Easy, inexpensive ways to prepare your child for Kindergarten at home and in your community!
Many kids love to make messes, and summer is a great time for messy outdoor fun! Vinegar and baking soda are inexpensive ingredients you can use for hours of fun, inside or out. If you have a sandbox, build a “volcano”, a pile of sand with a deep hole from the top down. Fill the hole with baking soda, and then pour in a cup of vinegar to watch the volcano “erupt”! Look at your local library for some books about volcanoes to read to your child. Gail Herman’s book The Magic School Bus Blows Its Top is one of our favorites!
Here are a few other fun activities to try with vinegar and baking soda:
While you have the hose out, try filling a baby pool or some buckets with water and give your child a variety of containers, measuring cups, measuring spoons, funnels and a couple of sponges. They will have lots of fun measuring and pouring the water as they keep cool on a summer day! You can also give them some paintbrushes and rollers and invite them to “paint” the driveway, sidewalk or the walls of your home with water!
The month of April is a wonderful time to visit a farm! Your local library will have free passes to local farms in your community. Baby animals are being born, caterpillars are hatching, birds are laying eggs, and spring has sprung! Before your visit, talk with your child about what you may see, and ask them to predict which animals live on a farm. Your library will have lots of books on display about baby farm animals this month, so do some reading together before you go. It’s also fun to sing, “Old Macdonald Had a Farm” or “Down on Grandpa’s Farm”, changing the lyrics to your child’s name.
After your farm visit, have your child dictate and illustrate a story about the day. If you have stuffed animals at home, encourage your child to build a farm for them with boxes or blocks (or anything else you have on hand). They will love playing farmer and caring for all of their animals!
As you take walks with your child this month, help them to look for signs of this exciting season, such as birds building nests, trees beginning to bud, and the first flowers of the year starting to bloom. You’re bound to find something exciting and new with each passing day! Here are a few wonderful springtime books to borrow from your local library:
And Then It’s Spring By Julie Fogliano
What Will Hatch? By Jennifer Ward
Let It Rain By Maryann Cocca-Leffler
When Spring Comes By Kevin Henkes
The Very Hungry Caterpillar By Eric Carle
Early spring is a good time to be outdoors, in the mud and rain, looking for buds on trees and bushes. Birds return from their winter retreats, so be on the lookout for their arrival. The library has good identification books for birds and plants in your area. There are lots of science activities to do this month involving planting, measuring and graphing. Buy a packet of inexpensive seeds at your local store. Some great kid-friendly plants are snap peas, sunflowers, cherry tomatoes and marigolds. Basil and other herbs are fun and useful as well! Use a container of some sort and fill it with soil. Placing a few rocks on the bottom and poking a couple of holes in the bottom of the container will help with drainage. Remember to place something underneath the container so that you don’t leave marks on your table or counter top. Let your child plant the seeds and find a sunny location in which to watch them grow. Have your child water the plants according to the directions on the packet. When your seeds begin to sprout, measure their daily growth and make a chart to record your observations. If you grow plants such as peas or tomatoes, you can transplant them outdoors in May, and continue to record and observe their progress throughout the summer! Another option is to plant root vegetables, like carrots, onions, radishes, turnips or carrots, in a glass jar. Fill the bottom quarter of the jar with pebbles, then dirt, and then plant the seeds. You’ll be able to observe the growth through the glass walls of the jar! Look for springtime stories, such as Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed, and Lois Ehlert’s Planting a Rainbow, at your local library. Your librarian is sure to have others on display as well!
February is a fun month to celebrate love! Valentine’s Day provides a perfect theme for this month’s activities. Use whatever you have available at home – pencils, markers, paper, scissors, glue – and invite your child to make their own valentines for loved ones and friends. Help your child make a list of people to whom they’d like to send a valentine. Have them practice writing names on paper, a white board or a chalkboard before they write them on the valentines. Alternatively, you can write the names for them in pencil and then have your child trace over the letters with a crayon or marker.
Have your child look through catalogues and use scissors to cut out pictures that they like. Next, have them make a collage by gluing the pictures on a sheet of construction paper. You can also make a “book” by folding a few sheets of paper in half and stapling along the fold.
The small hard candy hearts available in stores this time of year are great for a science experiment! Fill a few glasses with different liquids such as water, soda, juice and vinegar. Predict with your child what you think might happen if you place a candy in the glass with water. Guess what will happen immediately, then after a minute, then after 5, etc. Do the same with the other liquids. Will the reaction of the candy to the liquid be different? If you’re feeling really ambitious, you can make a chart to record the results of your experiments!
Make pink play dough for this month! Our favorite play dough recipes are available on the website! Have your child help with measuring ingredients and stirring after they cool a bit.
Looking for a special Valentine’s Day snack your child can make at home? Place a heart-shaped cookie cutter on a plate and then fill the cookie cutter with strawberry yogurt and fresh or frozen fruit. Place it in the freezer for two hours to make a yummy and healthy frozen yogurt treat.
Enjoy your last official month of winter!
Happy New Year!!!
At this moment in Massachusetts there is a roaring blizzard outdoors. Snow, wind and cold prevail. It snowed as far south as Florida this week, so outdoor winter activities in the snow may be useful even in the southern United States this year! One of our favorite activities to do with young children is to make snow ice cream. Use measuring cups and spoons and experiment with different amounts of snow, condensed milk, sugar (or not), and vanilla or other flavoring. Record or make a chart of the amounts you use and the results! Be sure to use fresh snow for this activity.
Looking for animal tracks in the snow is an outdoor project that can involve recording, drawing and charting. Tell stories about the animals whose tracks you’ve seen! In Massachusetts the website Mass.gov has a section called Mass Wildlife Pocket Guide to MA animal tracks, or you can find a book of animal tracks at your local library. If your little ones need to burn some energy, make paths in the snow and play tag, staying on the paths.
There are many other fun activities than can be used as learning experiences as well. Sledding, skiing, hiking and skating are all opportunities to be creative! Once you’re home warm and snug with a cup of hot chocolate, invite your child to draw a picture of their outdoor adventure or have them dictate a story to you about it and then read their words back to them. You can also recreate the winter wonderland indoors by filling a plastic tub or bowl with snow and bringing it inside for your child to play with. Your child can use twigs to make “trees” in their winter scene, and they can create habitats for small toy animals or use toy trucks to plow and drive in their snow.
We hope that you stay warm, have fun, and enjoy this beautiful season!
Kindergarten Prep at Home 