For preschoolers, start with a basic game that helps him learn farm animals, numbers, colors (create a hue scavenger hunt!), and shapes. Adapt the game for school-age children to cover anatomy, world government, foreign language, and history. What you choose to teach with this game is only limited by your imagination. You don’t have to sit still in a chair endlessly repeating letter sounds. Try activities that make learning phonics an adventure instead of a tedious lesson. Kids can play games (look for things that start with certain sounds), hunt for letters, make alphabet books, and even use a digital camera to bring their phonics lessons to life. If you have preschoolers, help them learn the alphabet and the motions of each letter. With a pack of colorful pom-poms, you’ll put them on a path to identify colors, learn how to count, and start sorting, which also encourages gross motor skills. At the same time, you’re helping them develop their fine motor skills by letting them pick up the tiny objects. Play a game that lets them physically touch the objects they’re counting. As an added bonus, research shows that hands-on projects activate kids’ brains and help them learn better. Kids who are more advanced in their counting skills can try a variation of the game that will challenge them to think beyond counting to three and in terms of how many objects they actually see before them. For preschoolers, your future math whiz can get an early start on number recognition (look for digits when playing “I Spy”) and learning to count. For school-age children, tackle fractions and other advanced math problems with math games, an abacus, and even cookies! Hit the right note with fun music classes, making your own instruments (add bells to a paper plate to create a tambourine, for example), and playing musical games. Record instrument sounds and play them back to see if your child can get the answer right, or create a music trivia game and act out the answers. