Maths and English Educational Kids Games To Get Them Ahead When Starting at School

by Victoria Welch

It is your little ones first step into the Big world of school, and for many children this can be an anxious time.

This can also be a very hard time for some parents to, the first time that you let your little child out in to the big world, but there is no need for you to worry, they are going to school, they will have fun learning and meet new friends. Don’t let your child feel you anxiety, as this could unsettle them.

As a parent you have the important role in helping your child learn, it is important to have fun as they learn about new subjects, you will also need to help and answer the many questions your child will ask you about each subject.

The most important thing that you can do is taking an interest in what your child is learning at school; praise them when they have done well and give them the tools to learn more.

All children that go to school, are taught by targets that should be reached, this is usually done by age group such as 5-7 years old, 8-11 years old and so on. But each child is different and will learn things at different speed so don’t be pushy and let them grow at their own pace.

If you play educational kids games that are interesting to them, they will want to play and learn at the same time.

Playing learning to read games that are enjoyable as well as educational, can Make English Fun!

Rhyming Games and Word Games will help them learn new words and they can use their fantastic imagination to create rhyming poems.

We can then help build on this again by letting your child make up their own stories, and putting on a show using Learning Puppets or a Picture Book, this will help strengthen their confidence, and let us listen to the way they speak, to make sure that they talk clearly.

Some children find it difficult to sit and listening to a story or a teacher’s instruction. By playing listening games, children learn to be quiet and still to hear what the sound is, Cock-a-Doodle-Moo, is great fun for kids and learning games like Listening Lotto really grab their attention.

Reading is a wonderful skill, which lets children’s imagination run wild.

Learning to read begins with you reading to your child as a baby. With time your child understands that the content of a book never changes.

Later on, after much sharing of books, children begin to play read and turn the pages of a favourite story while chanting parts of it aloud.

There are two ways are children are usually taught to read, either by Look and Say or by using Phonics

A Word Building Game and learning what new words mean will help grow your child’s mind. Using Rhyming Words Games is also great fun.

If your child has had the opportunity to use paint, crayons or small construction toys this would all help their fine motor skill, and consequently their writing skill.

Teach your child to hold a pencil correctly and guide them over letters of their name or through workbooks suitable for their age group, if they need you to, place your hand gently on top of theirs

Once your child knows how to trace letters shapes with your help, see if they can use their looking skills to make letter shapes by drawing over faint dots you’ve made. From this stage of copying over, comes a stage of copying beneath.

Early writing will not necessarily be the correct way up or stay in a horizontal line. But do try and help your child correct this, so that it’s not an on going problem.

If you love numbers yourself your child will mimic that love, so make any encounter you have with numbers a fun activity for yourself and you will soon transmit this feeling to your child.

Counting doesn’t have to be boring for your child, remember to make learning fun.

There are all sorts of ways to help your child remember how to pronounce numbers and how to put them in the right order.

Some simple activities and Math games for kids that you and your child could do could be; Counting Out Loose Change, Singing Counting Songs or Counting How Many Times They Can Skip a Rope.

Keep an eye out for chances for your child to count out loud, it’s all great practice, and a good time for you to check that they pronounce the numbers correctly, particularly the numbers 11 to 19 as many children find these numbers difficult.

By the age of 7 years old most children are able to; count, read and write whole numbers up to 100, and put them in order, count on or back in ones or tens from different starting numbers, tell if numbers are odd or even, know that you can undo an addition with a subtraction, know when doing addition that its easier to start with the bigger number, understand that multiplying is the same as adding more of the same number, be able to double numbers or half them and know the 2 and 10 times table by heart.

Don’t give your child a calculator to relay on as this will stop them using their fantastic brain, but do show them how to use an Abacus to solve mathematical problems.

But maths isn’t always about calculating exact answers.

Being able to estimate a rough answer is an important skill that helps your child solve problems and check their work.

Virtually all those who have excelled in mathematics have stated that estimation was a prime skill.

Some simple Math games for kids to encourage estimating would be guesswork games.

Ask your child to guess how many peas he thinks are in the bag, or marbles in the pot. Then ask him to count them to check his own guesswork.

Let him know that there is nothing wrong with making an inaccurate guess, and that it is not always possible to know exact quantities, but do encourage him to learn to trust his own guesswork.

Practice with guesswork will make it more accurate as time goes by, but do be playful when you are engaged in guesswork.

With Gratitude and until next time. (artcileAlley)