5 - 7 Years Reading

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As they learn the basics of reading, writing, and math, your kids can use these toys to build new skills for kindergarten and beyond! When you give your kids toys from Learning Resources, you're giving them skills that last long after the holidays end! 

We’ve talked about essential milestones for three-, four-, and five-year-olds, but the growth doesn’t stop there! Big kids are tackling some important tasks and becoming more independent with every passing day. From academic achievements to physical growth and development, the middle childhood years of six and seven can be exciting. Remembering that every child learns and grows at their own pace, read on to learn what your big kid might be doing over the next 12-24 months!

Social-Emotional Skills

Sixes and sevens are building their confidence and, in turn, becoming even more independent from their family members and caregivers. You can encourage their independence by assigning age-appropriate responsibilities and applauding their efforts to master things on their own, no matter the outcome. Over the next two years, your big kid is also likely:

• Becoming more compassionate, able not just to recognize emotions but to empathize, as well
• Making authentic connections, enabling them to make and keep good friends
• Cooperating with others while performing a task, playing a game, or working with a sports team
• Understanding fairness and rewards that are based on better or worse performance or effort

Language Skills

Speaking in complete sentences, your big kid can express themselves clearly, share thoughts and opinions verbally, and may even start to express themselves clearly in written form. They’ll also be working on:

• Building their vocabularies – to the tune of five to 10 new words a day
• Their sense of humor! Advanced language skills bring a better understanding of jokes and puns
• Proper punctuation in letters and other written communications (although not in texts!)
• Taking turns speaking – learning not to interrupt can’t come soon enough

Cognitive Skills

First graders are working on addition and subtraction, writing and spelling, shapes and measurement, etc. Practicing at home will help, especially with:

• Reading! Reading skills are blooming, so be sure to have plenty of books and magazines on hand
• Telling time days, learning the days of the week, and the months of the year
• Skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s and working with math manipulatives
• Counting coins and adding their sums

Physical Skills

Your six- or seven-year-old is getting a better feel for the things they enjoy and maybe pursuing hobbies and showing an interest in different sports. At this age, your child may be mastering:

• Passing and catching a ball by throwing or kicking
• Dancing to the rhythm and beat of their favorite music
• Riding a two-wheeled bike, which requires balance, coordination, and confidence
• Drawing, painting, and writing more clearly (a sign of solid fine motor skills)

Your support makes a world of difference in your child’s development, so keep reading, talking, playing educational games, counting change at the store, asking their opinion, and telling them how capable they are.

Your little love is about to become a big kid! They’re likely heading off to kindergarten soon, and you won’t believe the progress they’ll make this year. From social-emotional growth to academic learning and more advanced coordination, your kids will soon be skipping, hopping, writing, and even reading a few words! While kids develop at their own pace, below is a list of new skills many five-year-olds will acquire over this exciting year:

Social-Emotional Skills

As your kindergartner continues to assert their independence, they’ll become better and more enthusiastic helpers. Let them pitch in wherever you can, even if it means a bit more work for you after the fact. Over the next year, your handy helper will get even better at:

• Following directions (they might even be excited to do so!)
• Helping with chores like setting the table, sweeping the floor, or washing (non-breakable) dishes
• Knowing the difference between fantasy and reality
• Doing things themselves, like getting dressed (YES!), eating, and using the bathroom.
• Sitting still and listening for 15 minutes

Language Skills

At this age, your child may become quite the chatterbox. Their speech is likely to be clear, their vocabularies are extensive, and their descriptions are becoming more vivid. They’ll also probably learn to:

• Match the beginning and ending sounds of words to the appropriate letters
• Use correct grammar most of the time (with some funny mistakes)
• Use the correct tenses – past, present, future
• Use the correct pronouns – he, his, they, theirs, etc
• Answer and talk on the phone

Cognitive Skills

This year, many five-year-olds will enter kindergarten, where their social, emotional, and academic skills will blossom beyond belief. Some of the things your little one might master this year include:

