PARENT'S GUIDE TO LITTLE LEARNING
At Home Activities
These are easy ideas to practice fine and gross motor skills, promote early literacy, and strengthen math and reasoning skills. All of these activities can be used with things you may already have at home, or with supplies that you can buy and use again for other activities.
This is such a fun and easy fall activity to get ready for the back to school season! It can easily be made more difficult for older children. If you don't have pom poms, substitute with real apples, toys, or anything else to practice sorting!
This link is to the Letter A song from the ABC Mouse series. This is one channel I LOVED to use when we were introducing new letters or practicing letter sounds. They are fun, interactive and so easy to put on while getting ready for the day or in the background while playing. I'm not affiliated with them at all, but do really like this playlist!
Threading activities are one of the best and simplest ways to help children work on their fine motor skills! They are able to be put together quickly, use cheap materials or items already in your house, and they help with concentration, attention to detail and strengthen fine motor skills needed for writing, drawing and many more skills as they grow! Check out this link to several threading activities from Hands on As We Grow!
This is a great video to go along with our roller coaster theme for summer. Pair it with our favorite book of July and printable roller coaster plan for a day of fun!
This one is easy to set up inside or outside this summer. Simply use in a sand box or get a container that you can add sand, crushed cheerios, or dirt to. Then, bury some dollar store dinosaurs, pictures or stickers and let your kiddos get to digging! This is also do-able with plastic dinosaurs in ice for older children. These are all a variation on the activity linked in the picture!
This activity is a great way to work on gross motor skills! Use a bucket to play toss or play sponge bomb tag. There's so many creative ways to use these and practice important skills.
Torn Paper Name Art
This activity is one of my favorites for fine motor, letter recognition and name practice. Kids also love to tear the paper into little pieces! I used this one every September and it was a hit. Click the picture for how Kindergarten Smorgasboard does this activity, or use materials of your own!
This activity goes great with our monthly favorite book! Use whatever materials you have at home to let your little one get creative and use critical thinking skills.
This fun March themed science activity will be tons of fun for your little one! Just make sure they are supervised while making and playing with this fun slime.
This digital activity is great for students to watch on a tablet, or project onto a television on a cold or bad weather day. You can watch this and other videos on Youtube or sign up for the Gonoodle app, which is free for parents. It's a super fun way for little ones to get their energy out, strengthen motor skills, and have fun, as long as you don't mind a little screen time!
Making homemade playdough is a fun activitty that helps kids learn measuring skills and practices fine motors. They can get creative and mix to make their own colors, and then play with it for days to come! Check out this recipe from Play to Learn Preschool.
Grab some paper cups or empty toilet paper rolls and a ball for this easy math game. For younger students, they can roll the ball and count how many pins have been knocked down. For older students, they can subtract how many pins fell to figure out how many they still need to knock down. You can use any materials you have at home to make it your own or buy a set like the one pictured here.
All you need is some paper and a pen for this easy sight word learning activity. For younger children, try it with letters and numbers!
Use paper plates, wax paper or even parchment paper to make "ice skates" to use around the house this winter! Check out the link for more ideas on how to make these!