Early Learning Resources

June

• Talk with your child about goals. Work with your child to create a goal for the day and one for the summer. Ask your child to draw a picture of their goal and discuss progress throughout the summer.       

• Go outside with your child and talk about the sun, clouds, and sky. Ask your child to draw a picture and label what is observed.

• Have a contest with your child to see who can build the tallest plastic cup tower. Discuss why it fell or stood tall.

• Practice writing first and last names. Ask your child to identify the letters in his or her name.

• Plant a seed with your child and watch it grow. Discuss the changes, life cycle, and basic needs of the plant. Have your child draw changes in a seed journal.

• Make an alphabet book with your child. Encourage your child to illustrate pictures for each letter.

• Practice lacing and tying shoes, zipping, and buttoning clothing. Continue daily. Practice makes perfect!

• Read a rhyming book. Help your child find and produce rhyming words (including nonsense words: ex. hat, zat, pat, yat)

• Discuss what is visible and not visible at night. Ask your child to illustrate the night sky.         

• Ask your child to find five rocks. Describe how they feel and look. Use the rocks to create rock pets. Encourage your child to be creative in his or her design.

• Play Simon says for an active listening game. Make sure to include actions such as running, hopping, skipping, and jumping, as well as, positional words such as above, below, over, under, and beside.

• Go on an outdoor color scavenger hunt together. Have your child identify as many colors as possible. Ex. I see a blue car. Take turns and have your child pick a color or theme.

• Fill a tub with water and gather items to predict which objects will float or sink. Discuss why the items float or sink.

• Play a board game for family fun. Encourage your child to create a new game to play or have them explain the instructions to you.

• Play with sidewalk chalk. Ask your child to write letters, numbers, or draw shapes. Have them identify and tell you about their drawings.

July

• Read a book about a favorite animal and have your child describe the characteristics of the animal (how it looks, sounds, and moves).

• Play charades with your child. Take turns acting out motions. For a challenge, have them tell you something that rhymes with your chosen action.

• Select several different toys. Help your child identify if the objects will slide or roll. Discuss why or why not.          

• Collect leaves and observe the characteristics. Have your child create a leaf person or animal.

• Have your child practice counting from 0 to 20. You can add objects such as small toys or blocks to have them count sets of objects.

• Read a book about Independence Day. Identify American symbols such as the national and state flag. Ask your child to look for these symbols in the real world.

• Go on a nature walk outside with your child. Ask your child to listen closely and identify the sounds he or she hears.

• Have your child put a container of ice cubes in the sunlight. Ask your child to describe what is happening and why.

• Have your child decorate a poster of his or her hero or someone they appreciate. Encourage creativity.

• Have your child write the numbers from 0 – 10. Continue to practice each day. See if your child can write the numbers counting backward from 10-0.

• Read a storybook with your child. Help your child retell the story.

• Have your child write his or her first name. Ask your child to identify objects in the house or outside that start with each letter.

• Go on a shape scavenger hunt. Have your child look for squares, rectangles, circles, and triangles.

• Ask your child to help you write a grocery list. Let him or her draw pictures or help write some letters.

• While grocery shopping, have your child describe the items you are adding to the cart. What color is it? Is it sweet or sour? Is it crunchy or soft? Is it cold or hot?

• Play with playdough and cookie cutters or make homemade slime. Encourage your child to describe shapes, colors, and textures.      

• Hula-hoop or jump rope outside. Count the number of seconds your child can hula-hoop or jump. Just for fun, repeat multiple times.

• Help your child draw a map of his or her room and label objects. Encourage your child to read the room.

• Have a puzzle day. Encourage your child to complete the puzzle, providing tips if needed.         

• Relax in the shade and read a book together. Talk about the book with your child.

• Identify and discuss community helpers and their roles – doctor, mail carrier, dentist, police officer, farmer, teacher, and firefighter to name a few. Have your child draw a picture of a community helper.         

• Make s’mores or another fun treat together. Create a recipe card with ingredients and directions to share with a family member.

• Using beans or beads, give your child a set of objects (1-20). Have your child count the number of objects in the set. Repeat the activity with different quantities of objects for extra practice.