• Drawing and cutting out simple shapes
• Using relational words like under, over, and next to
• Writing upper and lowercase letters, words, name
• Adding and subtracting numbers under five (practice with cookies – it’s highly effective!)
• Reading several sight words

Physical Skills

While fine motor skills take longer to develop, your five-year-old’s gross motor skills will grow by leaps and bounds (literally) this year! Below are a few of the strides your child may make over the next year or so:

• Balancing on one foot for a few seconds with their eyes closed
• Hopping on one foot, skipping, and even jumping rope
• Using a fork, butter knife, and spoon correctly
• Zipping their zipper (hooray!)
• Tying their shoes

Your big kid will learn so much in school, and you can reinforce that learning at home! Play games together, count the cars you pass on the street, find the letter “O” in the stop sign, and read, read, and then read some more. But be sure to make plenty of time for play, movement, and snuggles. You can also track your child’s milestones by age with the CDC’s mobile milestone app!

Skill Builders! Hands-on Learning for Kindergarteners

Watching my son go through Kindergarten several years ago, I learned about teaching fundamental reading, writing, and math concepts. I remember being surprised at the sheer amount of repetition, but on reflection, that makes sense as a means of helping children to build lasting and robust learning foundations. As learning topics are taught for long periods at the Kindergarten age, it can be helpful for parents and teachers to have a variety of resources to support reading, writing, and Math learning. We were able to have a closer look at the Learning Resources® Kindergarten Skill Builders! Reading, Writing, and Math Sets.

Building Readers

The Skill Builders! Kindergarten Reading Set encourages children to learn through quick and fun hands-on activities. The accompanying activity guide explains a range of ideas, but the materials included can be used in any way you wish. The set includes lowercase letter tiles, letter dice and word ending dice, letter frame, sight word flip cards, sight word picture, sentence cards, and a selection of paper worksheets.

The letter frame was the focal point of all three activities we did with this set. My son chose which combination of materials to use, and for the first activity, he wanted to use the sight word sentence and picture cards, the letter tiles, and the letter frame. He liked the idea of choosing a sight word card, reading the word, and then recreating it on the letter frame. As he added each letter, he told me the name and the sound it made, followed by how to blend the sounds. He liked getting to build the letter with the tiles physically, which was good for his fine motor skills. After making the sight word, he flipped over the card and read out the sentence.

My son's second activity was to use the sight word flip cards. He thought it was pretty neat that he could flip through so many words; we even used them for a fun 60-second flip and shout-out sight word challenge which he thought was fun. We then used them along with the letter tiles and letter frame to build the words as he flipped through the cards. I added an extra challenge for him by telling him a complete sentence with the sight word in it.

The final way we enjoyed this set was to use the foam letter and word ending dice to create words. My son would roll the two dice and then say the word before building it on the letter frame with the letter tiles. He liked the spontaneity of this activity.

Building Writers

The Skill Builders! Kindergarten Writing Set lends itself well to actually 'building' letters, which was incredibly engaging for my son. The set includes mini letter construction pieces and corresponding cards, a write-and-wipe board, a writing prompt spinner, a Learn to Write! dry erase book and a set of Learning Resources Tri-Grip Tongs. The tongs may not seem like the most obvious item to include, but this fine motor tool is specifically designed to help small hand muscles to strengthen ready for writing. Both my kids love using them in sensory bins and for sorting activities. A detailed activity guide is also included.

My son couldn't wait to use the small construction pieces to build letters from the cards. It is really helpful how each card shows the pieces needed and how to build the upper and lowercase letters. The pieces snap together easily and are good quality. 

As he built the letters, I asked him to tell me the letter's name and what sound it makes. My daughter, who is in preschool, also enjoyed using these pieces. She liked using the write-and-wipe board, so I extended the activity by letting her also write the upper and lowercase letters that she had built on the board.

