Any ideas or games I can play with my daughter to help her learn her letters, numbers, read,etc?
my daughter is 4 and she just started kindergarten and she can recognize her letters and numbers but I want to practice them with her and have her trace them on paper and help her to start to recognize some words and she never wants to do it. She starts to complain when I try and wants to play or color.....so I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to make it fun???? maybe a game you play with your kids or any other sort of suggestions would be great
leslie b2011-09-21T10:58:30Z
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Don't worry about tracing quite yet. That's work! Try some fun play activities instead:
*Find a recipe for play dough on line and make it together, then play with it together. You roll yours into snakes and shape your snakes into letters. To make it meaningful to her, make the first letter of her first name. Look Mary, I made your M! Can you make it too? If it's "her" letter, she is more likely to try making it, but don't push. If she'd rather just make a snake that's fine too. Maybe next time she will try a letter.
*Make sure she has lots of fun writing tools and paper. You play too. If she is coloring and drawing, understand that she is developing fine motor strength and control that she needs for writing. That's important too. You write her name and show her what you did. Ask her if she can make her M. You may want to get some nice crayons, gel pens, glitter pens, colored chalk, colored pencils, etc. to make it fun and a little different each time you do it. What shall we play with today Mary? I know, how about these cool gel pens!
*Spray some shaving cream on the table. Don't worry, it's just soap! Write and draw in it together. This one is a blast! I think all kids love it!
*Fingerpaint together. Remind her that it's FINGERpaint! Show her how you use the end of your finger to make her M and a heart!
*Put some rice or flour on a cookie sheet and write and draw in it with your fingers. Again, show her that you made her M and her 4. You can also draw shapes like circles, squares, and triangles. Learning her shapes is another math skill.
*When you are playing with writing tools and paper, show her "rainbow writing". Write her name with one color, then trace over it with another color and another and another. This works the best with crayons. If she's not quite ready to write her name, maybe she will want you to write it so she can trace over it with different colors and make her rainbow name.
All of these are fun, playful activities that will reinforce her letter and number skills, develop fine motor skills, and teach her that reading and writing are fun activities.
First of all, don't push. She's going to school & doing well, you don't want to do anything that would make her less eager to learn.
If she enjoys drawing, make a book together. She can draw the pictures and tell you the story - you write it down. Try to use simple words so she can read it to her friends. Help her make her own family album & write something for each picture.
Play school and let her be the teacher. She will reinforce her knowledge when she shares it. To really make it fun, give her a package of stickers or stars.
Write her simple notes.
Read to her and ask questions about the story, or ask her if she could make a more interesting ending for the book.
I have a 4-year-old as well. She doesn't go to school yet and we tried preschool and she wasn't very happy with it so we pulled her out and are teaching her at home. We do flashcards with her, workbooks, have her trace her letters and words. To get it more fun, we made games out of it. Write a letter on a piece of paper and have her go on scavenger hunt looking for it. Or do a scavenger hunt of her name. Make an I Spy bottle and have her find things. We also labeled things around the house, so she could see the word and the item together. She needs to have a lot of language around her in order for her to want to do it.
Please don't push her at all. She's still so very young and it's very, very possible at this age to turn her off school-type work for life.
In terms of your daughter's cognitive development, there are two really important things to focus on: teaching her about the world around her and reading to her.
Four is a great age because you can take her out and about with you and talk with her. Everything is new and a potential learning experience for her if you're paying attention.
This learning-about-the-world is also sometimes called building background knowledge and there is strong proof that kids who start school with wide background knowledge do better throughout their school years.
Read more about it here - http://www.best-books-for-kids.com/building-background-knowledge.html
Most people realise that reading to children is really important but they probably don't realise just how important it is, why it's important or how often you need to do it.
The thing is, a child who is read good books often from birth learns to read naturally with very little in the way of actual teaching. You may think this is an exaggeration but it's been well-documented. You don't need special programmes or lesson you just need to read with your child and make it fun!
My own three children learned to read like this at the age of four, as did my four nephews. Believe me, no-one was most astounded than my sisters and I! Then I started reading about it and found that there is strong evidence that reading aloud can do this.
If you're interested in further info about this, have a look at this site -
Honestly, if I had Bill Gates' money I'd give a copy of one of these books (or both) to every parent on the planet. The information they contain is priceless.
So forget 'teaching' your daughter anything: just go to the library and get heaps of fantastic books and snuggle up to read together!
Play educational games together and have fun. http://www.learntheletters.com
Educational games for: Learning the alphabet, learning the numbers, learning the colors, learning the shapes, learn how to count, learn adjectives and many more.
Fun, Colorful and kid-friendly site. Play educational learning games for as little as 5 minutes per day, practice makes perfect If you like the site, please tell your friends!