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Learning Tip: Before, during and after
When you are planning an outing with your child, encourage your child to talk about it before, during and after.
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Learning Tip: Write on!
Encourage your child to “write” by providing large sheets of paper and crayons or pencils to practice.
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Learning Tip: Toy ordering
Ordering and sequencing in daily routines prepares your child for addition and subtraction.
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Learning Tip: Who is tallest?
Point out and encourage your child to compare different sizes.
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Learning Tip: Empty slates
Track your child’s daily accomplishments—you will both cherish them later.
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Learning Tip: Making friends
Help your child understand social skills by talking about feelings together.
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Learning Tip: Toy cleanup display game
When it's time to pickup his toys, encourage your child to create a toy display.
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Learning Tip: Classification
Putting away groceries can be an opportunity for your child to learn sorting and classification.
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Learning Tip: Classification around the house
Opportunities to learn how to sort and classify are all around your house.
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Learning Tip: Toy classification
Ask your child to sort his toys into different groups.
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Learning Tip: What to wear
Help your child develop autonomy and sense of self.
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Learning Tip: Encourage independence
Making her own simple meals or snacks makes your child feel responsible and accomplished.
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Learning Tip: Supermarket sort
Supermarkets are full of learning games to play with your child.
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Learning Tip: Coupon match
Help your child to sharpen her memory skills on your next trip to the supermarket.
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Learning Tip: Visual memory
Sharpen your child's memory with this anytime, anywhere game that can be played daily.
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Learning Tip: Fine art
Show your child that you value his creativity.
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Learning Tip: Name that tune
Use your child’s love of music to play the classic guessing game.
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Learning Tip: Dance to the music
Help your child express himself through dance.
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Learning Tip: What do you do all day?
Discover how your child sees you.
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Learning Tip: Ghost writing
Send your your preschooler a secret messages that only he can reveal.
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Learning Tip: Go Ahead, Spray It!
Help your child learn to write by filling a spray bottle with water and letting him loose! (In the backyard, of course.)
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Learning Tip: Make Scissors Kid's Play
Let your child practice cutting with scissors by cutting play dough.
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Learning Tip: Prewriting Activities for Preschoolers
Give your child lots of opportunities to color, draw and scribble. These activities help coordinate the muscles of the hand to hold a pencil, which is essential for learning to write.
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Learning Tip: Embrace a Sticky Situation
Let your preschooler have plenty of opportunities to squeeze glue.
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Learning Tip: Draw on Your Strengths
Supply your preschooler with crayons instead of markers in order to develop hand strength as she draws.
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Learning Tip: Getting in Touch with Feelings
When reading stories or watching TV, talk to your child about the emotions of the characters.
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Learning Tip: How was your day?
Invite your child to give you the details of his day.
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Learning Tip: Ask questions
Ask questions that require your child to give more than a yes or no response.
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Learning Tip: "Read" the pictures
When you read aloud to your child, ask him to name and describe objects and characters that appear in the illustrations.
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Learning Tip: Story time
Ask your child to tell you a story, then ask questions that help your child keep the story going and add details.
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Learning Tip: Picture stories
Spark your child’s imagination and interest in reading and creative writing.
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Learning Tip: Edible ABCs
Shape cookie dough into the letters of the alphabet to give your child practice forming letters.
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Learning Tip: Short names, long names
Test your child by asking her to tell you which of two names sounds longer.
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Learning Tip: I Spy
Help your child learn the letters in her name by playing I Spy.
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Learning Tip: Beginning sounds
Teach your child letter sounds by helping him come up with words that begin with the same sound as the first letter in his name.
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Learning Tip: Name game
Clap out the syllables of your child’s name, then the names of people your child knows.
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Learning Tip: First sounds
Challenge your child to name the beginning sounds of objects around her.
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Learning Tip: Shopping for letters
At the grocery store, search for items that begin with a particular sound.
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Learning Tip: Picnic
Plan a picnic with your child by thinking of items that begin with the same sound.
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Learning Tip: Body parts
Concentrate on the letter H while teaching the parts of the body.
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Learning Tip: At the zoo
Look for animals at the zoo that begin with a particular letter.
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Learning Tip: Tasty Ts
Wherever you and your child go, find ten things that can be tasted and begin with the letter T.
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Learning Tip: Learn the letter sounds
Rhyme is a fun way to reinforce letter-sound associations.
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Learning Tip: Letter of the day
Pick a letter of the day and look for it everywhere.
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Learning Tip: Cookie, cat & comb
Have your child complete a list of words that begin with the same sound.
