This weekend activity works best if you dress your child up in a colorful outfit.

Say -If you’re wearing blue, clap your hands.

If you’re wearing red, hop twice.

If you’re wearing green, turn around and touch the ground.

And so on.

What this teaches her:

She learns to build on her color recognition skills , and practises listening carefully to instructions.

Have fun!

Measuring Activities for PreSchoolers

The concept of measuring distances in feet, or inches is a difficult one to grasp, but one your child will have to begin to learn soon.

Begin by using measuring scales that she understands – let her use steps or strides to measure the distance to the door, from the door to the car etc.

Count how many steps it takes to cover each length of distance.

Let her use arm lengths to cover the same distances. Let her compare the number of strides with the number of arm lengths taken to cover the same distance. This is also great practice for counting lessons.

Give her a dressmaker’s tape and begin measuring things –

• Her shoes
• Distances from her bed to the door
• The tiles on the floor
• The length of the carpet
• The hands of the sofa chair
• The car

Stick to a certain unit of measurement to avoid confusing her – only inches in the beginning, for instance.

Measurements –adding them, breaking them down – will be part of her studies soon enough, and this helps her to learn the basics.

Weighing Activity for PreSchoolers

Use your kitchen weighing scale for this measuring activity. Create a worksheet and make columns for the name of the item you’re measuring and the weight. Let her fill this on her own as she’s done with each weighing activity.

Give her a cup of rice, and show her how to weigh it.

Compare the weight of the cup of rice with other items – let her measure a cup of beans or lentils, or short grain rice, and compare the weights.

Give her a bag of rice, and ask her to fill another bowl using a small measuring cup. Let her count how many cups it takes to fill the bowl.

Break down this activity as you go along. How many spoons of rice does it take to fill a cup?

What She Learns

These activities help develop an understanding of weights and distance. Plus, there’s lots of counting involved which helps boost math skills. Noting down measurements on a worksheet on her own gives her a sense of accomplishment, of doing something on her own, and doing something right – always a self esteem booster.

Have fun, and keep smiling!

Sorting activities can lay a strong foundation for addition, counting and more advanced math skills. It can be taught using the most basic things around the house –

• Sorting forks and spoons,
• Sorting buttons and beads by colors,
• Sorting shoes by size,
• Sorting socks by pattern or color,

And so on.

If your child is up for newer challenges, teach her that things can be sorted into more than one category.

Giver her four lunch bags, shoe boxes or cartons. This game is easiest when you use building blocks.

Ask her to sort the blocks based on color and size. For instance – one bag for big red blocks, one for smaller red blocks, one for big blue blocks, another for small blue blocks.

This teaches her that that things can be both one thing and another.

Here’s how you can use these complex sorting games to boost math abilities. Ask her to count the sides of each block, and then sort into blocks with four sides and blocks without four sides.

You can also use buttons – let her sort them into round, square, with 4 holes and without four holes. So, she’ll end up with 4 categories of buttons -

round with four holes

round without four holes

square with four holes

squares without four holes

This preschool activity combines sorting with counting, and helps lay a foundation for finer math skills.

Kids love stories, and we love them because they encourage the use of imagination, and boost language and vocabulary skills.

Take a few minutes to create your child’s own story, by including his name, names of family members and pets, things in his house, his friends, his favorite games etc.

It could go like this.

Once upon a time, long long ago, there lived a wonderful little girl (her name). She lived with her mother (your name here), her father (her father’s name here), her brother and sister (insert her sibling’s names here. If you have pets include their names too). (Name) lived in a house with (number of rooms) rooms. There was a hall, a kitchen, a dining room, (insert all other rooms in the house here). In the hall there was a coat stand and a… (insert other objects here). In the kitchen, there was an oven,… (insert kitchen appliances, utensils, crockery and other objects here).

Every morning, (name) would wake up, brush her teeth… (insert her daily morning activities).

You can continue in this vein including other things your child loves to do, her favorite TV shows and games, the names of her friends and playmates, her aunts and uncles, grandparents etc.

This activity has multiple benefits. Your child learns to practice the names of people, objects and other things that are familiar to her, and she learns to form complete sentences. It has one more benefit that I absolutely love – it boosts self esteem and makes her feel important because the story revolves around her. That in itself, is enough reason to take part in this activity.

