How to Help Your Preschooler at Home

Katie Dolan, Preschool Teacher Doyle ECC

This workshop will be full of ideas and suggestions for easy ways to help your preschooler learn and grow though simple at home activities! We will also touch on typical developmental milestones during the preschool years along with suggestions for how you can support your child as they work towards these!

Domains to be Covered

• Fine Motor
• Pre-Literacy
• Early Math
• Social-Emotional
• Language
• Play Skills

Fine Motor Skills

• Snips Paper (3 year old)
• Cuts straight line (4 year old)
• Pre-Writing Shapes
• Beginning self help skills (zips, buttons, etc.)

Scissor Skills

• Thumb up!
• Cut away from your body
• Consider what type of scissors your child might need
• Start with snipping then move on to straight lines
• Adult can help with stabilizing the paper
• Might need to begin by creating a smaller paper to work with
• Hand over hand (often easiest from behind child)

At Home Checklist (Fine Motor)

• Provide lots of opportunities for hand strengthening- play doh, peeling stickers, activities with squeeze bottles, etc.
• Incorporate games or activities with a fine motor component- barrel of monkeys, stringing beads, Mr. Potato Head, pegs, connect 4, etc.
• Think about the kind of scissors that would be most helpful for the stage your child is at!
• Vary writing utensils- paint (q-tips are great!), crayons,� Chalk, markers, golf pencils

Pre-Literacy Skills

• Letter/Sound ID
• Book handling
• Retelling or sequencing a story/ asking and answering questions
• Rhyming
• ID name and labels
• Beginning sounds*

*4 year old skill

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Letters and Sounds

• Children should be learning to ID upper and lowercase letters
• 4 year olds should be familiar with the sounds that letters make (one sound per letter, no long vowel sounds yet!)
• Begin with letters in familiar and meaningful words- usually name of the child and family members!
• Songs, shows, books and videos with letters are great to help familiarize children with letters
• Games and activities- Magnetic letters, alphabots, letter locks, puzzles
• Letters and Numbers are different!

Book Handling Skills

• Practice holding books appropriately and turning pages- This can be tricky at first!!

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• Some children might enjoy learning the parts of a book. This can be a fun activity!
• Short Video/ Song- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOr8-LvMg4w

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Sequencing and Retelling a Story, Asking & Answering Questions

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• Start with beginning, middle, end
• Familiar stories are often easiest- fairytales, etc.
• Provide visual supports
• Move on to First, Next, Last
• Expand into more than 3 details
• Model this skill
• Some children may enjoy acting out or retelling a story using props, puppets, etc.
• Wh questions are a great place to start when talking about a book! (link to example in the chat)

Rhyming

• Rhyming is really important pre-literacy skill, it helps when kids are learning to read!
• Rhyming can be a challenging skill for students to master! They often confuse it with words that begin with the same sound- ball and bat instead of bat and cat
• Starting with CVC words/rhymes is often easiest… especially short a patterns like -at, -ag, -an, ap, etc.
• Include books with rhyming words in your at home library
• There Was an Old Lady series
• Llama Llama series
• Sheep in a Jeep
• Have your child fill in the rhyming words
• Poems and Nursery rhymes are also a great source of rhyming words!
• Repetition of rhymes is key here!

Identifying Own Name and Signs/Labels

• When things are meaningful they’re motivating to us!
• Names of child and family members are often the first words they learn to recognize
• We live in a print rich society… be sure to point this out to your preschooler!

Beginning Sounds

• This is not necessarily being able to say what letter a word starts with
• What’s the first sound you hear in burger?
• Can you think of something else that starts with the same sound as burger?
• I’m going to name three words… I want you to tell me which one doesn’t belong- Burger, bunny, shoe
• I spy can be a great extension of this skill- I see something that begins with the /t/ sound…
• You can also show two objects or pictures and ask which starts with a particular sound or alternatively have your child sort items by their beginning sounds!

Number Sense and Early Math Skills

• Shapes, colors, sorting
• Number ID
• Counting
• More/Less/Equal *
• Position words *

*4 year old skills

Shapes/Colors/Sorting

• Identify basic shapes (square, rectangle, circle, triangle) and colors
• Use these attributes to sort items into categories
• Can use household items or things like counting bears, cubes, blocks, etc.
• Once kids master sorting into two groups can extend into sorting by three groups or resorting the same group different ways
• Great opportunity for a guessing game- “How do you think I sorted these items?”

Number Identification

• Many of the activities for letter ID can be used for numbers as well (ispy, magnets, bathtub toys)
• For three year olds work on identifying numbers 0-5, four years olds- 0-10
• Expectation is not to write the numbers but just to be able to identify it
• Meaningful opportunities- house numbers, on a clock, sports jerseys etc.

Counting

• One to one correspondence is an important part of counting
• Teaching children strategies like lining up objects, grouping them, or making piles can be helpful (older kids doing pencil and paper tasks might want to cross out or mark)
• Three year olds should be counting up to five objects, four year olds ten objects
• Fingerplays and counting books are a great way to practice!

More/Less/Equal and Position Words

• This is a place math vocabulary comes into play
• Use this language in normal situations- play, gross motor, etc.
• Should be visual at this age

*This is typically a skill for older preschoolers

Social Emotional Skills

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• Identifying & managing emotions
• Supported problem solving

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Identifying and managing emotions

• Use opportunities when kids are calm to work on these skills. Then help them put them into practice when they’re needed
• Talk about how people might be feeling or how characters in books are feeling
• Emotion check in’s are great and a good opportunity to model this skill
• Visual reminders can be super helpful
• Brainstorm lists as a family of what to do when you’re sad/mad/etc.
• Book list in the chat
• Next slide- Zones of Regulation

Supported Problem Solving

• Give children a chance to work out disagreements or discuss problems amongst themselves
• Let them know you’re there for support
• Offer guiding questions or suggestions and opportunities to practice
• “I see your upset your friend cut in line, you need to tell them”
• “You both want to play with this toy, let’s set a timer so we can each have a turn”

Language Development

• Receptive vs. Expressive Language
• Language Milestones/ Intelligibility
• Creating language opportunities/ Modeling rich language

Receptive vs. Expressive Language

• Receptive language is being able to understand things other people say
• Includes following directions- Get your coat, put the toys away, etc. �
• Expressive language is the child’s ability to express or share their thoughts/opinions/etc. �
• Often receptive language develops first

Modeling Language

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CK6l5wKBBqM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

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Play Skills

• Stages of play
• Toy rotation

Toy Rotation

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Keep in mind the 4-6 Toy Guideline: This is the research-backed recommendation that you only keep 4-6 toys PER playspace. This reduces overwhelm and sparks creativity….I frequently get asked, "What if my children are different ages?" This is a great question and one you sort of have to decide on for yourself. If you feel like their play is overlapping enough, just do 4-6. If you've got a baby and an older toddler, you can do 4-6 toys each! Totally up to you!

(The Movement Mama)

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Thank you,

Final Thoughts, Questions,

Comments