The Whole Child e-zine brings you free preschool activities each week to maximize your child's potential, build skills and parent-child relationships in just a few minutes per day. Useful tips, quotes, resources, opportunities and articles will added for extra value!

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17 September 2006, Issue #027

CONTENTS

1. Hello from Shirley
2. Tips
3. Quote
4. Readiness Activities

1. Hello from Shirley

2. Tips

3. Quote

5. Readiness Activities

The Whole Child - Week 28-29 Activities - printable pdf

Week 28

Fine motor skills

Let your child trace the outlines of a pair of shoes onto newspaper to make about 10 footprint shapes. Help her to cut these out to use in this week’s gross motor skills activity. Make sure you have both left and right feet and talk about left and right (laterality).

Gross motor skills

Place the footprints you cut from newspaper on the floor and let your child walk on them. When she steps with her right foot, she must swing her left arm forward and turn her head to the right and vice versa. Vary the distance between the footsteps to make it more fun!

Visual perception 

If you don’t have a loose mat in your home, use a piece of wool to create a large rectangle shape on the floor. Your child must first walk along the edges of the shape and then crawl around the shape. Encourage her to make sharp turns at the corners of the rectangle. Ask her to jump from side to side over the rectangle. Talk about the two long sides and the two short sides. Both of you (or two children) lie down on the floor together and use your bodies to create a rectangle shape.

Auditory perception

Choose five objects from around the house that will each make a different sound when dropped onto a hard surface like a counter or table top e.g. a teaspoon, a wooden block, a plastic cup, a book, a pair of scissors. Show them to your child and then let her turn her back towards you and listen carefully as you drop each item in turn. She must try and tell you which item was dropped after each time.

Mathematical skills

Teach your child to count to ten or higher if she can. Let your child count real objects. On average, a four year old will be able to count to ten, although she may only comprehend the numbers under five. Remember, not every child develops at the same rate.

Faith building

Establish a time when you will read to a Bible story to your child each day. Bedtime is usually a good time to read, giving your child some time to quieten down before its time to sleep. Explain to your child that these stories really happened, they are not made up and that we can learn lessons about life from them.  Our family has also enjoyed our reading of compilations of missionary stories and other true stories about Christians.

Language and thinking 

Look around your home and ask your child to name as many things as she can see that are:
Made of plastic
Made of fabric
Made of wood
Made to wear
Made to use
Give light
Give heat
Made to store things
Can be eaten etc.

Gross motor skills

Let your child pretend she is walking a tight rope. Either place a piece of rope along the floor, or alternatively let her walk along a line between tiles, or the around the edge of a mat, or the joins in the concrete on the sidewalk.

As a variation, let her criss-cross her feet on either side of the line: start standing on the left of the line. Cross the left foot to the other side of the line and then cross the right foot back to the left side of the line and so on.

Then let her try to walk backwards along the line without 'falling off' the tight rope!

Visual perception & fine motor skills 

Create a colour-coded scrap book with your child. Make a page for each colour, by writing the name of the colour with a crayon or marker of that colour on the top of the page. Begin with the 3 primary colours, red, yellow and blue, then create a page for the secondary colours, green, orange and purple.

Let your child cut out items in shades of each colour and glue them into her colour scrap-book. Keep this book for future activities. This activity need not be completed in one day.

Mathematical skills

Play easy games that require using dice, like ludo or snakes and ladders. If your child can manage, use two dice so that she has to add two numbers together or "count onwards" eg 5+3 is 5,6,7, 8.

Make an effort to expose your child to good quality music with complex musical patterns. Listen to musical stories which you can buy or borrow from the library. There is a list of recommended music and musical productions on my website at https://www.shirleys-preschool-activities.com/music-appreciation.html

Faith building

Continue reading a Bible story to your child each day. Answer any questions your child may ask as honestly as possible. Ask your child to tell the story back to you afterwards. This will give you a good idea of how well she understood what was read and what she found significant about the story.