Desk Pets: the Positive Reinforcement Strategy That’s Taking Over Classrooms

Your soon-to-be-Kindergartener was built for summer! There’s so much to do, see, and explore, both inside and outdoors. If you’re looking for some fresh, fun ideas to help keep your rising Kindergartner engaged and learning for the rest of the summer, have we got the activities for you! Read on for three days’ worth of developmental, educational, and social-emotional activities – plus some bonus activities, just for fun. And don’t miss our summer minicamp activity ideas for three- and four-year-olds

Kick off your first day of camp with some fine motor fun! Threading is an age-appropriate challenge for four-year-olds, resulting in a colorful creation they can wear or display. Set out some pipe cleaners and pony beads and thread a bracelet, create a beaded pattern for your preschooler to follow, or stick some spaghetti sticks into a ball of molding dough and thread penne noodles to make Stegosaurus. Find more threading ideas here.

Download this free, printable worksheet, grab some counters, and practice numbers and counting with your kiddo! Count the letters in their name (writing it out on a sheet of paper might help), their age, the number of siblings they have, and more!

You may have seen the pretty, painted rocks people are leaving around neighborhoods across the country as a symbol of kindness. You can do the same! Take a walk and find some medium-sized rocks with nice flat or rounded surfaces. Clean them off and pop them in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes – you can use the time to talk about things that make your kids happy as inspiration for what they might draw. Let the rocks cool just a bit, then use crayons to draw their ideas! When the rocks are dry, use a Sharpie to write caring messages like “Kindness”, “Love”, or “Joy”. Then place them in your neighbors’ gardens to brighten up their days! Find other kindness activities here.

End your first day of minicamp with another cool-down activity – making a snowstorm in a bottle! Gather a glass or see-through plastic jar, vegetable oil, white paint, glitter, and an Alka-Seltzer tab, and follow these instructions to make it snow inside!

Using the proper pencil grip is the key to legible writing. Help your kiddo practice this summer by providing a sheet of properly formed capital letters to trace using a variety of differently sized crayons, markers, and pencils. Around age five, kids should be able to manipulate a writing utensil with three fingers rather than move their wrists or arms. Learn more about proper pencil grasps here.

Brush up on those math skills with a scavenger hunt around the house! Print this list of things to look for and set off to find everyday math items, including number words, items of certain sizes and shapes, pairs of things, and more!

Playing school is a wonderful way to build your child’s creativity and imagination. It also allows your soon-to-be-scholar to mentally prepare for going to school and build the confidence they’ll need to thrive there. Set up some school-ish materials, like a chalkboard or easel, books, paper and crayons, and stickers, and follow your little one’s lead. Will they read to their stuffed animals? Teach you letters and numbers?  Draw a picture? 

Nothing is nicer after a day of summer minicamp than a delicious popsicle! Follow our favorite recipe for fruit and veggie pops, working together to squeeze the lime, drop the ingredients into the blender, stir the elements, and insert the popsicle handles. Talk about the foods as you work with them – what color are they? What is their texture like? What letter does that food start with? How might it taste?

Stretchy, sticky, and squishy, you probably know that slime is awesome. But did you know that slime also helps builds fine motor skills? Measuring, pouring, mixing, stirring, squeezing, smashing, rolling, and twisting are all great ways to strengthen hand muscles and build fine motor skills! Start your last day of minicamp off with some slime, using our favorite recipe.

Practice letter identification, letter sounds, and word building with this simple stamp-and-learn activity! Set out some molding dough (or make your own – another fun minicamp activity!), tools like plastic rolling pins, cutters, kid-safe scissors, and letter blocks or magnets. Then show your child how to flatten the dough and stamp a letter into it. Say the letter name as they stamp, make its sound, and say a word that starts with that letter. See if your child can find the letters in their name and stamp them all in a row. 

The forces of physics are all around us, and summer is a great time to see them in action. Floating in the pool, rolling a ball, and dropping an ice cream cone (oh NO!) are perfect examples of buoyancy, motion, and gravity. These simple activities will demonstrate some of the most fundamental properties of physics in a fun way – and you can follow up your lesson by making a simple machine (instructions included).

Print this free career worksheet, cut out the word cards and images, and match them up! Talk about each job, the responsibilities of each job, the qualities each requires, and which one interests your child the most (and the least).

It takes several years for kids to truly master subtraction. Your little learner will likely be introduced to the idea in Kindergarten and will work continue to work on “taking away”, as well as other basic math skills, through about the 4th grade. You can help support the concept at home, with simple, playful activities designed to teach the concept and fluidity of numbers, which is proven to support long term math success, versus simply memorizing math facts. Below are a few of our favorite ways to practice subtraction:

Start With… Manipulatives!

Manipulatives are the name of the game for introducing the concept of subtraction. You can find manipulatives specifically designed for math activities, including everything from ten frames and dots to sets of dinosaurs. You can also make your own manipulatives, using anything from paperclips to marshmallows, toy cars, or wooden blocks.

No matter the tool or the game, you’ll want to talk your kiddo through the process. Count your original quantity out loud, then remove some of the objects, set them aside, and count your original set again. Then count the quantity you removed. Talk your mini mathematician through the process, using math vocabulary like plus, minus, and equals. Verbally share as you go, saying things like: “We have one, two, three, four, blocks. Let’s take away one, two blocks. Now we have one, two blocks. Four blocks minus two blocks equals two blocks.”

Then Try… Dice, Cards, or Dominoes

Once your little one is comfortable with the visual concept of taking a quantity away from another quantity, they’re ready to move onto mental math. Encourage them to think of the numbers they’re seeing as objects, see the total, then remove the quantity they’re subtracting.

You can make this mental math practice way more fun with dice, cards, or dominoes! Roll two dice, determine which number is bigger, then subtract the smaller number from the bigger one. Draw two cards and do the same. Or pull a domino from the box and subtract the smaller side from the larger.

And Finally… Riddles

Mental math wizards will get a kick out of number riddles. Write one number, 1-10, on each of 10 index cards, pick three, and lay them out face up. Then give your child a series of clues to help eliminate some of the numbers on the cards and help them determine which of those three numbers you have chosen.

For example, you might have cards with the numbers 5, 9, and 2. You’ll say, “The number I am thinking of is NOT 6 minus 4.” And “The number I am thinking of is NOT 10 minus 1.” Your kiddo will use these clues to determine that you are thinking of number five.

Like all learning, the best way to make it stick is to make it fun! Try these subtraction tricks with your kids and help lay the foundation for future math success.