Games to Make & Play with Your Child

Here are a couple of game ideas that you may want to make and play with your child at home this summer:

1.  Search for Words and/or Letters

Materials:
     magazine or newspaper pages
     highlighters or light coloured markers (e.g., yellow)
     a timer
     scoring page
     pencils

Directions:
     1.  With your child, pick a high frequency word (e.g., the, I, is, and, like, this, a, at, be, are, etc.) or a letter of the alphabet to look for.
     2.  Set the time for a minute or two. 
     3.  Each player scans his/her magazine/newspaper page looking for the special word/letter.  Each time you find the word/letter, highlight it.
     4.  When time is up, each player counts up how many times he/she found the word/letter and records his/her score.
         

We looked for:	Billy’s Score	Daddy’s Score
the	7	5
and	6	8
m	22	15

2.  Button  Toss

Materials:
     -various buttons  (5 to 20)
     -a paper bag with the top of the bag folded down or small box.  (A book or a few rocks in the bottom of the bag/box will keep it from toppling over.)
     -a ruler or some masking tape or chalk (or whatever is best to make a line on the floor/ground to stand behind)
     -a recording page
     -pencil

 

Directions:

1.  Mark a line on the floor/ground a reasonable distance from the bag/box.  (This might require some experimenting to find the right distance.)

2.  Stand behind the line, and throw one button at a time until all the buttons have been thrown.

3.  Count the number of buttons that you got in the bag/box.  That is your score.

4.  Record your score.

5.  Gather up all the buttons and try again, or the next player plays.

 

Button  Toss	Mary’s Score	Mommy’s Score
1.	11	5
2.	15	14
3.	18	12

 

We hope you enjoy making and playing these games with your child.  Your child will not only be learning letter/word/counting skills, he/she will also be learning a lot about cooperation, turn-taking and how to be a good winner/loser. 

 

We would love to hear back from you re. the above game ideas.  Let us know how they worked or how your family modified the ideas.

 

 

We hope you are all staying cool in this heat wave!

 

 

 

    

Another Blog for You...

I've just come across another blog that might be of interest to you especially if your child likes movies, and you don't always have the time to preview the movie.  Films for Kids  is the name of the blog.

The movie reviews are written by a mom with a 4 year child.  She writes the reviews from the perspective of suitability for viewing and enjoyment potential for both the child and parent. 

Let us know what you think of it.  In addition, if you follow other blogs that you think other parents/families may enjoy, let us know.  We may be able to feature it in the future.