Have fun!

There are very few things that make people go Aww… like the sound of a little child at the other end of the phone speaking politely and calmly. Learning how to speak on the phone sets a pattern for kids as they get older. In these days of 6 year olds with their own cell phones, good old fashioned telephone manners are getting harder to come by. A mumbled ”Lo?” or “Yeah?” is getting to be the norm, even with adults.

Learning how to speak properly on the telephone is one of the most useful skills that you can teach your child. Telephone manners aren’t just about “Hello” and “May I ask who’s calling?”, but have a lot to do with proper message taking, and the correct way to pass on the telephone to the person who is needed at the phone.

In all probability, your child won’t be taking messages when you’re out of the house, since she’ll likely be with a sitter or other family member, but during bathroom breaks or when you’re busy elsewhere, it helps if your preschooler has some basic telephone manners in place.

Plus, telephone manners help her to learn voice control, since part of the process is learning to speak calmly and slowly over the phone. To help your child differentiate between the tones to be used in different situations, please read the basics of speech and manners for preschoolers.

Your preschooler is already quite familiar with telephones, and what they are used for, and has likely spent some time gurgling into her toy telephone as a baby. This makes your job easier because she is already familiar with the use of the instrument.

Use a toy telephone to begin teaching your child what to say on the phone. Begin by teaching her the proper way to answer the phone.

Hello, So and So’s residence.

Older kids can be taught to use their name (Lindsay speaking), but I wouldn’t recommend it for preschoolers. It’s just too easy for a stranger to find out her name, and use it as a chance to befriend her. A child is more likely to trust a person who uses her name. When she’s older and wiser, you can teach her to use her name, after the “Hello,” but for now a basic “Hello” or a “Hello” followed by the name of the family and residence will do just fine.

The second step to teach her is

May I know who’s calling?

This is harder to get. To make it easier for her, allow her to receive the telephone when it rings, stand in front of her and mouth the words when she begins to falter. You could ask your spouse or a friend to call for practice. This is one area where practice absolutely makes perfect.

Once she has the person’s name, teach her to go and call the person who’s needed at the phone. Many kids tend to hang up while they go call. Teach her to place the phone down on the table, and then go and call Mommy or Daddy– not to place it back on the set. Tell her to say “Just a moment, please” before she places the phone, so the caller knows she’s gone to fetch you.

Message taking is tricky among preschoolers – they’re too young to write anything down, or remember the names of whoever has called. You can use pretend telephone play to help her practice. Call the main phone from your cell phone, and pretend you’re some one calling for her mom or Daddy who isn’t at home. Teach her to ask

“I am sorry she’s not available at the moment. May I take a message?”

Again, this will take tons of practice.

Things to Watch Out For

I said this before and I’ll repeat it here – she must never give out her name to the caller at the other end.

She must never say no one’s at home. If you’re leaving her with a sitter, make sure to put the phone on the answering machine. Remember, when a telemarketer calls, he has your address on his computer screen. Having a child say there’s no one at home can be fool hardy.

She must not carry on a conversation with a stranger at the other end. Besides the fact that the other person might not be in the mood to chit chat with a little person, it can also be dangerous if the caller intends to get personal information out of her.

Tell her it’s always better to say “Mommy is not available to speak at the moment.” Not “Mommy is in the toilet!”

Teach her to speak calmly and slowly.

It won’t happen overnight, but with a little practice your child can master the art of perfect telephone conversation!

So, does your preschooler answer the phone at home?

Color recognition activities can start as early as age two, although it ultimately depends on your child.

Many kids tend to find primary colors more difficult to grasp, because the concept of things having different colors is not an easy one to understand. Don’t mix up all the colors in your enthusiasm – start with the three primary colors. Kids find it easier to understand when you can show them each color in the form of an object, rather than trying to point out colors on a chart.

Take a number of objects of the same color in a basket – toy cars, caps, building blocks. These should all be in solid red, blue or yellow. Let’s start with the color red.

Ask your child to hand you things one at a time:

Can you hand me the red car, please?

Next, ask him for the red cap.

Stress the word red always.

Do this for each object in the basket.

Once he’s been able to establish red, move on to yellow and blue.