• Have your child help set the table for dinner. Discuss different foods and family members’ favorite foods. Ask your child to tell you which food group each food belongs to.

• Play hopscotch together and count while playing. Switch the numbers up to practice counting forwards and backward.

• Enjoy a day at the park. Discuss the sights and sounds around you. Have your child tell you a story about your day in the park.

• Encourage your child to write as many uppercase and lowercase letters as possible. Continue to practice this daily.

• Watch your child’s favorite cartoon together and ask them questions about the story and characters.

• Have your child make a card or draw a picture for his or her new teachers.

• Have your child draw a picture of something he or she would like to do in Kindergarten.

• Get ready for the 1st day!

Set a routine to include reading for 20 minutes each day! Visit the Henry County Library System’s website for events and activities.

For more Kindergarten Ready resources, visit the GKIDS Readiness site at gkidsreadinesscheck.gadoe.org/.

September/October

• Play bean bag toss with your child! Make sure your child knows how to both toss and catch the beanbag. 
• Encourage your child to practice a variety of fall sports! Show your child how to dribble a basketball, catch a small, soft football, use a bat or wiffle ball, and kick a soccer ball. 
• Collect various leaves of different shapes and colors. Create a collage with your child, using glue and construction paper. Allow your child to make decisions on where to glue the leaves and how to arrange them. 
• Visit a pumpkin patch and let your child choose their own small pumpkin. Explore and observe the pumpkin with your child, including the stem, seeds, and any flowers you see at the pumpkin patch. Ask your child how a pumpkin is similar to and different from other familiar plants. For extra fun, have your child guess whether their pumpkin will sink or float if placed in water, and carry out an experiment to see if their guess was correct! 
• After carving pumpkins, instruct your child to count the pumpkin seeds. Ask your child to write down the number of seeds that they count. Guide your child to make groups of the seeds in order to make them easier to count (groups of 2,5, or 10). 
• Celebrate and talk about first responders with your child as you see them out and about in the community. Have your child describe what they think certain jobs do, including police officers, firefighters, and soldiers. Consider making a community thank-you card with your child for first responders. 
• Introduce different kinds of apples and have a taste-testing session. Help your child classify the apples by categories such as color, taste (sour, sweet, etc.), and texture. 
• In late September, celebrate the first day of fall! Talk with your child about the similarities and differences between the seasons. Observe and discuss how the sky and light might change as we get closer to winter. 
• Talk with your child about Labor Day and the history behind it. Discuss different jobs, and have your child draw a picture of what they want to be when they grow up. 
• Allow your child to see and interact with both paper money and coins. Help your child identify the pennies, nickels, and dimes, and begin to guide them in understanding the coins’ value. Engage in pretend scenarios with your child where they offer a certain coin in exchange for a good. 
• Have your child recount their fall break activities to you in chronological order, using words that indicate time. (For example, “Yesterday, we went to the bookstore! Before that, we swam at our friend’s house.) 
• Read fall books with your child, or books that celebrate fall holidays like Halloween. Encourage your child to point out the front and back covers of the book, and emphasize the author and illustrator. Prompt them to describe how the illustrations in the book help make sense of the story. 
• Play rhyming games with your child, and bring in a fall theme for fun! For example, “I see a spooky bat! I see a witches’ hat!”, etc. 
• Clap out the syllables in fall words with your child! For example, “let’s say the word pumpkin! How many syllables in this word? Pump-kin…two syllables! Now let’s do apple!” etc. 
• Use items like leaves, acorns, and pinecones to create simple patterns with your child. Have them extend the pattern and explain why they created it. 
• While on a nature walk with your child, point out the shapes of different objects. Encourage your child to name the shapes as they see them. 
• Find pinecones around your yard. Allow your child to line up the pinecones from biggest to smallest, and use another tool to measure the pinecones. For example, “my pinecone is as wide as two paper clips!” 
• While playing outside, collect acorns with your child. Use the acorns as a visual for simple “put together” problems. Show your child how to group acorns together and count the total amount they have when they add them together. 
• Turn on a fun fall song and model for your child how to clap their hands or stomp their feet to the beat. 
• While playing with your child, encourage them to sort their toys into two groups (i.e. legos, cars, dolls, etc.). Encourage your child to identify which group has more, and which has less.

