The Everything Kids' Learning Activities Book: 145 Entertaining Activities and Learning Games for Kids

Introduction

The Everything ® Kids’ Learning Activities Book is a complete guide for keeping kids entertained with fun things to do that also promotes important learning concepts in the key areas of reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. The games and activities in this book help you and your child practice storytelling skills, creative writing, money sense, backyard science, and eco-friendly play, as well as teaching your child about earth and outer space, diversity, and more. The activities are geared for a wide age range (five to twelve), and within each section, activities for older children build on skill sets learned in the activities for younger children. This guide is all you need to get kids up and learning.

There’s almost nothing more frustrating than sitting down to do an activity with your child only to discover that the directions are hard to follow, the project is mostly adult-led, or that you don’t have all the materials you need to complete the activity. Learning activities shouldn’t be a burden or cost a fortune, nor should they be so tedious that your child loses interest.

With that in mind, the activities in The Everything ® Kids’ Learning Activities Book are a mix of games and projects that aim to use materials you already have around the house, and activities that don’t require any materials at all. Whether they require materials or not, the activities are designed to encourage children to be active learners, using their brains and bodies as tools for learning.

Though each section’s activities build upon the skills of previous activities, there is no right order in which to do the activities. While in school, math, reading, writing, science, and social studies can be divided into separate subjects, in your child’s daily life all of these subjects co-mingle. In fact, it makes perfect sense to combine Grocery Store Scavenger Hunt activities from Chapter 6 with the Grocery Store Math found in Chapter 12, or to pair the Backyard Nature Journal in Chapter 18 with the nature walk you’ll be taking for the Story Stone Soup activity in Chapter 8.

Secondly, The Everything ® Kids’ Learning Activities Book aims to help your child become a more active learner, not make you a better teacher. By letting your child get involved with the preparation and execution of each activity, you’re helping him discover he can learn through doing, not just by listening or watching. It may be hard to step back and watch him do things differently than you might, but even your child’s mistakes and messes offer learning opportunities. If nothing else, he’ll learn how to ask for your help in fixing mistakes, and learn that when he makes a mess, he’s responsible for cleaning it up!

Lastly, know that this book is only a starting point to engage your child’s interest. Each game and activity can open a discussion, lead you on a hunt to find more information, and give you the opportunity to share learning with your child in ways that are new and fun to both of you.

CHAPTER 1

The Five Key Learning Areas

Children learn best when they’re motivated to make sense of the world around them. They learn on their own terms, at their own pace, and they learn best when they’re trying to make meaning of the world. Although that may sound as though parents, teachers, and caregivers don’t have any role when it comes to children’s learning, that’s far from true. By providing children with stimulating activities full of learning opportunities and taking advantage of teachable moments, parents and caregivers can create an environment in which children learn new skills without even really trying.

Reading

When a child begins to read, it can seem as though it happened overnight. One day he’s trying to sound out the words of his favorite book and the next day he’s reading fluently. It may seem that simple, but it’s not. Learning to read is a process that begins from the moment your child starts listening to language.

Though not all children learn the same way, there are some essential skills that contribute to your child becoming a fluent reader. That is, one who can easily read the words on the page as well as make sense of their deeper meaning.

Early Reading Skills

Early reading skills, or prereading skills, as they are sometimes known, don’t really look like reading at all. The simple abilities to rhyme words, to understand that you start reading a book at the front cover, or even being able to recognize the logo of a familiar store are the skills that create a reader.

What’s a teachable moment?

A teachable moment occurs when a child’s curiosity is piqued enough for you to grasp the opportunity to use his interest as a springboard for learning. It can be something simple, like a conversation, or bigger, like a national event that gets him thinking. Whatever the catalyst, teachable moments happen spontaneously; you just have to keep alert and be ready to help him explore.

When your child tells you he wants a certain brand of cereal because he recognizes the box, or that he wants to go to the fast-food restaurant whose sign he sees down the street, he’s reading the environmental print around him. When he sings the Banana Fanna Fo Fanna song (The Name Game) or listens to Dr. Seuss books, he’s practicing phonemic awareness by playing with sounds. When he reads you his favorite book until it is so worn the pages are falling out, he’s learning to recognize words by sight.

