Written by Peggy Kaye, HOMER’s Chief Curriculum Officer

Featured on Jim Henson’s Family Hub

We’re big fans of learning AND playing. In fact, we often find ourselves doing both and don’t even realize it. Our very own Peggy Kaye, shared a few activities to get your family reading and playing, which were featured on Jim Henson’s Family Hub!  

Reading and play – do the two intersect? They can and they should – because when they do, the mix can be magical. Presenting reading tasks, or any other skill, in games or engaging activities lowers children’s anxiety and increases their involvement.

TREASURE HUNT:  

Saturday morning… nothing special on the agenda… might be time for a treasure hunt.

First, decide what the treasure will be. It could be a small toy, a cookie or a special trinket.  Then find a hiding place.  Next, take five to ten index cards (the more cards, the longer the treasure hunt) and write clues on them.  

The first card will direct your child to the second card.  “Look under the red pillow in the living room.”  The second card — which you will hide under the red pillow — directs your child to the third card. Your child goes from card to card until…the treasure…. is revealed.  

This game will take you about ten minutes to prepare, but the fun will last a lot longer than that.  Better yet, your child has a powerful motivation to read each card, which is the unspoken agenda for the game.

SCAVENGER HUNT:  

Next week, you might try a scavenger hunt.  This game works best when there are several players. Make a scavenger hunt list: something soft, something blue and red, something green you can eat, something orange you can wear, and so forth. Each hunter gets a bag to gather their goodies. The first to find everything on the list wins.

FAMILY JOURNAL:  

A shared journal offers a perfect way to make reading and writing an integral part of your family’s life.

To begin, you need a book with unlined paper to use as a journal. Drawing books work beautifully for this job. Once a week, each member of the family picks something that happened during the week that was great, or awful, or especially fun, or something worth remembering.

On the top of a fresh page, write the date, and then each person adds their experiences. Take dictation for young children, or let them use invented spelling. If what’s written isn’t understandable, you can translate underneath.  You might decide to use drawings, with or without captions, to share the week’s memory.  You might decide to include something you all did together rather than have different contributions.

After a few weeks, go back over the book and remember together.  Leave the book in an available spot so that anyone, including your child, can pick it up and thumb through it. If making this a weekly event isn’t optimal in your house, that’s fine. You can pull out the journal when it makes sense to do so.

Use GoNoodle for learning breaks and beyond!

In partnership with our friends at GoNoodle, we wanted to share the benefits of exercise and movement for young minds, especially as a reenergizing break after a span of learning (and before the next!).

Everyone knows that movement is good for the body, but studies have proven that movement is good for the mind as well – especially for children.  Exercise has a long list of brain-benefits including: “improved attention and memory, increased brain activity and cognitive function, and enhanced mood and ability to cope with stress” (via Edutopia).

Teachers rely on GoNoodle’s hundreds of movement and mindfulness videos to break up the day for their students with fun and purposeful content.  After a quick dance party or yoga session, students are ready to sit back down and learn with clear minds and relaxed bodies. Parents can use movement and mindfulness breaks at home as well to channel energy, manage emotions, and reinforce activity from the classroom.  Give GoNoodle a try at home for FREE – sign up for a family account on their website!

Here are some of the different types of activities GoNoodle has to offer:

Dance:

Perfect for an energy burst, family dance-off, or sing-along to your favorite GoNoodle song!

JUMP! in the NTV: Noodle Television channel

Mindfulness:

Kid-friendly mindfulness videos reduce stress, settle anxiety, and boost confidence.

Melting in the FLOW channel

Yoga:

Learning yoga poses and stretches help empower children and get the blood flowing.

Release Your Warrior in the Empower Tools channel

Fitness:

Movement videos are focused on fine and gross motor skills, cross-lateral movement, coordination, and balance.

Full Speed in the Fresh Start channel

Try these breaks and others at home with a FREE GoNoodle account!

As a child development expert, I fully appreciate how school — whether attending for the first time ever, starting at a new school, or returning to school after an exciting summer break— is a big step for a child’s social and emotional development. I can certainly tell you about how learning to share and moving from solo play to collaborative play are important developmental milestones. But what I didn’t fully appreciate until sending my own son off to preschool, was how emotional the experience can be for the whole family. While there are similarities we all go through, every back-to-school experience is unique and personal. Here are some strategies that have worked for our family and hopefully can be adapted to work for yours too!

Research. As parents, it’s important to find a place where we feel comfortable (or as comfortable as we can feel), so that we are confident our kids are at a school that’s right for them. Visit the school with and without your child, observe, talk to the teachers and administrators, and ask questions to really get comfortable with the place and understand whether it’s a good fit for your family.

Communicate. Form a relationship with the teachers and administrators so that you feel as though you’re all on the same team.