When he becomes fairly comfortable with these three colors individually, begin mixing them up in a basket.

Can you hand me the red car and the yellow bowl please?

The yellow block and the blue truck?

This won’t happen overnight, but once the primary colors are firmly established, it’s easy and fun to begin experimenting with secondary colors.

Keep smiling!

Here’s a twist on an age old game to teach your child to recognize the starting sounds of a word.

1. Take a cloth bag, and attach a letter tag to it. Stick to letters that have consistent sounds like “b” or “f” to keep things simple.
2. Ask your child to find 5 things around the house that begin with that letter. You can progress to tougher letters as you go along.
3. Later, you can introduce her to combinations of letters like “sh.”

Enjoy!

Just in case it wasn’t obvious by now, I am a huge fan of using simple day to day activities and situations as opportunities to teach. There are countless activities in your day like cooking activities for preschoolers that you can use to create an enriching learning environment for your child.

I am one of those people who finds doing laundry very therapeutic. There’s something about dirty clothes going into the washer, and fresh clean clothes coming out that gives my mind a well deserved rest, and makes me fresh enough for new challenges. Some people meditate, others do yoga. I do laundry.

Whether you like doing laundry or not, here’s a sorting activity for your preschooler that you can use next laundry day. If she enjoys it, you could also add it to your list of chores for her to do. (You are giving her at least some chores, aren’t you?)

• Ask your child to help by sorting the dirty laundry into whites and coloreds, and then coloreds into wools, cottons and other fabrics.
• Once you’ve brought back the clean wash into the house, let her help you separate it into clothes and other things.
• Next up, ask her to separate clothes that belong to each family member.

What does she learn?

• Sorting according to fabric, and types of clothing
• Participating in a family activity (sense of accomplishment)
• A sense of neatness. (Hopefully, by the time she’s a teenager, she’ll have learned to actually fold her clothes and put them away, instead of cramming them all into the closet, and pushing against the door to lock it!)

Have fun!

Continuing with our series on sensory activities, here is an activity for sensory awareness of smell.  Sniffing and recognizing smells may be difficult for younger kids, but not if you introduce stronger and easily distinguishable fragrances.

Just like in the hearing activities, make two sets of jars, using a total of six jars, one set with red bottles and the other set in green bottles.  Plastic spice jars are fine, and so are baby food jars. 

Place a piece of cotton wool with a few drops of a particular liquid flavoring in each pair.  Use strong easily identifiable scents like lemon, vanilla, or herbs from your kitchen – lavender, rosemary.  If you want a stronger fragrance, use lemon rinds instead, or cinnamon, cloves or other strong spices.  If you’re not using cotton balls, you’ll have to make sure the bottles are opaque.

Ask your child to open and sniff a red jar, and then, open and sniff a green jar to find the matching green jar  with the exact same scent. 

This activity can be a lot of fun, especially when it comes to the strong scents!

 
Have fun, and keep smiling.

More sensory activities, and today, I wanted to focus on the sense of touch.

This is a simple activity that takes hardly any time for you to set up. Take a cloth or canvas bag (not a plastic or transparent one ), and fill with a variety of things that you can find around the house – toy cars, nuts, spoons, an apple, a stone or pebble from your yard, pine cones etc. Your child should be familiar with all the things in the bag, and should be able to name each without difficulty.

Ask your child to close her eyes, put her hand inside the bag, grab an object, and guess what it is.

As it gets easier for her to identify objects, increase the difficulty of the items – playing dice, coins etc. Increase the variety of tactile experiences for her – include satin and velvet ribbons, a feather, glass beads or small jars, small pom poms, a bell, a shoe brush.

Another activity is to have pairs of different fabrics – silk, velvet, cotton, plaid, corduroy and wool and mix them up in a basket. Ask your child to close her eyes, pick up a patch of fabric and find the other one that feels just like it. It’s not always easy, but once she gets more familiar with the difference in sensation when she touches silk and wool, she’ll be able to match more accurately. This is a great activity because she uses her sense of touch and her thinking powers to match fabrics.

Another touch activity – Sit in the yard or out in the open, and ask your child to close her eyes. Rub different objects one by one on her arm – a dry leaf, a stone, feather – and ask her to guess what they are.

Have fun!