Building Fluency

Those early reading skills bring your child to the next phase of reading, one in which she is ready to start recognizing sight words, begin using word families, and even bring home spelling words to practice. This is an exciting time for readers. Your child will begin slowly and painfully, but as she gains confidence in her ability to read words and learns to go back to correct her mistakes, she will become a more fluent reader.

A fluent reader no longer reads word for word or sounds out every word on the page. Fluent readers can read smoothly, both silently and aloud. Once she’s fluent, your child uses inflection when she reads, can make sense of the text, and is well on her way to becoming a great writer and storyteller.

Here are some signs of a nonfluent reader. He reads slowly, with discernible difficulty, and doesn’t use inflection when reading aloud. He reads one word at a time, and uses only the sound it out strategy to read new words. A nonfluent reader doesn’t go back to self-correct, and just tries to get it over with. He usually whispers text to himself or mouths the words as he’s reading.

A Parent’s Role in Creating a Reader

Your child may have become a fluent reader with the help of a teacher, but he’s going to learn his attitudes about reading from you. If he lives in an environment where he sees people reading, in which there are books, and where you are willing to play word or literacy games, he’s much more likely not to just be good at reading, but interested in it, too.

Writing

Learning to write is more complicated than just knowing how to tell a story or using correct punctuation. The process of learning to write actually begins before your child even knows how to read or write words. That’s because writing isn’t just an intellectual skill, it’s a physical one, too.

Scribbles Are the Start of Writing

In order to be able to write, your child needs to be able to hold a pencil correctly, and manipulate it well enough to make the different shapes that make up words. That’s not as easy as it sounds.

If you’ve ever seen your toddler or preschooler color, you’ll notice that she tends to grasp the writing instrument straight up and down in her fist. This limits her ability to move both her hand and the tool, limiting the range of what types of marks she’s able to make on the page. However, that doesn’t mean your child doesn’t begin writing before she can form actual letters. If your child is a reader, she’s probably a writer, too. Many kids will start making uniform scribbles across a page of paper and tell you it’s a story, a list, or people’s names. Don’t disregard her efforts! It means she’s beginning to get a sense of where writing is placed on the page and in what direction it goes.

When kids start learning to write, it’s easier to use golf pencils rather than regular-size pencils. The size of the pencil is more proportionate to their hands, making it easier to grasp appropriately.

Take a Note, Please

A concurrent step in the writing process is dictation; that is, having your child tell you a story that you write down, then showing it to her. (In fact, this may be the only time in your child’s life that it’s okay to let her be a dictator!) Your child may be proud of her ability to squiggle across the page, but she’s probably frustrated by the inability of those squiggles to tell the stories she has in her head.

Asking parents or caregivers to write down stories serves two functions for your child. It helps her get the story down on paper, and it helps her see what the words of her story looks like. Once you’ve written down what she has to say, you can sit down with her and read it word by word. As you point to the words, she’ll recognize them as her own and take a special interest in what those words look like.

Phonics, Sight Words, and Inventive Spelling

Much like when kids learn to read, as they learn to write there are a whole lot of things going on simultaneously. The next step in the writing process isn’t actually a step at all; it’s a series of learning experiences, the first of which is learning about sight words. From the very first day of kindergarten your child will be introduced to the concept of sight words, words that he’ll gradually be expected to recognize every time he sees them, which is different from learning to sound them out.

Sight words are words so commonly found in books that your child will actually learn to recognize the shape and letters of the word at a glance, learning them without having to sound them out. Once he can read them, he can most likely write them, too.

Still, there will be words your child isn’t able to spell and write correctly, which is where phonics and inventive spelling come in. Though they are similar concepts, they’re not quite the same.

Phonics relies on your child having the ability to match letters to their sounds and is used as a technique to teach reading. Inventive spelling is a similar process, but in writing. Though his sentences may look indecipherable to you, if your child is using his ability to put sounds together to sound out words and assign letters to them, he’s writing.

What is inventive spelling?

Inventive spelling is a technique used when kids are just starting to write. Basically, inventive spelling allows kids to write the sounds they hear when they say a word out loud. It makes for some strange spellings of words, but encourages kids to write without anxiety about being right.

