and more permanently the information will stick.  Think about how often we use music or hand motions to memorize something.  We are using two different avenues to get the info into our brain, and it works.

So having your child use play dough is a  great way to learn and practice new skills.  Here are some practical ideas that you might like to use with your kids:

Language and Literacy:
Use the play dough to build letters and familiar words.  If your child has trouble rolling and creating the necessary shapes, you can build the parts for them and have them put the pieces together like a puzzle.

Make capital letters and lower case in different colors.

Math:
Make chocolate chip cookies and count how many chips each cookie has.

Make a pizza for everyone in your family.  How many will you need?

Cut your pizza in half to introduce fractions.

Make numbers out of the play dough.  Make small balls of play dough to match the numbers.

Science:

Make familiar bugs.  How many body parts does a spider have?  How many legs?  How about an ant?

We use the top of a large tupperware tub for our workspace.  Even Jack joins in the fun making play dough soup (taste testing and all).

Here is a good recipe for home made play dough.  

Cooked Playdough (flour and salt)

3 cups flour

1.5 cups salt

6 tsp cream of tarter

3 tbsp oil

3 cups water

Dissolve salt in the water. Pour all ingredients into a large pot.  Stir constantly over medium heat until a ball forms by pulling away from the sides.  Knead the dough mixture until the texture matches play dough (1-2 minutes).  Store in a plastic container.

Kindergarten Prep: Teach Your Child to Read, Part Two

Letter/Sound Recognition


Letter and Sound recognition is exactly what is sounds like.  Know the names of each letter and what its major sound.  I only teach the short vowel sounds.  (The short vowel sound is the most common...apple, egg, igloo, octopus, umbrella)  I like to teach that c has two sounds (/s/ and /k/)  because it is so common, but that's my only exception. 

First, teach the ABC song.  You know, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but with the letters of the alphabet instead?  Sing it clearly so they understand that L M N O and P aren't all one word :)

Read tons of ABC books.  Point out the names of the letters.  One of our favorites is the Dr. Suess' ABC Book.  I like it because it tells the letter names and it shows the upper case and lower case for each letter.  We read it so much for a while that I had it memorized and I would recite it to Maggie in the car.

Point out letters in your kid's world.  (I can think of one really big golden M right now that all children recognize.) Kids are most interested in their names and the names of those they love.  Write their names for them, point out the letters, sound out Mom and Dad as you write them.  As you read books, point to the letters that begin important words in their world.  "Look, an L, like your name Lauren!"

Don't be afraid to start teaching letter sounds at the same time as letter names.  "I see an M! What does M say?  Mmmmm...."  Again, use the ABC books as an easy way to introduce it.  Kids have amazing memories and the ability to pull information out of their brains way faster than we can. (They don't have to try and remember the to do list, the people to call list, and the trying to schedule in a shower for the day into their every day thoughts).

Not all words can be sounded out easily.  Any name that has double letters or ends in "ie" breaks the rules already!  If they ask, just simply tell them the exception to the rule and move on.  "When i and e sit next to each other, they say ee."  "Sometimes O likes to say it's name!  O!"  Don't stress over all the rules now (even English teachers can't remember them all).  Remember, this is just giving your kiddo the basics.

Give your child lots of time and materials with which to write and build letters.  Magnadoodles, markers, highlighters, tub letters, blocks, magnet letters, playdough....sit with them and write letters and names.  Talk about them while you write.  Kids are the great imitators.  They may not seem like they are paying attention, but they are.  Just be prepared to write their names over and over...and over...and over....

Play the "What else starts with...?" game.  Start with your child's name.  Say, Jason starts with J.  /J/, /J/, Jason!  What else starts with /J/?  Name some words yourself.  If they are interested, the will probably ask you to name some more.  After a while, they will start naming some of their own.  At first, it will probably just be imitation, naming off the words you've named.  But that's good!  They're interested and their brain is working in the right direction!

