Ways to Start Your Kids Reading

Every child is different and has their own pace of learning new things. When we talk about developing reading skills for pre-K, let’s also consider the fact that expecting more can lead to frustration and thereby turn them off from developing interest in reading. Reading during after school care or after school programs, and at home, will certainly help. In this article, we go through some of the skills that your kids can develop at pre-k age to start reading.

Get Your Kids Interested and Excited in Reading Books

Get your kids in the mood to read! There are several ways to go about this. First, make printouts that are readily visible to them. Like a shopping list, a food recipe, or even an email. Second, whatever you’re reading, make it obvious that you’re enjoying it! Third, read to your child each and every day, but do it in an upbeat yet natural manner. Fourth, let your child pick their own books from the book basket or library-something that they’d find interesting.

Help Kids Learn How to Narrate

When your kids know how to narrate, this means they can retell stories and describe things, as they typically do in pre-K activities. In order to promote their narrating skills, you can indulge in pretend play. Have story telling sessions. Ask them open ended questions. Read repetitive books as this helps in developing the predictability skill. 

Allow Kids to Be Aware of What’s on Print

This is what we call print awareness—being able to notice and understand the function of print, in that each word on a page means a word that can be spoken (such as pre-K sight words). Print awareness also means being able to handle a book, knowing where in the book you’re reading, learning how to hold a book, and turning pages one at a time and in the right direction. Allow them to independently handle a book. While reading to them, point out the words as you go along. You can also point out familiar words when going out shopping or dinning.  

Build Kids’ Vocabulary

In building pre-Ks’ vocabulary, we simply help them to know how things are named and linking them to ideas, feelings, or objects. This also comes under the umbrella of oral language skills. What is important here is the linking. You do not need to put together flashcards. You can go about this through this process by reading books with a lot of pictures, use a wide range of words when you talk to your child. Make sure to tell them the meaning of unfamiliar and new words. Finally, ask your child to describe their objects or toys. Think about the right words so they can explain it.

Let them Play with Individual Sounds

To increase their awareness of phonics, encourage them to say silly stuff, give them word riddles to figure out (like pre-K games), challenge your kid to alter the sound of a word in the beginning or at the end (for example, change fat to cat to sat, or cap to can to cat), and sing your child some fun nursery rhymes.

Although these may seem like a lot of things that you need to do to get your kids reading, a good first step is to enroll them at one of the best pre-K school in Circa FishHawk FL, such as Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academy. Located in Circa/FishHawk, FL, the learning center is there to guide your kids through their beginning phases of reading!

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Fun Halloween Activities for Pre-K Kids

It’s October and you know what that means—Halloween—for pre-k kids, that means so many fun Halloween activities. These don’t have to be scary or terrifying, but it can be a bit crawly, creepy…and full of learning! Here, we line up some fun Halloween activities to help develop fine motor and counting skills at the same time.

Halloween Sensory Bucket/Bin

Pre-K kids can explore a Halloween sensory bucket or bin. Fill the base with dried black beans and look for Halloween toys and stickers with numbers on them. The goal is to find the complete set for every toy.

Halloween Remembering Game with Stickers

Stickers may seem pretty straightforward, but you can get Halloween-themed stickers and use them as a memory game. This activity can be fun and at the same time help improve their cognitive abilities. Base on the stickers they have collected and leftover ones, encourage them to build a story around it, little spooky and funky related to the Halloween theme. They can even add more details to their story using coloring supplies. Then, the child can describe their story to the group. Talk about learning games for pre-k!

Halloween Separating and Counting Game

Have kids paint Lima beans white on one side and green on the other for a game. Then describe that green side would be a goblin while the white side would be a ghost. Draw a simple face with an “o” for the mouth. In order to start the game, let them pour the beans out of the tiny container and inside a tray. Ask them to separate the goblins from the ghosts and count how many they have of each kind.

Halloween Monster Faces and Shapes

Get kids to create their own monster faces using precut foam stickers. Other than creating a monster-rific face, ask them to even create shapes. They can indicate which shapes they made and count the number of shapes they actually included in the mask. This helps improve the motor skills.