November

• Keep a fall picture journal for your child! Encourage them to draw what they see and experience throughout the season. 
• Allow your child to finger paint or use brushes outside in the cooler weather. Guide them to carefully mix colors and see what happens. 
• While riding in the car with your child, practice counting upwards to 20. Once they have mastered simple counting, begin counting higher or practicing counting backwards. 
• Encourage your child to pay attention to wildlife around them. Ask your child how the animals they see are the same and different (i.e. “We just saw a rabbit! How is he the same as our dog at home? How is he different?”) 
• Before cooking vegetables, encourage your child to see and touch them. Allow your child to describe and categorize the vegetables by characteristics like color, size, and shape. 
• Involve your child in simple cooking or baking activities. Show them the measuring cups and how they get bigger or smaller based on need. Bring in math by asking them to help in a specific way (i.e. “This pie needs 4 apples! Can you count out 4 apples?”) 
• Gather pictures of printed or cut out fall foods. Encourage your child to sort them into categories, like vegetables, dessert, or fruits. 
• Get a small bag of craft feathers. Tell your child they are turkey feathers and engage in a variety of activities with them. Have your child count them, sort them, and make their own fun collage with them. 
• Read Thanksgiving books or talk to your child about Thanksgiving. Show them illustrations of early Thanksgiving celebrations and ask your child if the picture looks like it’s from the past, present, or future. 
• Practice simple table manners with your child, and help them become more independent eaters. Encourage and praise them when they say “please” and “thank you” and ask appropriately for help. 
• Before leaving on a car trip (short or long), show your child your route directions. Explain that adults use maps to get around and help them understand where they are. Consider using or showing your child a paper map to help them understand how maps can help us. 
• Take your child on a nature walk focusing on soil and rocks. Allow your child to pick up rocks and describe the different colors of soil they see. At the end of your walk, encourage your child to sort the rocks by different physical features like size, weight, texture, or color. 
• Play silly movement games with your child. Encourage them to “waddle like a turkey, hop like a bunny, or gallop like a horse”. Guide your child to maintain their balance while performing various skills like walking,  running, hopping, sliding, skipping, and jumping. 
• Plan for your child to practice stamping and print making with apples. Cut apples into flat halves, and allow your child to dip it in ink or paint. They can then stamp the apple onto a page of construction paper, and create their own fall artwork. 
• Continue to have your child practice writing their first name. Extend this to other family members. Ask your child to identify which letter each name begins with, and write down the sounds they hear in the names. 
• At family gatherings, play I Spy! Look around the room and give clues such as, “I Spy something that begins with the letter /t/!” 
• Prepare a collection of drawn or printed fall themed pictures. Allow children to touch the picture and name the beginning sound. For example, pie begins with /p/. 
• If you have a favorite family recipe, read it aloud with your child. Encourage your child to ask questions about unknown words or steps in the recipe. Guide them to tell the recipe back to you, in order, to the best of their ability. 
• Allow your child to collect leaves of all different colors and sizes. Ask your child to make up a story about the leaves. Guide them to include a setting and exciting plot in their story. 
• Actively talk about your child’s senses when they go to a new place or are playing outside. Explain how we can use our senses to hear crunchy leaves or smell sweet desserts. Encourage your child to describe what they are hearing, tasting, smelling, seeing, and feeling. 