My preschooler then discovered that there was an entire dry-erase workbook. She loved going through the pages and forming the letters with a dry-erase pen. She would carefully trace each letter and then did a great job writing them by herself. I was impressed with how many different aspects of writing the book covered. She enjoyed tracing and drawing shapes, as well as numbers. Great for building fine motor skills, numeracy, literacy knowledge, and vocabulary development.

Building Mathematicians

The Skill Builders! Kindergarten Math Set comes with a solid selection of manipulatives and learning materials. The set includes two colors of MathLink® Cubes, two-sided counters, ten frames, a cardboard 100 board, paper worksheets, two foam dice, a spinner, and a selection of challenge cards using the materials included in the set.

We decided to use the 100 board for a fun board game. We took turns to roll the two foam dice, adding up the numbers and moving our counter that many spaces forward. It was a race to get to the end of the board, and both my kids loved the simplicity and excitement of this game. It was good for addition and counting skills and helping younger children navigate the tricky concepts of taking turns and winning/losing.

When my son was in Kindergarten and First Grade, ten frames were a big part of his learning. He enjoyed using the two-sided counters and challenge cards to complete addition problems on the ten frames provided. A good way to extend this activity would be to provide a pencil and paper so that your Kindergartener can write out the sum and answer, which will help with number formation.

Our final activity was to use the link cubes. As I mentioned, both my kids love to build, so they were excited to explore numeracy concepts using the MathLink Cubes. They enjoyed using the challenge cards to build and complete patterns and then making up their patterns for each other to complete. The cubes are perfect for helping to develop those all-important fine motor skills.

I'm looking forward to continuing to explore these sets with both my children. I like how varied the materials and activities are, as well as the fact that you can easily adjust the activity ideas to suit your child's needs.

Writer's Bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind, and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.

I am currently in the fun position of being a Preschool teacher and being Mom to a preschooler. It is honestly such a magical stage of childhood, and I love how much playful learning happens daily. I am always on the lookout for engaging new materials with my daughter and preschool class, so I was excited to test out Learning Resources® Preschool Letters and Numbers Skill Builders! Sets. In this first blog, we will focus on the Letters Set.

I like to keep learning hands-on for preschoolers, especially when first helping them discover letters and sounds. The Skill Builders! Preschool Letters Set comes with a good selection of materials to learn about uppercase and lowercase letters. You get a detailed activity guide to help inspire learning ideas, as well as laces and threading letter beads, a color spinner, picture and letter cards, and some interactive paper sheets with activity ideas on them. We laminated many of these sheets as they work great with dry-erase markers, which means they can be used multiple times.

1. Letter Threading - My four-year-old went straight for the letter threading materials. She was super excited to make a ‘name necklace.’ She carefully identified the letters in her name and threaded them onto the lace. This is great for her fine motor skills, which helps build the muscle strength in her hand, ready for writing. She spoke about the shapes of the letters as she threaded them onto the lace as well.

2. Letter Matching - Next up, she liked flipping over the letter cards and matching both the uppercase and lowercase letter beads onto the cards. As she did this, I encouraged her to trace the letter on the card with her finger, and we said the name of the letter and the sound that it made. She loved it when she was able to tell me a word she knew, starting with the sound! On the back of the letter cards, there are vibrant illustrations of something starting with the letter, which was a great way to expand her knowledge.

3. Color Matching - The last activity we chose was a color matching game using the spinner. Preschoolers always love flicking the spinner and watching excitedly to see where it lands. My daughter would spin, identify the color and then choose a letter bead. I challenged her to tell me the name of the letter; we would then make the sound together and try to think of at least three words starting with the letter. If we came up with three words, we got to thread it onto the lace. You could add an extra element of challenge to this by each having your lace and seeing who could thread the most letters on in a given time (remember to come up with the three words each time, though). You can also repeat this activity with lowercase letters to keep the learning developing.

The activity guide left us with so many more great ideas to try. Our favorite material was the letter beads, and we can’t wait to use them in some sensory bins as well seen as they can be easily washed. I love that this set is versatile and comes with a range of hands-on activities, all of which can be adjusted for the stage of learning your preschooler is at.

Writer’s Bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind, and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.