Get Your Child Ready for School
by Caroline G. Shaw

Mom, Dad, play with your child.

Take out some paints, some paper and help your child discover colors. Mix colors as you name them. Paint shapes, paint animals with the shapes.

Take your child to the park. Talk about what you see. Show them boats in the bay or on the river, lake or creek. Go feed the ducks.

Go visit a farm and introduce your child to the cows, pigs, horses, kitties...whatever. Buy some farm produce and go home and make a salad or cook some veggies.

Bake with your child. Talk about measurement… 1 cup of this or that, ½ cup of that… 1 tbsp. of brown sugar, 1 tsp. of vanilla. Make something with cloth. Measure it first…perhaps a little pocket purse or pouch. Talk about which is heavier…a pencil or a toothpick, which is more…a drop of water or a cup of water.

Take them to the zoo and come home and make a book of all the animals you saw together. Find pics of them on the net and print to place in his/her book. http://nationalzoo.si.edu/default.cfm

Make letter cards…practice them with your child. Practice the sounds as well as the names of the letters. Make number cards and do the same.

Have library day…go to the library and pick a book to read with your child. Go to a second hand bookstore and buy some books for your child. Read the books over and over again. Ask questions about the story. Have your child retell the story. Have your child draw the story.

Buy some play money. Talk about pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. A penny is 1 cent, a nickel is 5 cents (etc.) Ask how many pennies are in a nickel. How many in a dime? How many coins make 12 cents, 13 cents (etc.)?

Review shapes with your child …have a shape of the week, number/letter of the day, color of the day, shape of the day.

Get a children's magazine and read the stories, do the activities with your child. Help your child direct a play with neighborhood friends. http://www.parentinginformation.org/booksboxes.htm

Hug your child, pray with your child at night, go on walks in the woods with your child. Go to the pool with your child. Love them and take time for them. They grow up quickly. My youngest is going into 10th grade!

Get Your Child Ready for School, From U.S. Dept. of Education: http://readyweb.crc.uiuc.edu/library/1992/getready/getready.html

About the Author: Caroline Shaw is a mom of six, she lives with her husband, Bernie, three children, (still at home) two kitties and a collie near Pittsburgh. A graduate of Duquesne Univ. in Pittsburgh, she is publisher and editor of an online magazine, A Moms Love, written for and by Moms. She authors two newsletters: AMomslove and Workathomeideas.

Also read:Little Things Mean Alot
(Stop bullying and tattling!) by Ellie Braun-Haley

Read The Legend of the Tooth Fairy by Nancy Wurtzel Founder of AllAboutBaby.com

Get Your Child Ready for School
by Caroline G. Shaw

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