December 

• December 7th is National Write a Letter Day! Use this opportunity to model how to write a letter with your child. Give them as much support as they need to write several simple sentences and their name, and show them how to address and send the letter! 
• Consistently sing holiday or winter themed songs with your child. It doesn’t matter how good you sound! Your child can learn about melody and beat just from listening to you sing! 
• Towards the end of December, mark the first day of winter with your child! Note how the sky, lighting, and temperature will change as we get deeper into winter. Ask your child to compare winter to other seasons, like fall or spring. 
• If weather allows, introduce your child to sledding! Show them what happens when they push and pull the sled. Explain that their pushing and pulling is called a “force”. If it’s not snowy, replicate this activity with a wagon. 
• Note with your child what happens to plants and animals in the winter. Talk about how they are hibernating, or not as visible in the winter. Encourage your child to ask questions to make sense of animals and plants in the winter. 
• Read books about the winter time holidays, or winter activities, with your child. Read two stories about different holidays or winter time events, and ask your child to compare and contrast the characters and events in the two stories. 
• Spend a warm day inside at a museum with your child! Note that many local museums offer free or reduced admission for children. If a museum isn’t possible, find examples of art in books, magazines, or cartoons. Model for your child how to look at art and vocalize what you see, and what you like and dislike. Invite your child to talk about the art they see. 
• Create DIY bird feeders using pinecones, peanut butter, and birdseed. Hang them outside near a window to attract birds. Have your child observe the birds that come to eat the seeds, and talk about how they are alike and different. 
• Take advantage of the holiday season family time! Encourage your child to ask family members about their lives and stories, and guide them to actively listen and ask questions about the stories they are hearing. 
• When making hot chocolate for your child, provide them with some marshmallows to go with. Give your child a certain amount to count out, and guide them to count the correct amount. 
• Draw a simple snowman on a piece of paper. Direct your child, with number words, to fill in the snowman details (i.e. “draw three circles for his mouth. Add 10 buttons”, etc.) 
• Practice cutting snowflakes with your student. They don’t need to be fancy, but allow your student to fold paper and practice cutting along the edges to make a “snowflake”. Remind them of the proper way to hold scissors and safely handle them. 
• Collect a variety of warm winter items (hats, mittens, socks, etc). Encourage your child to sort them by texture, color, size, or shape and explain why they sorted them this way. 
• Point out and say patterns you see while out and about (i.e. “Wow! Those holiday lights have a pattern of blue, red, green, blue, red, green”). Encourage your child to continue extending the pattern. 
• Let your child help you make cookies! Gather a variety of cookie cutters and allow them to stamp them into the dough. Encourage your child to make and name simple shapes and arrange them into simple patterns. 
• Set up a pretend holiday or wintertime shop for your child. Give your child real or pretend pennies, nickels, and dimes, and allow them to “buy” the goods in the shop for a specified amount of coins. 
• Ask your child to create a wintertime story! For an added challenge, ask them to use a specific letter for as many of their story words as possible. For example, your child might generate a story about “silly snowflakes and scarves” or “magical and merry magic”. 
• Play the rhyme game with wintertime words! Say, “I’m thinking of the word mug! What rhymes with mug?” or “I’m thinking of the word cold! How many words rhyme with cold?”
• Allow your child to make Kwanzaa or holiday inspired bead bracelets. Encourage your child to accurately count out the beads they need and arrange them into a pattern. 
• Make a simple holiday or winter themed ABC book with your child! Encourage them to think of a wintery word for each letter of the alphabet and then create an illustration to go alongside it. 

