Support parents
Help parents be involved in their children's learning...
It is helpful to have a handout ready to support parents who wish to be involved in their children's education. At the beginning of every year I have parents ask me for suggestions on how to support their children's learning at home.
A good teacher recognizes the important role parents play in modeling learning and thinking skills that will help to develop their children’s progress. Support learning at home by helping parents and guardians to understand how to help their children learn. Also, support parents to understand what is going on in the classroom by providing them with links to kindergarten-lessons.com.
A printable version of the list below is also available.
Suggestions for parents
How to support your childs’ learning at home…
- Relax, and keep activities enjoyable. Avoid overdoing workbook type of activities. Children have years of these ahead of them. Turn learning into games. Say, “Let’s play a game”, not “Let’s practice your numbers”.
- Ask children to help you make shopping lists, things to do lists, labels, etc. Keep it at their level. If they know how to make a few letters let them print those letters when you need them to make a word.
- Cook with your children. Let them experience pouring a cup of milk (or 250 ml) into a bowl. Enrich their vocabulary with hands on experiences.
- Present problem solving opportunities. “If everyone in the family gets 2 cookies for snack, how many cookies do we need?” Allow plenty of time for the child to think and to actually count out two cookies each in piles. Encourage many different ways to solve the problem. “That’s good thinking. Can you think of other ways to solve the problem?”
- Play counting games on the way to and from school. E.g. Let’s count stop signs, How far can we count before we get to ________?
- Play alphabet board games, ABC bingo, word bingo, and other simple games such as, “I Spy”, using objects that begin with a specific letter sound. E.g. I spy something that is blue and begins with “SSS” or solve ABC riddles – I’m thinking of something that starts with the sound, “Mmm”, and you can eat it (say the sound of the letter, not what the letter is called).
- Read lots of stories. Encourage children to retell the story or recall events from the story and act out parts of the story together. Be enthusiastic about representing your favorite parts of the story by drawing pictures or modeling with Plasticine and your children will join in.
- In addition to reading favorite books, read simple pattern books (the dog goes to town, the sheep goes to town…), ABC books and books that refer to numbers and contain math vocabulary. Rereading books reinforces concepts.
- Encourage your child to notice letters, words and sentences in posters, books, signs and magazines. E.g. Let’s count how many times we can find “w” or the word “see” on this page?
- Play board games and card games. Give the child plenty of time to count the numbers on the dice and to move his/her game piece around. Use two dice when one is too easy.
- Count pennies together. Stack them into piles of ten and then count by tens (or fives and count by fives).
- Use math vocabulary at home. Include words like more than, less than, fewer, rectangle, triangle, square, circle, add, subtract, share, divide, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and equal in your every day speech. E.g. “Let’s fold the napkins into triangles. Give me fewer potatoes than Dad. Give Mum the first cookie, give Dad the second cookie, and give _ the third cookie…”
- To help your child prepare for a homework schedule for the years ahead, plan the same time each day to spend time with your child. Schedule part of the time to do activities together, and to help your child learn to be responsible for his or her homework, part of the time when your child is working alone."
- Go to http://www.kindergarten-lessons.com for more ideas on how to support your child’s learning at home or to find out what goes on in a kindergarten or preschool classroom.
Printable version of Support Learning at home
Many government sites have additional free print outs that support parents who want to be involved in their children's learning. The BC Ministry of Education offers some booklets.
Go from "Support Parents", to home page.
