Well, I hope your first few hours of spring break have been going well! 🙂
While it is VERY important that you spend time as a family relaxing over the break, here are a few things to keep in mind if you are working away over the break!
Pencil grip
-when writing with your child take a look at their pencil grip. While you child is getting older, it is not too late to change their grip! Chances are your child isn’t going to like to change how they hold a pencil but it is important for their future writing. If you would like to read more about it, click here!
Number reversal
-there are some numbers and letters that are just trickier than others! Under the age of 7 it is still normal for children to write some of their numbers and letters backwards. At this age, however, we are ready to really focus on correcting this. I found this article with some good information about letter and number reversals as well as a few ideas of fun ways to practice writing them correctly!
Skip counting
-While you are going about your business over the it is a wonderful time to practice skip counting with your child! Having good mastery of skip counting by 2, 5, 10, and 25 will help your child with addition and subtraction this year as well as new math strategies in the years to come. Our class enjoys Scratch Garden and Number Blocks videos on YouTube! They both have skip counting videos.
Addition
-continue to practice single (grade 1) and double (grade 2) digit addition over the break. Make it fun! There are so many online math games and apps. Also take a look as some of these fun math card games! We will be learning many of these after the break. While using our fingers is a great first strategy for addition, it can be slow and what happens when you run out of fingers? Encourage your child to use different math strategies to help them with their addition fluency.
And finally, read, read, read! (and write 🙂 )
-research shows that just 15 mins day of reading has a huge impact on children’s reading ability. It is also beneficial for you to read to them! The neat part is you can read to them in any language and it is still beneficial to your child. So if you are not comfortable reading in English, pick a story in a language that you are comfortable with! A trip to the library always sparks an interest in books and don’t forget about your child’s Raz-Kids account!
Have a wonderful break!