January/February

• On a cold day, build a fort indoors with your child using pillows and blankets. Read inside the cozy fort with your child. As you begin to read, have your child identify the front and back covers of the book, and point to the names of the author and illustrator. Encourage your child to ask questions about the books you’re reading to deepen their understanding. 
• When children need to stay inside due to the weather, find a fun song or video for them to dance to. Guide children to move rhythmically to the beat, and create their own personal dance space where they are not bumping into others. 
• Provide clay or play doh and allow your child to create their own structures. Encourage your child to manipulate the clay by rolling it, pinching it, and modeling it. 
• Read books about snowmen or penguins with your child! Encourage them to focus on the letter sounds “s” for snowman and “p” for penguin. See what other words your child can generate using these sounds. Encourage them to practice writing upper and lowercase letters to match the sounds. 
• Roll up socks or other soft fabric and call them “snowballs”. Guide your child to toss the snowball underhand to you, and catch it when you gently toss it back. 
• Read a book about New Year's resolutions or simply talk to your child about what a resolution is and how they can set goals. Encourage them to use terms like “past, present, and future” to describe their goals, and allow them to draw a simple picture of what they would like to do in the new year. 
• While reading with your child, point out how sentences are formed. Ask your child to touch the first word in the sentence, and note that there is a capital letter at the beginning. Challenge them to find the end of the sentence, and guide them to recognize and understand the different punctuation they find. 
• Work on age-appropriate winter-themed puzzles involving matching shapes, numbers, or pictures. 
• Look at a calendar of January or February with your child. Introduce to them the concepts of days, weeks, and months by looking at the calendar squares. Help them understand that time moves in order (chronologically). 
• Keep track of the weather each day in January or February, and create a simple graph to show sunny, rainy, cloudy, or snowy days. 
• Using Valentine’s Day hearts, practice simple addition and subtraction. Allow your child to use the hearts and ask simple questions like, “How many hearts would you have left if you took 2 away? How many hearts do you have if I give you 5 more?” 
• Encourage your child to write a kind note in honor of Valentine’s Day, or for any occasion. Allow them to use a combination of drawings, writing, and your dictation to write a few simple sentences. For an added challenge, supervise them as they write a short, kind email to a family member. 
• On the third Monday in February, observe Presidents Day. Teach your child about the most famous and current presidents, and show them images of the White House, Washington Monument, Statue of Liberty, and Lincoln Monument. 
• Allow your child to hold and observe real coins. Make connections to the presidents and monuments on the coins. Show your child how to make rubbings of coins by placing them under a sheet of paper and rubbing a crayon or colored pencil on top. 
• In late January, explain the concept of Groundhog’s Day to your child. Create a countdown to Groundhog’s Day so your child can practice counting backwards as they get closer to the day. When the day comes, give your child a simple explanation about shadows and wait to see if there will be 6 more weeks of winter! 
• Conduct a scavenger hunt in your home! Challenge your child to find an item in your home for each letter of the alphabet. 
• Work on blending with your child. Draw boxes to represent sounds. Write a letter in each box, for example, “c” “a” and “t”. Allow your child to use their finger to individually make each sound and then blend them together. 
• Prepare for kindergarten by providing opportunities for your child to follow multi-step instructions. For example, “please pick up your toys, wash your hands, and come to the table.” 
• Talk about feelings with your child, and allow them to model what they are feeling by making play-doh faces or drawings. 
• As the weather gets warmer and closer to spring, take your child on nature walks. Allow them to bring a journal to log pictures and observations of what they see. Encourage them to pick up and then count the number of rocks or small flowers they see on their walk.

March/April

• Go on a rhyming hunt outdoors! Find objects that rhyme with simple words like “sun”, “tree”, and “bug”. 
• Write numbers up to 100 on plastic eggs, and hide them around your house or yard. Encourage your child to find the eggs, and then place them in number order. 
• Allow your child to go outdoors after it has rained and there are puddles. Let them use a brush or their finger to write letters on the pavement using the water. 
• Choose some spring-themed words and explain that we can break them into their word parts, or syllables. Say the word, and clap it into its syllables (i.e. um-brel-la) 
• Plant a garden or find a friend or family member who has a garden. Allow your child to dig in the soil, and describe the differences they see in texture and color. 
• Blow bubbles outside with your child! Use shape and color words to describe what the bubbles look like, and count the number of bubbles they’re able to blow. 
• Place an empty labeled container outside to collect rainwater during a rain shower. Ask your child to observe and describe the changes in the sky as a rainstorm rolls in. After it rains, show your child how to count and read the amount of rain that the container collected. 
• Allow your child to construct “bug houses” out of sticks, leaves, and rocks. Encourage them to explain what materials they used, and draw or write about the types of bugs they want to live in the bug houses. 
• Cut sponges into flower shapes and allow your child to dip them into paint to stamp “flower petals” on paper. 
• Glue cotton balls onto paper with your child to make clouds. Ask them to describe the texture of the cotton balls, and count accurately the amount they needed to make the clouds. 
• Use sidewalk chalk to allow your child to practice writing letters and numbers. Create a hopscotch game with your child and include both letters and numbers on the hopscotch board. Allow them to jump in a variety of ways through the hopscotch, making sure they keep their balance. 
• Consider observing spring holidays, like St. Patrick’s Day. Use Lucky Charms cereal or gold coins, and allow your child to count out a specific amount and create a pattern.
• Another spring holiday to consider discussing with your child is Holi. This holiday is traditionally celebrated with dancing and throwing colorful powder to mark the transition between winter and spring. Consider letting your child get messy with washable splatter paint activities. You can also mix 1 cup of water, ⅓ cup cornstarch, and a few drops of food coloring, and then let the mixture dry. Break it into a powder and allow your child to experiment with color mixing! 
• Use an empty egg carton for counting practice. Write numbers in the carton and have them place a corresponding number of objects, like buttons or beads, in each section. 
• Draw simple flowers with different amounts of petals. Have your student add the number of petals on each flower, using the visual to help them. 
• Look at the sky and count how many clouds you see with your child. Have your child draw a picture and explain how the sky and clouds change as day turns into night. 
• Play bunny hop counting with your child! Have them bunny hop a certain number of times, or bunny hop while counting to 100, both by 1’s and by 10’s. 
• Towards the end of March, mark the first day of spring with your child! Have them describe what happens with the temperature and sky, and how spring is similar to and different from other seasons. 
• Find assorted seeds, and guide your child to sort them by color, size, texture, or weight. 
• While outdoors, collect natural objects and sort them based on the sounds they start with (i.e. “s” for stick and “l” for leaf). 