Writing Is an Ongoing Process

One of the last steps in the writing process is learning technical skills like grammar, paragraph formatting, genre, and technique. This process starts with your child understanding all the elements of a story. After that he’s ready to move on to learning how different types of writing are used for different purposes. Writing a story, for example, uses a very different format than an essay.

It’s a process that continues to be refined as your child gets older and his ability to comprehend more complex abstract ideas grows. As a parent, you can support this by continually asking him questions about what he’s writing, encouraging him to add detail, and doing some of the activities in this book so he doesn’t feel as though writing is a chore.

Math

Math is a subject that strikes fear in the hearts of kids and parents alike. Kids often complain that math is hard or they’re just not good at math, but more children (and parents) are capable of handling math than they think.

Math isn’t just about numbers, and it’s not just found in textbooks. The types of math that kids complain about are often the complicated formulas and math facts that they are expected to memorize. If that’s what your child thinks math is, it’s no wonder she complains about it.

Math Is All Around You

Interestingly enough, your child starts learning math concepts before she even knows what numbers are or what numerals look like. Early math concepts aren’t about number sets, they’re about sorting and patterning, which help to build an understanding of how numbers relate to each other.

Patterns are everywhere in your child’s world. They’re the words of the rhyming books she reads, they’re the stripes on her favorite shirt, and they’re the tiles on the bathroom wall.

Sorting, too, is a part of your child’s everyday life. When she separates her pants from her shirts in her drawers, she’s sorting. When she puts all the green LEGO bricks in one pile and the blue LEGO bricks in another, she’s sorting. She watches you sort laundry, and she sees you sort out groceries as you put them away. All of these daily activities are preparing her to work with numbers.

Why Math Is Hard

If math is all around you, it would stand to reason that math would be easy to learn, and fewer kids would have trouble with it. In actuality, it’s often not the math that kids are having trouble with, but learning it. There are a few factors that contribute to kids finding math difficult.

Math phobia. The idea that math is hard is a myth that many kids buy into before they even give it a try. It seems overwhelming to them, and they freeze up when it comes to doing math.

Learning style differences. Kids don’t all look the same, and they don’t all learn in the same ways, either. Some kids need lots of practice to understand a concept, while others get it immediately. Many textbooks aim to teach the learner in the middle of the spectrum, and as a result the kid who needs a little extra help as well as the kid who needs enrichment get lost in the shuffle.

Constantly changing programs. Not all schools keep the same textbook or program from grade to grade. If your child’s program changes, the method of teaching math could be a little different than it was before. Instead of being able to build upon a solid base of skills, your child ends up spending time relearning skills in a different way before moving on.

Luckily, as a parent, your job isn’t to choose the curriculum or textbook, it’s to show your child how math can be used in everyday life. From playing card games to cooking with your child, there’s always a way to sneak math into the day.

Science

Like math, science is all around you, too. Science is more than just doing experiments; it is learning how to observe the world around you, learning how to ask questions, finding ways to answer those questions, and then asking more questions to begin the process all over again.

Science is a broad term, encompassing everything from life to technology, making it one of the easiest subjects to introduce to children, because there are so many different branches to learn about. When it comes to the types of science kids explore in elementary school, there are seven main areas:

Biology: The branch of science that deals with living organisms, including plants and animals.

Chemistry: The branch of science that studies substances, combinations of substances, and analyzes the reactions of chemicals and materials.

Earth Science: The branch of science that looks at the earth. It’s a large area of science that includes everything from weather and climate to geology and paleontology.

Electricity: The branch of science that explores electricity to see how it works and can be controlled.

Astronomy: The branch of science that studies the entire universe including planets, meteors, stars, and other phenomena of outer space.

Engineering: The branch of science that deals with the design and creation of machines, as well as studying their functions and how they work.

Physics: The branch of science that looks at matter and energy, including sound, light, motion, and even magnets.

While that list may sound like an overwhelming number of areas to cover, keep in mind that science as inquiry means your child is exploring the world to find ways to make sense of it. As a parent or caregiver, it’s not your responsibility to know all the answers, just to guide your child in finding them.

Social Studies

On its surface, the subject area of social studies sounds very boring. After all, who wants to spend all that time learning about the past, how to read a map, or about how different types of governments work? Kids—and their parents—might be surprised to learn that those things are only a small part of what is considered to be social studies. The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) is working hard to change this view.

