Preschool (3K, 4K, and 5K) Ideas

Primary (1st and 2nd Grade) Ideas

Coloring: When you run out of "writing" ideas with little ones, coloring is great for practicing color identification and honing fine motor skills.

Personal Dictionaries: Help children to connect words with their pictures. Make one for each child in the primary grades and fill in words as they learn new ones. Let them draw and color the pictures to go with the words. Click here for a sample cover or here for a sample page.

Tracing: Draw straight, squiggly and zigzag lines on a piece of paper and have your youngster trace them. It helps to develop those motor skills necessary for handwriting.

Play-dough Spelling: Using store-bought or homemade play-dough, let children mold the dough to spell each of their spelling words.

Cutting: Take the tracing paper from above and have them cut out their lines. This is great practice

Beaded Spelling: Using beads with letter imprinted on them and pipe-cleaners, let the children slide the letters on one at a time to spell their words.

Bead or Macaroni Lacing: Lacing activities are fun and help with fine motor muscle development. You can use foam beads, hard beads, colored macaroni, buttons, etc... and a shoelace or piece or yarn for this. Children can practice patterning as well.

Stencils and Stamps: If you have any, they are great to use with homeschool. Kids can use animal and shape stamps in their writing and drawing activities. They can use letter stencils and stamps to practice handwriting or spelling!

Flash Cards: There are tons of flash card sets out there, many of which can be found at dollar stores. Even if small children cannot use them as directed on the package, they are useful for picture identification or matching games.

Toy Graphing: Have your kids go into their rooms and bring out 10 little toys. Encourage them to pick different items, like a few dolls, a couple of blocks, several crayons, etc... Have them sort their toys into categories then make a picture or bar graph showing their results. Graphing can be done with almost anything, including candy, shoes, barrettes, multi-shaped cereal, seeds, the list goes on...

Rainbow Writing: Choose a letter to work with for the day. Write the letter on a piece of paper and have them trace the letter several times, using a different color each time. This is extra fun when they practice writing their names. This is great for older children to practice new spelling words, too!

Homemade Books: Children who can write or are learning to write may enjoy making their own books. I like to take several pages and draw the lines for them to write on. Then, help them decide what to write about and see what they can do! This is especially fun to do after a trip to somewhere special or after a holiday celebration.

Letter Identification: Choose a letter of the day. After you name things that begin with that letter, teach your child the sound (or sounds) the letter makes. Then, use a newspaper or sales flyer and have your child circle the letter of the day every time they see it.

Weather Graphing: Give each child a one-year calendar. I got mine from a teacher's resource book and I bound the pages together with a construction paper cover. For each day of "school," have your child draw the weather using simple shapes. Then, at the end of each month, make picture or bar graphs showing how many days of each kind of weather there were. After a few months go by, have them compare their graphs to see any similarities and differences.

1-1 Correspondence, Sorting, & Graphing: Use plastic chips, beans, jelly beans, gummy bears, or whatever you can find. Lay them out on the table, napkin, or placemat. Start with small numbers, less than 10 and work your way up. Have your child count the items, then sort them. After sorting, have your child tell you how each group is the same. Then, count them again. After sorting, you could even glue them on a piece of paper and make a picture graph. When they are ready, you could teach them addition and subtraction in this way as well.

Change Over Time: This is an important, but sometimes difficult concept for young children to grasp. Since I am not able to get a new pet each time I want to teach my kids about this, I devised another idea. I make them each a booklet with height and weight charts, as well as pages for graphing the changes in their height and weight. Each month, I weigh and measure them and we record, graph, and discuss the results. This way they see changes over time, but are connecting them to themselves to deepen the learning experience. Click here for the growth chart or here for the graphing page.

Letter Books: I use letter books from www.readinga-z.com, but you can make them also. Just choose one letter and inside the book have pictures with the words that go with them related to the letter. When small kids read these books, they feel like they are reading for real. A real self-esteem booster!

Board Games Math: Board Games require reasoning and often Math skills. This is a great way to relax and teach at the same time with your kids. Give it a try once and a while and see how it goes with your family!

Gardening: Planting seeds and watching them grow and change is a great way to introduce little ones to Science. They love helping. Plus, while they are helping, they are learning what plants need to grow!

Digital Camera Geometry: Click here to see my digital camera lesson plans to address geometry concepts. The presentations can be used during the lessons. The required videos are embedded in the first presentation. They will play when you get to that page and click on it.
Lesson Plan # 1      Lesson Presentation #1
Lesson Plan #2       Lesson Presentation #2
Handouts and Assessment

Mazes: My daughter loves doing these. I jeep them as a reward. If she behaves and does her work, she can do a maze or two at the end of the day. It also helps with those fine motor skills.

Shared Reading: This is the time of day we devote to reading stories and poems or singing songs together, This time is usually focused on the current theme we are covering, For example, if we are learning about forest animals, all the books, poems, and songs have to do with forest animals.

Reading: Little ones love being read to. When all else fails or you are having a hectic day, take time to read with your child. Also, older children may like to be the reader of the day as well. Good practice for the older ones, while the little ones are watching, listening and learning from the example of the older child.

Rhythm: Make small instruments, like: elastic with bells on it, toilet paper tubes with macaroni sealed inside, paper plate tambourines. Then, play some fun kids' music and let your kids practice using their instruments to the beat. This is fun for older children as well as younger ones.