Halloween Lanterns with Plastic Bottles

To create a Halloween lantern, all that are needed are: a plastic drinking bottle, acrylic paint, pipe cleaners, a black marker, and a tea light candle (use battery operated ones). Cut the bottom part of the plastic bottle with a craft knife. Then, ask the child to paint this plastic bottle using kid-friendly paint. Use white for ghost and orange for pumpkin. As soon as this is dried, put holes on the top of the lantern with a craft knife. Put a pipe cleaner through to create the handle and twist the pipe cleaner round so as to make sure the handle doesn’t move. Ask your child to draw faces on the lanterns and position the tea light candle inside. Not only is this fun, it’ll teach kids how to recycle!

Halloween Potato Prints

Now this is a simple, fun, and messy pre-k activity. For sure the pre-K kids will love it! Cut a couple of Halloween shapes using potatoes. Then squirt poster paint on paper plates. Show the child how to stamp these potatoes to make potato prints on paper. Use it as a wallpaper you can design their room with! This is definitely great for those in the pre-kindergarten age.

Halloween Pumpkin Washing

Contrary to initial notions, having a washing station for pumpkins is pretty straightforward! This can be done as a group game involving other kids as well. Use a few buckets for the water area, put together a couple of pitchers for the kids to pour water on the pumpkins, a few washcloths, a scrubber, and a drying towel. The great thing about this Halloween activity is that it teaches practical life skill sets and at the same time gets the kids involved. It helps builds up their teamwork and social skills.

Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academy of Circa/FishHawk entertains and amuses children but makes sure that they learn as. Leave a comment below about the fun activities that you’ve planned for your kids this Halloween.

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Help Your Young Ones Conquer Separation Anxiety

Pre-kindergarten days are tough, especially for children on their first day, whether it be a daycare or preschool. More often than not, children would rather be with their family at home than be in a new environment with strangers. If they are of pre-k age, they are most likely to feel separation anxiety.

As loved ones, it’s challenging to figure out the right thing to do and say to a child. There is no easy fix. However, some ways are more helpful compared to others. Here are few things you can do to make it less stressful for your pre-k—and yourself!

Talk to Your Child Before It Occurs

Make a plan to talk to your child before separation anxiety happens. If the idea of going to school gives them anxiety, talk to them about it. Reassure them that you’ll pick them up when school wraps-up for the day. Have a countdown calendar to give them a sense as to the start and end of school. Speak to your child about the upcoming day. Go through a ritual with them of preparing their things, picking out an outfit, choosing their snacks—all ahead of time. The more they know about the process, the fewer surprises and the better their coping mechanism gets.

Introduce the Preschool Environment to Them Before They Go By Themselves

Show your child their pre-k learning center before they long before they start first day of school. If there’s a playground for recess, show it to them and play in the late afternoon or in the early evening. If there’s an open house, take the opportunity to go around the area so they feel comfortable and familiarize themselves with their new school. See if you can get a teacher to engage your child in some pre-k games or activities. Find out what the typical pre-K lesson plan looks.

Create and Establish a Goodbye Routine

The important thing to a goodbye routine is to stick to it. It could be a secret handshake or a peck on the cheek. Maybe you can give your child a tiny item that they can give back to you at the end of the day when you pick them up. This will give them the reassurance you’ll be back. But, no matter what the goodbye routine you decide on, the good thing to remember is that you have to leave once you’ve done the routine. Do not get pulled into staying much longer or giving a longer goodbye. Set expectations that goodbye is indeed goodbye, until school ends for the day.

Keep It Together

Show outwardly that you’re calm and collected, even if you feel like you’re dying inside. Keep in mind that your child going to school is a good thing. So put on a brave face and show that you have it all together. While keeping your emotions to yourself isn’t good practice in life, keep in mind that for this moment in particular, when your child is going through separation anxiety, you have to make them feel secure when they’re in unfamiliar surroundings and people.

Remember Not to Bribe or Threaten

Don’t calm your pre-k down with rewards or threats. Don’t tell them that you’ll buy them ice cream if they go in or that they won’t have any screen time if they don’t deal with it. Although this may seem reasonable right now, rewards and threats should never be options. Separation anxiety is an instinctual and natural response that children can overcome through support and assistance.

Offer Preschoolers Calming Words and Logic

Give children calming words and logic to make them go through the feelings on their own. Offer them the tools to deal with it, whether it’s taking deep breaths, looking through school and acknowledging there is nothing to be afraid of.

The Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academy of Circa/FishHawk lets your children transition comfortably and seamlessly from your home to school. If you live around the area of Circa/FishHawk, FL, schedule an appointment or a school visit with your child and check some of their pre-k programs, and after school programs.

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