5 - 7 Years SEL

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).

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!

Any sorting set which doubles up as a small world invitation to play is such a winner in my book. The Learning Resources® Sort-’Em-Up Pups Activity Set is new for 2022, and it sure is a gooden'! In this blog, we will be sharing more about what is included in the set and the ways we have been playing with it so far.

What's Included?

I love how this set can all be stored in the cute little pup house. When you first pop off the roof to the house, you will find an orange, green, blue, and purple playpen fence, along with three varying-sized dogs in each color and a selection of paw print cards, as with most Learning Resources products, you also get a comprehensive activity guide which offers some great play and learning suggestions.

Ways to Play

My daughter is four years old, and she loves playing with animals at the moment, especially cats (bonus points if it is a cheetah) and dogs. As she was unpacking this set, she was very excited, especially as there was a little house for the dogs… and then she realized that they all had their little playpens too. The first play was about getting to know her new 'pet pups.' She carefully studied them and noticed that they were different sizes and had some differences in their features. For example, they had different colored noses, and some had polka-dots on their backs, and others didn't. It's always a good idea to encourage your child to share these differences, as this can help with language development. It also even allows them to develop scientific fundamentals such as observation, description, and analysis skills.

After all of the initial explorations of the dogs were over, it was time to start sorting. My preschooler carefully arranged the playpens and placed the colored dog families together in their pens. As she did this, she counted how many there were and commented on the size and unique features of the dogs. She was careful to line up each family of dogs in size order, biggest to smallest. It might not seem like it, but even this simple act is a way for preschoolers to develop and demonstrate early numeracy skills.

Once all of the dogs were with their families in their playpens, my daughter started to make the families interact with each other. She would make up playdates and would be chatting away in her magical world of pretend play. She finished her play session by making a stepping stone pathway for the pups to lead them back to their pup house. She used the numbered paw print cards and carefully laid them out in the correct number order. Then she let the pups take it in turns to jump along the pathway, counting the paw prints as they went. This would also work well if you added dice to the setup so that your child could roll and then move the pup that many paw print cards forwards. My little one was so engrossed in her play that I didn't want to interrupt her, so we will try that next time. She got all of the pups safely in their pup house and then proceeded to set up her playpens and pups all over again.

I'm looking forward to exploring many more ways to use this set in the future. I like that you can challenge your child to sort the pups in numerous ways because of their varying features, some more subtle than others. I'm also planning to add the pups to a sensory bin, maybe some play dirt or dyed green rice, as I know, my preschooler will love the added sensory element to the small world play. So many great ways to play and learn with the Sort-’Em-Up Pups!

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.

Grab your Big Feelings Pineapple and color your very own winter wonderland! 

Print the Activity!

Learning Resources® has a new pretend food playset, and it sure is a good one! My kids have always enjoyed the imaginative food-based play, and one of their favorite weekend treats is a trip to the diner. Therefore, it was no surprise that the Rise & Shine Diner Set was a huge hit and led to over an hour of role-playing the first time we used it.

What's Included?

I have several of the Learning Resources pretend play food products, and they always get a lot of use both at home and in my preschool classroom. The quality is awesome, with each piece being well-designed and durable. The food pieces are also always pretty realistic, which my kids appreciate. In this particular set, you get an excellent range of food pieces and beverages, as well as some fun accessories. You get plates, bowls, cutlery, a frying pan, a spatula, and a menu. There is also a dry-erase activity placemat and order ticket, which helps to extend the play and learning. The ultimate surprise came when my little one flipped over the activity pad to discover that it doubled up as a pretend stovetop!

Exploring the Materials

It's always exciting when you first open up the box and tip out all of the contents. My four-year-old was listing off all of the food items she could see, as well as getting very excited about the frying pan and maple syrup bottle. Of course, she needed to give that maple syrup bottle a good squirt into her mouth straight away to get an energy boost! She explored all of the items, sorted them on the plates, and set up her little diner space, ready to open for business.

Placemat Activity Fun

Before the diner could open, though, she needed a little time because she loved that the placemat had activities on it, and she couldn't wait to do them. This was just like the placemat she gets given at our local diner, so she was super excited! She used a dry-erase marker to complete the maze, play a tic-tac-toe game, and do the dot-to-dot fruit drawings. I love that she was engaged in a mark-making activity even though the product is more of a pretend play toy. So great for helping her fine motor skills!

Open for Business

It was finally time for the Rise and Shine Diner to open up for business officially. My preschooler had all of the produce ready, as well as the menu easily accessible. She was the perfect hostess and even put on a funny, deep voice as she showed me to my seat and gave me the menu. She used the order ticket to write down what I wanted (I helped her with the writing while telling me some of the numbers on the prices). I love that she was being exposed to so much numeracy and literacy without even realizing it!

It made me laugh that she took on her role as a waitress with such seriousness and maturity. She would tell me what was 'in season' and what she wouldn't recommend because it had gone moldy! I think secretly; she didn't want me having any of the 'good stuff' (i.e., the pancakes, waffles, and cinnamon bun were all out of service!).

Once she had the full order, she got to work serving up my yogurt and fruit. She then cooked my hot items using the frying pan and the stovetop. She had a whole explanation for why she had to cook my bagel in a frying pan. The toaster broke at her diner, and she hadn't made enough money to replace it with a new one… I think she was angling for a big tip! I was, however, in luck because she let me have a small drizzle of maple syrup on my eggs. She told me that it was the special of the day.

I love how this Learning Resources pretend play set brought out so many different play and learning elements. There was so much more happening than just making a pretend diner. There was numeracy, literacy, fine motor development, role play, problem-solving, imagination, collaboration, and even a healthy dose of fun! This set will most definitely be a feature in our playroom over the coming months. 

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