Summer Skillsbuster Workbook

8/6/2019 Summer Skillsbuster Workbook

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http://teachingthefuture.net

problems and a several spelling problems will do the job just as effectively as twice the amountof time.

3. Throw a few hands-on learning games into the mix.

The great thing about the summer is that you have more opportunities to give your child somereal hands-on learning experiences. Use the extra time you have to follow up on some of thetopics or concepts your child learned during the year, by visiting science museums, renaissanceor history fairs, or even by performing a science experiment in your backyard.

Not only is it a great way to answer that popular question “will I ever need this in real life?” butit also gives you an opportunity to have quality time with your child.



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Hands-On Learning Games: Best 4 Ways toFind Time to Work with Your Child

You know you need to spend time working with your child.

You’ve even gone so far as to schedule it into your calendar. Somehow, though, life steps in, and by the time you’ve cleaned up the Cheerios onthe rug and the mess made by the 3 year old inthe bathroom (who couldn’t read the “we aim to

please-please aim too please” sign), the day isover, and you’re dead tired.

Another day has passed, and you feel likekicking yourself: how are you supposed to teach

your child and deal with life too?

Fortunately, with a bit of planning, you don’thave to make the choice between working withyour child, and tackling the never-ending stack of laundry. By following these 4 tips, you’ll have

plenty of time to work with your child, and keep up with the rest of life’s demands.

1) Think of every moment as a teachable opportunity.

A lot of parents assume teaching your child means sitting at the table with a basketful of materials. That’s a big mistake. Sure, learning can and does take place during these sessions, but

why ignore the literally hundreds of opportunities a day your child has to practice his skills?A pile of laundry is a great chance for your child to practice numerous skills.

• Sorting: Have your child dig out her clothing from the pile. Then have her sort out thesocks, pants, shirts, etc. into baskets or piles on her bed.

• Fine Motor Skills : Letting your child practice folding towels and pants will not only helpimprove his fine motor coordination, but will strengthen his motor memory as well.

• Listening Skills : When you tell your child where to put the clothing away, she mustinterpret and carefully execute what you say. Use one step directions in the beginning,gradually building up to 2 step and then 3 step instructions.

2) Know what your child’s goals are.

If you keep track of what skills you want your child to accomplish, you’ll have an easier timeincorporating learning time into your daily routine.



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Write down 2 or 3 simple goals in a place where you are likely to see them several times a day,and keep looking at them. Doing this will make it easier for you to remember what you’re doing,so that you can stick it into your day to day activities.

3. Involve the whole family.

When I was teaching my foster daughter colors, I wrote the names of the colors on index cards,and put them up on the refrigerator. I also colored a section of the index card with theappropriate color.

Then I told everyone-husband, kids, and friends, that we were working on the colors red and blue. When my oldest daughter made a strawberry jelly sandwich for lunch for my foster daughter, she pointed out the color.

When we chose clothing in the morning, she pointed to all the clothing that had blue in it. Whenmy 7 year old supervised toy clean up, he told her to pick up only the red clicks.

4. Be proud of what you accomplish. I sometimes have to remind myself to be happy withwhatever I accomplish that day. Moms have a tendency to feel guilty about the fact that theycould have accomplished so much more, if x,y, and z hadn’t occurred.

Don’t do this. It’s not only counter - productive, it’s simply not true. Just tell yourself out loudthat you did the best you could today, and pat yourself on the back for what you did accomplish.And if you didn’t do anything, don’t let that stop you from trying again tomorrow.



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Hands-on Learning Games: 6 Fun Games toHelp Improve Your Child’s Fine Motor

Coordination

The end of school is in sight, and while your childrenare itching to put away their school books and head tothe pool or the park, you’re hoping to sneak in a little

bit of learning during summer break. Getting your children to cooperate may seem like an impossibletask – unless you try these fun hands -on learninggames that will have even your older kids giving it a

try:

1) Sugar cube transfer

Simple pair of kitchen tongs, two cups, and sugar cubes, are all you need for this game. Your child uses the kitchen tongs to transfer the sugar cubes from one cup to the other. If your childcan’t resist eating the sugar cubes, you can use small Lego’s instead. You can also make thisgame harder by using tweezers instead of tongs.

2) Nail cutting

Kids love this game because it turns what is often a mildly uncomfortable experience into achance to show off their cutting skills. Trace your child’s hands on a plain piece of paper,making sure to draw in the nails and the nail beds.

If you’re using a computer you can get fancy and color in the nails, or you can just make severalcopies of each hand and print that out. Cut out the hands (you can cut out several pages at onetime).

Next, give your child a pair of nail scissors or nail cutters, and show her how to use them.Provide a plastic plate for her to cut over, and show her how to dispose of her “nails” in thegarbage.

3. Sorting rice

This one is not just fun, but practical as well. Buy a bag of rice, and pour some onto a plate.Show your child how to recognize the rice that is discolored (more than is usual for rice), and

provide a container for her to put it in. Let her put the “clean” rice in a separate bowl.