As our society continues to grow into one that relies more and more heavily on technology, the world is coming together as one big global community. One day your child could find herself working a project with students or colleagues from all around the globe, without ever leaving her home. It’s important, then, that she has a strong understanding of herself, how to relate to other people, and the history and customs of other cultures.

Themes of Social Studies

The NCSS identifies ten major themes of social studies that help kids learn how to live in a global society. Some of the ones your child will learn about include:

Culture: The current and historical study of the customs of different groups of people, looking at how cultures compare to each other and change over time.

Time, Continuity, and Change: Learning about the past as a way to understand the evolution of human experience and how it has led us to where we are now.

People, Place, and Environment: A study of climate, geography, and natural resources to learn more about the world’s population and how location affects culture.

Individual Development and Identity: A look at how the culture you live in shapes who you are, and what you need to learn to be successful in that culture. This includes things like social skills and personal growth.

Individuals, Groups, and Institutions: A study of the formation and maintenance of social, religious, and political institutions and how they reflect (and can be influenced by) societal beliefs.

Power, Authority, and Governance: An overview of the different types of government, their purpose and structure, and the power and authority each type of government and its citizens hold.

Production, Distribution, and Consumption: A study of resources, trade systems, supply and demand, and the effects of each on economics.

Science, Technology, and Society: Learning about how science and technology has advanced and changed society.

Global Connections: A look at the way societies are connected now, how they’ve been connected in the past, and how that may change in the future.

Civic Ideals and Practices: An overview of the values and practices of various cultures and how following these practices help people become participating members of society. This also includes learning about what it means to be a citizen of a democratic nation.

Like science, social studies encompass a lot of information. Again, your role in doing activities with your child is not to lecture her about all of these things, but to help her explore new things about herself and the global society in which she lives.

CHAPTER 2

Phonemic Awareness

A phoneme is the smallest sound in spoken language that has meaning in its context. You can think of phonemes as mouth moves. For example, the word go has two phonemes: /g/ and /o/. Without both of them, go is a no go. Phonemic awareness is the ability to understand, hear, recognize, and manipulate those sounds. It may sound like a lot of work, but for most kids it comes pretty naturally. You’ll know your child has phonemic awareness when he can hear the small pieces of a word, know when those pieces are missing, or change little sounds to make a new word. Those silly little songs he sings in the car with nonsense rhyming words may drive you crazy, but next time you hear it, you can cheer. Your child has mastered phonemes!

Sounding Off to the Beat Game

Your child is probably already experimenting with word sounds. She’s likely playing around with changing the beginning sounds to make silly rhymes, so why not encourage her by adding a little backbeat to her efforts? In the Sounding Off to the Beat Game, all you need is a little bit of rhythm and the ability to hear how words sound the same.

If you remember any of the circle games from you were little, many of them were based on the chant-clap-slap combination that goes something like this: Name of the game! (clap, knee slap), Ready to play? (clap, knee slap), Then I say … (clap, knee slap) Let’s play! (clap, knee slap).

This game is played the same way as those classic games, but instead of asking you to remember certain words or add something that you would take on a trip, it practices manipulating the sounds of words. Adding the rhythm makes the game more challenging, but also a little more exciting.

Skills Being Practiced

Rhythm

Sound recognition

Word-sound correspondence

Sound manipulation

How to Play

Start a rhythm. It’s probably best to start with something slow, like clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap.

Once both you and your child are able to maintain the rhythm, choose a sound. It can be the ending sound of a word or the beginning sound. Just make sure your child knows whether you want him to come up with a word that rhymes with yours or one that begins the same way.

Begin by saying in time to the rhythm: Let’s start with the ____ sound. It’s time! Let’s go!

Here’s how a round might go if you choose rhyming words:

Player One: Let’s start with a rhyme. It’s time, let’s rhyme!

(clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap)

Player One: Cat

(clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap)

Player Two: Bat!

(clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap)

Player One: Sat.

(clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap)

Player Two: Mat!

Here’s how a round with a beginning sound might go:

Player One: "Let’s start with the ch sound. It’s time, let’s go!"

(clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap)

Player One: Chat!

(clap-slap, clap-slap, clap-slap,