- Have your child keep a daily journal. Find a special notebook that your child can decorate with nice paper or drawings and patterns, and talk about ideas for using it daily. There are lots of benefits to this: practicing spelling, sight words, writing complete sentences and using imagination are just a few of these benefits! I have known students in the past to become very absorbed in their journals and very enthusiastic about keeping them.
- Count forwards AND backwards in twos, threes, fives, and tens. Go beyond 100 and back. Play counting games with your child where you count, deliberately skip a number then ask your child to identify which number you skipped.
- Play 'Top-It' - your child can show you how. In class we have learned regular Top-It with a pack of cards; Domino Top-It; addition Top-It and more recently, coin Top-It with a combination of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.
- Never underestimate the power of reading practice. Read, read, read, read, read. Choose fiction AND non-fiction. Visit the local library. Practice your child's sight words lists. Make flash cards for the words still to be mastered. Read comics, magazines ...any reading material that gets your child fired-up about reading. Have baskets with different reading materials ready at home.
- Continue working on TIME! Students need to understand half-past the hour in first grade. As often as possible, refer to clocks and watches; both analog and digital.
- Create fun number problems using objects at home, magazine pictures etc.