Sharing what I picked up for summer skill work

I thought I would share some things I picked up to work with my girls over the summer in order to get them ready for kindergarten. I would love for you to also share what you have found so maybe those of us who have kids going to kindergarten can get some ideas to use over the summer.

Every summer I work on certain skills with the girls as I'm sure many of you do. This year I decided to take a peek at the math content that they are supposed to know (according to KY standards) and start working on those skills that they would be learning in Kindergarten. Now, I'm a math teacher, so I focus mainly on math skills, but I found a great workbook that has lots of great skills for kids entering Kindergarten. Here's the link to the book Mastering Basic Skills Kindergarten

Here are some of the skills I really like about it:

Great use of vocabulary...more, shortest, longest, numerical order,half, whole, etc
Tracing and naming shapes....not just square and rectangle, but also oval, octagon, diamond, star, etc.
Various forms of addition represented (using numbers up to 10)...adding different animals and characters, but also adding vertically and horizontally
Subtraction introduction
Tracing and writing color words
Simple bar graphs (coloring the graph to represent items and reading the graphs to answer questions)
Writing numbers and filling in missing numbers up to 50
Matching numbers with their word names
Measuring with rulers
Money and time (just a few pages covering this)
One page even covers very simple algebra (new national standards coming out are VERY algebra heavy)
beginning sounds
letter recognition
Letter tracing

One thing it doesn't have that I wish it did is tracing numbers and then practice writing them, something my girls are not great at and will most definitely have to practice.

This is a math heavy book with lots of other things thrown in. I also got a great sight word bingo game for 4-6 year olds which I think has a great list of beginning sight words, some sight word flash cards, a map to learn their states and capitals, and a set of BOB books to start reading. I got everything at the parent-teacher store..which I love.

If you have something nifty that you have picked up, I would love to hear it and hopefully we could all get some ideas for working with our kindergarten bound kiddos over the summer.

 

Target sells great dry erase books for tracing letters. We really like dry erase so we can use them over and over again

If you have an iPhone I suggest teach me kindergarten. It covers simple addition and subtraction, sight words and simple spelling

 

This isn't really academic skills but more like life skills. I think summer is a good time for the kids to practice washing their own faces, getting dressed all by themselves, putting away their pj's, combing their own hair, checking their backpacks to make sure they have everything ready for school.

Once the school year gets started, mornings are going to be chaotic. It's good to get the kids used to a morning routine when they are not so pressed for time. And if they can learn to do all that by themselves, it'll make your morning less crazy

 

We are using summer to explore all the good stuff we may not have time to once school starts:

growing crystals (keeping a photo journal of how they are growing and short writings) (writing!)

making homeade ice cream/rock candy

cooking together (basic math!)

starting allowences (math!)

going all sorts of fun places (zoo, science center, botanical gardens, etc)

Practicing independence (getting self-dressed, bathroom skills, cleaning up after themselves, etc) just a bit more responsibility

I am actually not too worried about K readiness, my two are 'old' for K (just past cut-off age) so all the K prep skills that the school want (listening to an adult, waiting turns, ability to sit for a while, etc) are already in place.

We are working on memorizing address, phone, and writing first/last names!


I actually am trying to do a lot of science/social studies/nature/math based trips around town.....our K curriculum is very reading/writing heavy (which my girls already enjoy), I want to make sure that they are exposed to all sorts of other wonderful things!

 

We never practice skills over the summer. They need a break and time to decompress.
However, we did place ours in summer school for rising Ks. It was our chance to test our separating them and other school skills before real school started. It worked out really well. They learned the lay-out of the school, how to behave in a formal school environment and met some friends (they went to a magnet school away from our neighborhood).

 

We're travelling back home for 5 weeks, so they'll have plenty of time to run around in a moderate climate instead of 90s with 90% humidity and mold growing on the walls. I'll continue reading with my oldest, practice some sight words with the twins, practicing letters and reading simple words, but most of all, lots of fun things. I need to keep my ds' speech up since he's delayed. They'll have one week after they finish and one week before they come back to recover. The twins are starting Primary Year 1 this year, so starting to read, write, etc. so it's going to be challenging since they'll be the youngest of the class (they go by birthyear and mine are end of 2006, plus they're starting a year earlier here anyway ... so a double whammie!).

 

My goal is to work on this stuff too. They've always been in FT daycare/preschool, so the morning rush is not new to us, but they're going to be a lot more responsible for their own stuff in K (as opposed to the teachers keeping track of it), so I figure we need to do that at home too.

They do like the "teach me kindergarten" iPhone app, but they play it for fun. They read books and write words for fun too. And we talk a lot about math and science, but informally, as it comes up in conversation. I'm not at all concerned about academic readiness, and I worry that it would backfire hugely if I tried to actually teach them anything! :ibiggrin: