Helping Your Kindergartner Learn Through Play

Have you ever noticed how a Kindergartner will come home from school reciting silly rhymes and singing silly songs? I'm sure your child is laughing and smiling when they are singing to you. They hardly even realize that they are actually learning. At that age, a child's main goal is to have fun. Why not use their natural zest for life to help them learn at home too? Here are a few ideas to make homework fun.

Often times, Kindergarten children have trouble understanding the concept of mathematics. To them, it's just a bunch of meaningless numbers. They need something more visual to understand what they are doing. If you are helping your child with math, use tools that the child can eat. Instead of saying, "one finger plus one finger is how many fingers?" try this, "if you have one potato chip, and I give you another potato chip, how many potato chips do you have?" While you are doing this, place real, edible potato chips in front of your child. Let him or her eat them once he or she answers correctly. Of course, potato chips are just an example, you can use any small, snack food that your child likes. This makes it feel more like a game to your child, than homework. He or she will be very eager to get the snack prize!!

A child in Kindergarten may not enjoy reading too much. You can help them enjoy reading by helping them have fun with it. When you read to your child, try to encourage them to follow along by using different voices for the different characters. They will probably find it quite humorous and want you to continue reading. Once they begin reading to you, you can help them by taking turns reading with them. Who knows, you may both end up using funny voices. Think of how fun that can be for a child!

Learning colors can be frustrating to your child.They mix them up often. To make learning colors more fun, you could play a color game! Toss a ball back and forth with your child. Whoever is holding the ball has to say a color and something that is the color they said, before throwing it. For instance, I am holding the ball, I say, "GREEN TREE", then throw the ball to my child. My child says, "RED APPLE", and throws it back. Children become very creative when playing this game! It also works quite well with letters!

All too often, we become frustrated when we have trouble helping our children learn. If we remember to make learning fun, both the parent and the child are less frustrated, and the child learns more. Often times, incorporating fun into learning can cause the child to learn unknowingly. By making learning a fun, and interactive experience, your child also gets the benefit of your attention!