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4. Polishing money

Children especially enjoy watching a dull copper penny transform into a shiny, new coin.Prepare a solution of 3 tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice in a cup, and add 2 tablespoons of salt.

Have your child place the penny inside, swirl the cup with the penny inside around gently. Letyour child take out the penny, and dry it off carefully with a soft cloth. Although it’s nottechnically polishing, kids still enjoy carefully wiping the pennies clean.

5. Bead sorting

This is a good use for all of the beads you may have lying around from an old jewelry makingset. If you don’t already have one, you can easily buy one at the dollar store.

Mix up all the beads, and let your child use the container they come in to sort them. There are all

sorts of ways to sort the beads-by color, by shape, and even by the size of the hole inside.

6. Smearing plasticine

Plasticine is quite different from play dough. It is harder, and less pliable when cool, but whenit’s warmed up from playing it can be easily manipulated.

First warm up the plasticine by rolling it into a ball, and kneading it for a minute or two. You’llsee and feel the difference when it softens up. Then, give your child a piece of paper with ashape drawn on it, and place a glob of plasticine on top.

Show your child how to smear the plasticine on his paper by starting from the middle of the globand smearing it outwards. It will take some work, but it’s great for helping strengthen thosefinger muscles. Your child can experiment by adding different colors onto the original, creatingtie-die like swirls and patterns.



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Hands on Learning Games: Use WordlessPicture Books to Improve Your Child’s

Expressive LanguageDoes your child have difficulty expressing himself? Often children with delayed languagedevelopment have a meager vocabulary to draw from when speaking. They may have a lot tosay, but don’t know what words to use.

Being able to speak fluently requires numerous skills.Your child needs to have a rich vocabulary of words, aswell as be able to recall those words quickly. He needsto be able to understand his listener’s point of view, sothat he can add important information if necessary. And

lastly, he also needs to know how to organize histhoughts so that what he says is coherent and makessense.

In previous posts I’ve mentioned several ways your child can improve her expressive language skills:creating stories from a fun trip , playing the commandcard game , -even creating a strategy guide for their favorite video game .

In this hands-on learning game, your child will use

wordless picture books to build her vocabulary, improve her memory, and practice her sequencing skills.

Materials:

Your favorite wordless picture book. There are plenty to choose from, but here’s a list of greatwordless picture books to browse.

How to Play:

1) Flip through the book and decide whether or not you will focus on nouns or verbs. This

depends on what you want to accomplish with your child, as well as which the book lends itself.If the book has a different character for each page (similar to “The Farmer in the Dell” or “Brown Bear” –which is not wordless but still a great choice) then you would choose to focus onnouns. If the book has one main character, then you would choose verbs.

2) Assign one word to each page. You can ask your child to think of the word by saying, “Whatis that?” or “What are they doing?” When your child answers, condense that answer to one word,



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and repeat it as you point to the picture. If your child has difficulty naming the picture, tell themthe correct word.

3) After 2 to 3 pictures, ask your child to name the noun or verb for each page. You canchoose to use the pictures as a clue if your child is younger or has moderate to severe language

delays. Otherwise, you can simply close the book and ask them to name the words that theyheard.

Don’t worry if this is difficult for them in the beginning; help them out if necessary by giving ahint (first letter, first few sounds in the word). It’s better for your child to be successful with hintsthan fail with no help at all.

TIP: You can have your child name and remember pictures in groups of 3, so that they never have to remember more than three pages at a time. If this is too easy for your child, you can haveyour child



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Hands on Learning Games: Using DailyOutings to Teach Your Child to Name ColorsIn order for your child to easily remember the names of objects, she needs constant repetition. It can get tiresome,though, when you have to fit naming colors in with all theother things you do every day.

How about a hands-on learning game that needs nomaterials, can be done easily every day, and requires verylittle extra effort on your part?

This hands-on learning game is one I used to teach my

foster daughter her colors. We took a walk at least once aday around the neighborhood; sometimes to the store, to the library, or to pick up a sibling fromschool.

I chose two colors, red and white. These were the easiest because they are the colors that mark the curb. As she walked on the curb (a bonus gross motor activity), I named the color of the line.We also looked for other objects that were our target colors. I challenged her to look around andfind those colors; when she did, she would touch the object. Often we found empty candy or

potato chip wrappers - those were especially fun for her, as she got to jump on them!

When she mastered those two colors, I added one more. It took only a month or two to master not only all the primary colors, but the secondary ones as well.

After your child masters the secondary colors, you can move on to dark and light, as well as theunusual colors like teal, lilac, or cornflower blue.



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Hands-on Learning Games: Teach YourChild Numbers

This is a simple game that your child will ask to play againand again. The great thing about it is that it can be used notonly for learning quantity and numbers, but also for

beginning addition. Children especially like the fact that ituses money; they feel as if they’ve fallen into quite a windfallof money!

Materials:

- 6 sheets of red cardboard (standard size)

- 45 pennies, plus a small container to store them in

Make the Game:

1) Cut 5 of the sheets of cardboard in half. You’ll have ten half-sheets.

