Helping Your Child

Helping Your Child
Get Ready for School

with activities for children
from birth through age 5




Foreword


"Why"

This is the question we parents are always trying to
answer. It's good that children ask questions: that's the best
way to learn. All children have two wonderful resources for
learning--imagination and curiosity. As a parent, you can
awaken your children to the joy of learning by encouraging
their imagination and curiosity.

Helping Your Child Get Ready for School is one in a series
of books on different education topics intended to help you
make the most of your child's natural curiosity. Teaching and
learning are not mysteries that can only happen in school. They
also happen when parents and children do simple things
together.

For instance, you and your child can: sort the socks on
laundry day--sorting is a major function in math and science;
cook a meal together--cooking involves not only math and
science but good health as well; tell and read each other
stories--storytelling is the basis for reading and writing (and
a story about the past is also history); or play a game of
hopscotch together--playing physical games will help your child
learn to count and start on a road to lifelong fitness.

By doing things together, you will show that learning is
fun and important. You will be encouraging your child to study,
learn, and stay in school.

All of the books in this series tie in with the National
Education Goals set by the President and the Governors. The
goals state that, by the year 2000: every child will start
school ready to learn; at least 90 percent of all students will
graduate from high school; each American student will leave the
4th, 8th, and 12th grades demonstrating competence in core
subjects; U.S. students will be first in the world in math and
science achievement; every American adult will be literate,
will have the skills necessary to compete in a global economy,
and will be able to exercise the rights and responsibilities of
citizenship; and American schools will be liberated from drugs
and violence so they can focus on learning.

This book is a way for you to help meet these goals. It
will give you a short rundown on facts, but the biggest part of
the book is made up of simple, fun activities for you and your
child to do together. Your child may even beg you to do them.

As U.S. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander has said:

The first teachers are the parents, both by example
and conversation. But don't think of it as teaching. Think
of it as fun.

So, let's get started. I invite you to find an activity in
this book and try it.

Diane Ravitch
Assistant Secretary and Counselor to the Secretary


Contents


Foreword

Acknowledgments

Learning Begins Early

It Mean To Be Ready for School?

Activities

Birth to 1 Year
Developing Trust
Touch and See!
1 to 2 Years
Shop till You Drop
Puppet Magic
Moving On
2 to 3 Years
Read to Me!
Music Makers
Play Dough
3 to 4 Years
Kitchen Cut-Ups
Scribble, Paint, and Paste
Chores
4 to 5 Years
"Hands-on" Math
Getting Along
My Book

What About Kindergarten?

Appendices

Good Television Habits
Choosing Child Care
Ready-for-School Checklist
Notes