Learning Begins at Home

You are your child’s first teacher and whether you know it or not, you have already been working to get your child ready for the next stage in their learning journey. By encouraging independence, fostering responsibility, instilling Gospel values and nurturing self-esteem, you have created the foundation for a positive and healthy step into Kindergarten.

What Can You Do at Home and Why?
Rhyming is your child’s first skill to acquire in pre-reading/writing development. Here are some things you can do at home to further encourage their language development.

• Read to your child every day and talk about the stories and pictures in the book
• Sing songs with your child. Silly rhyming songs will help your child understand rhyming.
• Have writing materials available to your child (crayons, pencils, paper, etc.)
• Talk to your child and surround them with language
• Play games

Counting is one of the first skills that children master when learning math. Here are some things you can do at home to further encourage their numeracy development.

• Play games like Snakes and Ladders, card games and dice games
• Count objects up to 5 or 10
• Look for patterns
• Have your child help in the kitchen with measuring ingredients
• Have your child help with the laundry…sorting and matching

Tip: When you are grocery shopping with your child, talk about the items you are purchasing. Have your child check off the list of a few items that you will be buying. Count the number of apples that you are buying as they are being put into the bag.