Flashcards with letters are great.  Don't be a dictator, just bring them out every once in a while and talk about the letters as long as your child is interested.  Put them somewhere your child can access them on their own.  You'll soon find them sorting through them and naming the letters on their own!  You might also find them strewn about your kitchen floor (that's okay too :)

There are tons of DVDs and CDs out there that can help encourage your child to learn their letters.  It's not necessary, but if your kid digs it, great. I'm not recommending any in particular (sorry) because the kind used in good schools cost way too much for normal people, and I've just never bought any cheaper ones for home use.

Next: Pre-Reading

Kindergarten Prep: Teach Your Kid to Play by the Rules

I see parents do it a lot.  Let kids "win" by changing the rules to a game in order to build their confidence.  The heart behind it is good, but ultimately, what your teaching your child is going to be a hindrance when they get around other kids.  I see the results of this especially in only children.  For example:

I had a group of students who wanted to play Candyland.  All of them were cheering and talking about how they played the game at home.  Two of them were playing by the traditional rules, but the third child kept wanting to play by a different set. "No, when I get two yellow, it actually means I can go four!"  "No, I don't have to miss my turn when I land there."  He's probably been allowed to "fudge" the rules at home, either because parents don't want to him to have to lose, or because they wisely know that Candyland can actually take up to four hours to play :)  Either way, the other kids were getting mad and he was really upset when he didn't win.

Teach your kids to play by the rules and to be good losers.  Teach them how to respond to losing by congratulating the winner (Good game!) and consoling themselves with positive statements (Maybe next time!  That was fun! You win some, you lose some! and Maggie's favorite, Bummer dude!).  Teach them to be good winners. (Maybe you'll win next time!  Thanks for playing with me.)

Play games that are age appropriate so you don't have to change anything.  Or if you do change the rules, explain what you are doing and why, and keep the changes consistent.  Tell them that when they are older you will teach them the big kid rules.  If you've got a younger sibling that wants to play, ask your older child to help make a different set of rules for them.  Keep it in the open and on the up and up.  Explain that when the younger child gets to be as old as they are, they will play by the real rules too.

Follow the rules yourself.  If your child sees you breaking the rules, they'll think it's okay to do it themselves, then wonder why they get into trouble.

What this will mean for your child:  They will be more confident when they lose and more gracious when they win.  Future classmates may find other faults with your child, but at least he won't be labelled "cheater" or "unfair", banning him from all group games on the playground.

What this will mean for their teacher: A child she can trust to be in charge of teaching other kids the rules, whether they be how to play a board game or how to walk down to the office with a message.

Kindergarten Prep: Boundaries

There are several things I wish my kindergarteners knew when they walked through my door.  This category will contain skills to teach your child that will make them their teacher's favorite.  Okay, maybe not, but it will be one less thing standing between your child and the actual education you want them to receive.  

Kindergarten Prep:  Teaching Your Child Boundaries

In this case, specific physical boundaries.  At home, your kiddo can probably take their toy cars and have an adventure all over the house.  In school, he'll be confined to a rug in the corner of the room.  Teach your children ahead of time that certain toys have certain areas they need to stay in.  Not all toys. I mean, that's one of the best things about being a stay at home kid-you get to use your whole house as a playground!  This builds imagination and creativity.  But choose some toys that are required to stay in certain areas.  Make some areas of your house off limits, and tell them why. (Safety, this is Mommy's space, etc.)  Have your kids put toys back in the same place every time when they are cleaning up.  I find buckets of varying sizes to be great for this.  Maggie has organization down to an art. She knows where things go and is really good about putting them back there.  As anyone who knows me personally can tell you, she didn't get this from me.  A positive school environment has taught her this.  

Having a toddler will make this difficult, but kids as young as 18 months can understand this concept if it's taught consistently.  Keep at it... it will pay off in the end!

What this will translate into is this:  Your kid will be the kid building a lego fort at the table instead of the running around the classroom flying their lego airplane.

What this means for their teacher: One less child to run after, redirecting them back to the right place in the room.

This is part of our toy organization system.  Maggie gets a few buckets, plays with the toys in the living room, and ideally puts the bucket back where it goes.  Ha ha-as you can tell, we don't really hold to labels very much around here.

This is the kids' room after a Jack attack.  So our expectations for him are a little lower, but at least it all stayed in the room!