Forecast. My son had an extreme (and I mean EXTREME) case of separation anxiety that my PhD did NOT prepare me for. One thing that helped was forecasting step-by-step how the day was going to go so that he could start to get a sense of what to expect. I would say something like “first, we’re going to get your shoes on and pack your backpack. Then, we’ll get in the car and drive to your school. We’ll walk up the loooooong wiiiindy path to the door, and I’ll walk you up to your classroom. When we see your teachers, we’ll say ‘Hi, Ms. D! Good morning, Ms. L!’ And they’ll help you hang up your things in your cubby. Then, they’ll help you find something to play. What do you think you’d like to play today? There are the garbage trucks, the sand table, the Play-Doh, etc.” It also helped to give my son details about when he would get picked up and see me again. Especially for young children, repetition and consistency are key! We would talk through this so many times so that he could start internalizing it – during dinner, at bedtime, in the morning, and while we were going through each step in the process. This strategy can be helpful for any new experience with children of all ages, though how often you need to repeat yourself and how much detail you need to provide will vary.

Acknowledge. One of the most important things we can do for our kids is respect and acknowledge their feelings, even if they seem silly or irrational (like epic meltdowns when they have to wear their red shirt instead of their blue shirt because their blue shirt is dirty). Simply telling our kids that we see what they’re feeling and understand, will help them feel validated and supported. Sometimes this can be easier said than done! Even knowing the benefits of acknowledgement, I often had to fight the urge to reassure my child that it would be okay, and he would have fun at school. Instead, I paused, took a breath, and said, “I see that you’re feeling a little nervous about school. School is new, and sometimes new things make me nervous too.” For an older child, it might be something like, “I see that you’re frustrated that your best friend is in a different class…”

Model. Even as our kids get older, our own behavior still has a tremendous impact on them. Try to get in the habit of modeling the types of behaviors that you want to see in your child. Seeing you demonstrate kindness to a barista or go out of your way to include someone in a conversation, will help make those abstract ideas concrete and relatable for your child.

Get creative. Find different ways to engage with your child about their school day. Instead of asking them how their day was, ask them to tell you the story of their day from their shoe’s perspective (and tell them the story of your shoe’s day too.) It might be something like, “Well, first I woke up in the closet with all my other shoe friends. I made the long journey down the sidewalk where I almost stepped in a piece of gum!” This will help your child practice perspective-taking, flex their storytelling abilities, and maybe even take the pressure off them of sharing details about their own day.

Trust. Trust the process that your child’s school has established and know that the teaching staff are truly experts in helping kids with this transition. But also, trust your instincts. Hopefully doing your research early will set you up to feel confident about your child’s school, but if something isn’t sitting right with you, talk to your child’s teachers and school administrators to try to find a solution. And finally, trust your kids. They are remarkable and capable young people and hopefully the back-to-school experience helps to show off some of their best characteristics.

I hope these strategies help your family transition back to school. But we also want to hear from you! What are some other things that have worked well for your family? What were some of your biggest challenges with your child going back to school this year?

Go back to school with confidence, enthusiasm, and a good strategy on how to use Homer in your classroom! Early childhood teachers know that starting the school year off with a routine is crucial for a successful school year. HOMER is here to help. Our Learn-to-Read Program offers several components that can easily be integrated into your daily routine.

Songs and Rhymes: Songs and rhymes are such an important element in early childhood classrooms. Exposure to songs and rhymes early in life actually helps children master foundational reading skills. We offer numerous songs and rhymes including traditional ones like ‘Jenny Jenkins’ and  ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’ as well as Homer original ones like ‘Pantone Colors’ and ‘Good Morning’ found in the StoryTime section. Incorporate these into morning meeting, circle time, whole class learning, or brain break time.

Discover the World:  This section offers nonfiction content. With hundreds of stories relating to all sorts of world wonders, your kids will get exposure to everything from Presidential history to learning about Ancient Egypt. There are also several selections that cover back-to-school, science, and health information. These selections can be used in literacy centers, small group instruction, or whole group instruction. Don’t forget to print out the printables related to key sections. Our favorites include U.S. Presidents and Larger than Life.

Learn to Read: This section, developed by our learning experts, is ideal for literacy centers or for when you are working one-on-one with a student. In this section, students have an individual pathway where they explore and master a variety of phonics activities. The positive language has been a huge motivator!

StoryTime: The StoryTime section also has hundreds of books that you and your students can explore and utilize during the school year. Again, there are several selections that can be used in your back-to-school units. HOMER offers stories that focus on kindness, friendship, and school. Read ‘Robot’s First Day of School’ for a story that addresses the feelings involved with the first few weeks of school. Original selections such as ‘Nip’s Big Heart’ and ‘Homer’s Hiccups’ are also ideal for tapping into important social emotional skills.

First Readers: The leveled readers in this section can be used in literacy centers, small group instruction, circle time, and whole group instruction. Children are encouraged to not only read the selections, but record their voice as they read it and practice the sounds of what they are reading. Not only do they gain confidence in reading, but they love hearing themselves and progressing forward with their achievements.