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Learning Tip: Rhyme time
Teach your child simple rhymes to say along with you.
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Learning Tip: Blue shoe, fat cat
Play this game with your child to create simple rhymes together.
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Learning Tip: Rhythm and Rhyme
Show your child how rhythm and rhyme can be good memorization tools.
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Learning Tip: Red letter day
Challenge your child to discover how many ways she can use or identify the assigned letter of the day.
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Learning Tip: Food for thought
Cooking together is a great opportunity to teach your child new words.
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Learning Tip: What's that?
When at a store, teach your child the names of new things.
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Learning Tip: Comprehending stories
At different points in a story you read aloud, ask your child to recount what’s happened so far.
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Learning Tip: Build comprehension strategies
Discuss story characters and their actions to help your child comprehend and interpret what has just been heard.
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Learning Tip: That's my name!
Help your child learn to print his first name.
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Learning Tip: Writing corner
Set up an area for your child to practice writing the alphabet.
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Learning Tip: Somewhere over the rainbow
Stretch your child's vocabulary and his acquaintance with colors using a simple box of crayons.
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Learning Tip: Bubbles of fun
Persuade a reluctant bather by adding an element of fun to bath time.
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Learning Tip: The Importance of Print
Raise a reader by providing a home that is rich with books and print.
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Learning Tip: Pretend Reading
Does your prereader pretend to read her own books? If so, keep it up!
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Learning Tip: Connect the Dots for Letter Learning
Draw dots for your child to connect to write his name.
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Learning Tip: Book Learning
Introduce your preschooler to the world of books and you'll inspire a lifelong love of learning.
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Learning Tip: Cinderella, Cinderella
Educational, or sexist? Do fairy tales have a place in our modern world?
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Learning Tip: Break It Down
Break words down into their phonemes, or individual sounds, to develop phonemic awareness.
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Learning Tip: Give Some Name Recognition
When reading to your child, state the name of the author and illustrator.
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Learning Tip: Learn at First Sight
Find a common sight word in a book you are reading with your child and hunt for it on other pages.
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Learning Tip: Name those numbers
Help your child learn to identify numbers.
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Learning Tip: Numbers everywhere
Look for numbers everywhere you go.
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Learning Tip: That counts!
Make counting to 10 part of your child's everyday routine.
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Learning Tip: What's next?
Begin a number sequence. Can your child provide the next three numbers?
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Learning Tip: Mathematical literacy
Use read aloud time as an opportunity to develop mathematical literacy.
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Learning Tip: Setting the table
This easy chore helps establish early number sense and one-to-one correspondence.
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Learning Tip: Constancy
Constancy is one of the more difficult math concepts for your child to grasp.
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Learning Tip: Take stock
Ask your child to take inventory of the pantry and help create a shopping list to help him learn how to sort and classify.
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Learning Tip: One, two, buckle my shoe
Mother Goose and other collections of nursery rhymes are rich resources for math literacy.
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Learning Tip: Take a number
Your child can practice number recognition on a shopping trip.
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Learning Tip: Number safari
Challenge your child’s number sense by embarking on a number safari.
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Learning Tip: Count your snacks
Use snack time as an opportunity for your child to practice early math skills.
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Learning Tip: Name that shape
Help your child recognize and name basic shapes.
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Learning Tip: Special shapes
Help your child expand the number of different shapes he can name.
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Learning Tip: Dough shapes
Give your child practice forming and identifying different shapes.
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Learning Tip: Math at the market
Help your child develop their sense of volume, space and quantity.
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Learning Tip: Learning sizes
Point out noticeable size differences to your child.
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Learning Tip: Six-pack recycle
Help your child understand that a numeral can represent a number of objects.
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Learning Tip: Hands-On Measurement Activities
Use unconventional tools to measure things around the house.
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Learning Tip: Numbers, Numbers Everywhere
Incorporating counting into your daily routines will help strengthen preschool number learning.
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Learning Tip: Telling Time (Look, No Hands!)
Ask your child to read the numbers on a digital clock and say the time back to him.
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Learning Tip: Animal parts
Teach your child the parts of the body on different animals.
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Learning Tip: A new look at vegetables
Introduce a new perspective on vegetables that makes them seem like an earned treat.
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Learning Tip: Frozen peas
Use frozen peas to cool down hot soups and add nutrition.
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Learning Tip: Your Garden Science Lab
Take a trip into your garden to reinforce the science skills your child is learning in preschool.
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Learning Tip: Put "What If" to Work
Make the question, “What do you think would happen if…” part of your daily conversations with your child.