May

• Play music for your child and have them “dance like flowers” by swaying and twirling. When the music stops, tell them to freeze like a flower! 
• Balance an egg (plastic would likely work best) on a spoon and have a friendly race, seeing who can move the quickest while keeping the egg balanced. 
• Make a suncatcher with your child. Cut shapes from colored tissue paper and hang them in the window for the sun to shine through. Have your child identify the shapes as they cut them out. Also allow them to talk about how the sky and light changes throughout the day, and how that affects the suncatcher color. 
• Use natural materials like sticks or rocks to create a number line outside, adding in objects to represent each number. 
• Draw or create simple “nests”. Have your child draw or place objects in the nests to represent different numbers (i.e. “draw 8 eggs in this nest”) 
• Pack a blanket and some books, and have an outdoor reading picnic with your child. Consider reading some nonfiction books about springtime animals, and prompt your child to tell the most important details that were read. 
• Consider discussing May Day with your child, and how it is celebrated around the world. Create a mini maypole by attaching ribbons to a stick in specific patterns, or let your child do a maypole dance by providing them with long ribbons and cheerful music. 
• Allow your child opportunities to practice with a variety of writing tools and sensory materials. For example, let your child write letters or simple words with a paintbrush in sand, or a popsicle stick in a container of beans or rice. 
• Draw simple flowers for your child on a piece of paper. Have them use tally marks to represent the number of petals on each flower. 
• Go on a nature listening walk. Listen carefully for all of the animal and natural sounds you hear, and encourage your child to try to mimic the sounds. 
• Grab a beach ball or soft volleyball, and practice throwing and catching it with your child. Once they have mastered that, model for them how to volley the ball up with a variety of body parts. 
• Practice jump roping with your child, either with a single rope they can turn themselves, or with a long rope turned by adults. 
• Play bug beginning sounds with your child! Choose a bug name and identify the beginning sound, and then generate other words that begin with the same sound (i.e. “I pick bumblebee! What other words begin with “b”?) 
• During outdoor play, pick simple words like “sun” or “tree” and challenge your child to find the middle and ending sounds in the word (for example, “I see a dog! What’s the middle sound we hear in dog? /o/, that’s right!”) 
• Continue to consistently have your child practice writing their first and last name. Ensure that they are using an uppercase letter for the beginning of each of their names, and aid them in making sure the rest of the letters are lowercase. 
• Have your child begin a summer journal! On the first few pages, instruct them to draw pictures of what they would like to do during the summer! If they are able, guide them to label their pictures with simple words or letters to represent their thoughts. 
• Write large letters, both uppercase and lowercase, on the ground outside with chalk. Call out a letter (i.e. “uppercase G!”) and have them hop on that specific letter. 
• While riding in the car with your child, have them be on the lookout for numbers they see on mailboxes or street signs. Encourage them to call out the numbers as they see them. 
• Encourage your child to practice simple addition using household game pieces. For example, they can roll a die twice and add together the two rolls they get. They can also use dominoes and add together the number of dots on the top and bottom of the domino. 
• Celebrate Mother’s Day with your child! Have them write or draw a card to give to a special mother, grandmother, or aunt in their life. Encourage them to make the letter sounds in “mom”or “grandma” to spell the word.