2) On each one, write a number (0-9). The number should fill only about half to two-thirds of thesheet.

3) Underneath each number, draw the number of circles represented by each number. So thenumber 1 has one circle, 2 has two circles, and so on. Leave the number zero empty. Use a penny

as a stencil for drawing the circles. (In the picture above the circles are colored red – that’soptional).

4) Now cut the last sheet of cardboard in half length-wise.

5) Now write the numbers 0-9 from left to right. Your child will use this to help him lay out thenumbers in order on his own.

How to Play:

1) Place the card with the zero down in front of your child. Say, ‘this is zero,” and point to the

zero.

2) Now take the card with the number one, and lay it to the right of the zero card. Say, “This isone.” Now take out one penny, place it in your child’s palm, saying “one” as you do so.

3) Show them where to place the penny on the card. Have them say “one” as they place themoney on the circle.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9



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4) For the first session, do up until number 2. Every two days or so you can add on a newnumber. At the start of each session, review the names of the numbers.

5) After you’ve reviewed the numbers for a few days, ask your child to show you “the 2 (or adifferent number). This is easier for your child than pointing to a number and asking them to tell

you what the number is; you’ll do this only after your child can successfully point to the number you name.

6) In a few weeks, your child will have learned:

• one-on-one correspondence (one circle gets one penny)• how to count consecutively• a number represents a particular quantity (the number 2 represents two items).• to recognize and name numbers

all in one game!



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Hands-on Learning Games: How to TeachYour Kindergartner to Read and Write 3

Letter WordsThis is a great game for pre-readers who have masteredthe alphabet and are ready to start reading easy words.This game is fantastic not only because kids love it, butalso because it gives kids a chance to learn readingthrough writing. It also allows you to see whether or not they understand what they’re reading without thetediousness of reading aloud.

Materials:

- Standard paper, cut into fourths. Make lines on the bottom of third of the paper for writing the word. It

should like the paper kindergartners use to practice their writing. The top half should be blank, toleave space for your child to draw pictures.

How to Play

1. Choose a word. Sound out the word carefully. As you sound out each letter, write it down onthe lined paper. Place the paper so that your child can watch you write the word.

2. Have your child copy the word on their paper. Then they can draw a picture of the word on thetop half of the paper. You can make it exciting for your child by letting her use special markers.

Note:

Technically your child is not reading, but writing. They only recognize the word because it wasdictated to them. However, this gives your child an excellent way to learn how words aresegmented, how letters are written, and helps them the written word with its’ meaning.

If you play this game regularly, your child will quickly get the hang of things, and will beginsounding out words on her own.

Game #2:

An alternate version of this game (particularly good for kids with handwriting problems) can bemade easily at home. Simply write simple three letter words on cardboard, about half the size of an index card. Collect pictures of those words from magazines, etc., and glue them on a piece of heavy paper or cardboard lotto board style (see picture above for example).



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Your children can then read the word, find the picture, and place the word on the picture. Youcan play Bingo with this game, too, and make it a group game.



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Hands-on Learning Games: Helping theChild Who Has Trouble Cutting With

ScissorsIt’s not uncommon for children all the way up tofirst grade to have trouble cutting with scissors.Usually the child has trouble with her fine motor skills: the acts of grasping the scissors, holdingand manipulating the paper, and opening andclosing the scissors, are actually more difficultthan most parents (and teachers) realize.

This exercise is useful in helping your child

master the practical skills of how to cut paper;however if your child also has trouble buttoninghis clothing, manipulating food or writingimplements, or other fine motor issues, then youshould do additional fine motor hands-on learning games with them.

Materials:

-Scissors. These should be comfortable for your child to use; try out several different pairs. It’s preferable to use regular scissors vs. “training scissors.” This will avoid your child having tolearn how to cut twice-once with the training scissors and once with the regular ones.

-Small squares of 4”× 4”heavy paper. Your child will enjoy especially enjoy cutting if you usecolored paper.

How to Play the Game:

There are ten different cutting patterns. Start from the first one, even if you think it’s too easy for your child; if it is, he will finish it quickly and move onto the next one.

Once your child is fully able to cut out one pattern (100% of the time) he may go on to the next pattern. Stick to this routine even if your child wants to just “try out” a more complicated pattern;

it is the excitement of trying out something new that will help motivate him to complete the present pattern.

You can practice cutting with your child once a day; you should see significant improvement in afew weeks.



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I hope you’ve enjoyed our free mini-Summer Skillsbuster Workbook.

This is only a small sample of what’s on our site, http://teachingthefuture.net , so please visit formore great hands-on learning games.

Keep an eye out for my Super Skillsbuster Workbook . It’s packed full of skill and content-basedactivities your child will enjoy, PLUS contains all the printable materials you need to play thegames!

Questions or comments? Drop me a line at [email protected] – I’d love to hear

from you!

Summer Skillsbuster Workbook

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Transcript of Summer Skillsbuster Workbook