Homework Ideas

Literacy Activities

Please read to your child every night. Reading aloud to them builds many language skills (comprehension, rhyme, concepts of print such as where to begin reading, vocabulary building, etc.). 

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Language Play

 Read, recite, sing, and act out nursery rhymes.

Create new, silly names - for example, if your child's name is Pat, his name could turn into Cat, Mat, Sat, Hat, etc.

 Sight Words

Sight Words are words that children instantly recognize without having to decode them. See attached RRISD sight words list.

·      Flashcards: Write sight words on index cards. Review them daily. Be sure to shuffle them each day.

·      Ransom Words: Write your words by cutting out letters in a newspaper or magazine and glue them on a paper

·      Delicious Words: Write your words in whipped cream, peanut butter, or anything you can eat

·     Good Clean Words: Write your words in shaving cream on a counter or some other surface that can be cleaned safely

·     Dirty Words: Write your words in mud or sand

·     Magazine Words: Use an old magazine or newspaper and find your word

·    Sound Words: Use tape recorder and record your words and their spelling

·    Flash Writing: In a darkened room, use a flashlight to draw letters in the air

·     Newspaper Words: Search a newspaper page from top to bottom, circling each letter of a word as you find it

·    Hide and Go Seek: Hide the letters around the room when the child is busy elsewhere. When child returns, have him find he letters one at a time and tell you what letter it is.

·     Concentration: If you have 2 sets of cards (or make an extra set), you can play Concentration. Choose several pairs of matching words and spread them out face down on a table/floor. As child turns over each word, he must read them. If they match, s/he wins them; if not, they are turned back over.

·     What’s Missing?: Child places 3-4 words on the table, identifies words, and then closes eyes while parent removes one word. Child identifies missing word. Then parent closes eyes, and lets child remove a word.

Letter Recognition

• Letters are Everywhere --Draw your child's attention to letters and words in his/her environment (signs, cereal boxes, toy boxes, menus, etc.) 
• Letter Writer--Have your child trace letters on/in different surfaces (sand, rice, cloth, etc.) Say the name of the letter with your child as they form the letter.
• Letter Builder--Build letters with different materials such as macaroni, pipe cleaners, playdough, etc.
• Print the Letters -- Practice printing upper and lower case letters. (one time each week). 
• Rainbow Letters -- Write one letter on a large sheet of paper. Have your child rainbow write the letter by tracing over it with 4 or more colors of crayons or markers.
• Letter Search -- Name a letter and ask your child to find as many different sizes, colors, and styles of that letter as possible to cut and glue onto a sheet of paper.
• Which Letter? -- Write a row of different letters for your child. Say one of those letters and ask him/her to circle the letter you said.
• Highlights -- Give some of your junk mail to your child and ask him/her to use a marker or crayon to highlight or circle certain letters. (exp. Highlight all of the Kk's orange, all of the Pp's purple, all of the Yy's blue, etc.)

Sounds

• Flashcards/ABC Picture Chart—Review  letters and sounds daily.  Show the card and have your child say the letter name and the sound. Then name a word that begins with that same letter.
• Sticky Letter--Make 3x5 letter cards. Make several of the same letter. Work on one sound at a time. Have your child find an object in the house that begins with that sound and tape the card to it. Keep it up for a few days so that your child can be reminded of the sound each time they see the letter card.
• "I Spy" letter sounds -- "I spy something that begins with the sound of b."   Or, say, "I spy a ____.  What letter do you hear at the beginning of that word." This is great for waiting in line or driving in the car.
• ABC tub games--Get a butter dish or small bowl. Gather several household objects that begin with the same letter sound and a few that don't. Your child must figure out which items begin with the same sound and put them in the bowl.
• Search the House -- Your child can search around the house for objects whose names begin with a certain letter. (exp. B- bananas, brush, band-aid, belt, etc.)
• Picture Sound Collage -- Ask your child to search through magazines, etc. for pictures that start with a certain letter.  Have them glue all the pictures they find onto one sheet of paper to form a letter collage.
• Tongue Twisters -- Play with tongue twisters-traditional or made up!  They are fun and emphasize the initial consonant. (Ex. Pink pigs play with purplepegs.)
   

Name Games

• Use the beginning sound in their name for building sound
  recognition.  For example, if your child's name starts with J, find other items that start with /j/ like jelly, jumprope and jar, etc.
• To practice writing their names, let children write (first letter
  uppercase and all the others lowercase) in sand, a small tray of rice, shaving cream, pudding (Yum!), finger paint, glitter crayons, write it big with sidewalk chalk, shape playdough into the letters, etc. 
• Place magnetic letters on the refrigerator at your children's eye level so they can manipulate the letters to form their name, or group like letters together, etc.

Writing

• Let your children see you writing. For example, letters, checks to pay the bills, the grocery list, etc. Give them their own piece of paper, letting them write out their own list using kid writing (It's alright if you can't read it at this point - You are modeling for them uses/reasons for writing and reading which is much more important at this stage.) 
• Create a writing box to store fun writing utensils, different types
  of paper, envelopes, stickers, etc., for your child to have their own writing materials to encourage writing.
• Create a letter book with your child.  For each page, write the upper and lowercase letter.  Have children hunt for small objects, environmental print, etc. that begin with a certain letter.  Make sure to include photos of their friends, too.

·      Using a spiral notebook or blank piece of paper, have your child begin by thinking of a writing idea and drawing a picture at the top of the page with a line under it. They may add labels to their picture as well.  After drawing their picture, have them write their words or sentences under the picture.  Your child should be able to work independently, as we do this in class every day. 

Please allow your child to “be brave” as we say, and try to sound out the words by themselves.  Remind them to “stretch out the words” and record the sounds they hear.  Our goal is not to have correct spelling, but instead to listen closely to the beginning, middle, and end of words to get those sounds down.  Please respond to your child’s attempts with affirmation and encouragement.   

For example, when sounding out the word careful, your child might write the following:  c or kl or crfl or karfl.  They might even write letters that are not in the word at all.  This is fine!  Do not correct their spelling!  They are being very brave, and any of these attempts are great.   

Math Activities at Home

·    Focus your child's attention on the colors, shapes, and numbers seen all around. Ask them to help you read the numerals on signs and point out the shapes and colors of items in places such as, the grocery store or at the park.

·    Let your budding chef assist you in the kitchen.  Let them help pour, mix, measure, roll, etc.!  (Simple activities are best.)

·    Encourage sorting skills while folding laundry, putting
toys away, playing with colored blocks,  and eating their favorite snacks.

·    For number practice, play Where’s the Worm? game.

·    Refer to the date on the calendar frequently.  Talk about the days of the week, the month, and count the number of days left until an upcoming event.

·   There are objects all around your home to practice counting (toys, books, shoes, shirts, pens, etc.)!  Have your child touch and move each item forward as he/she is counting.

·    Play board games in which children have to roll a die and count how many spaces they get to move!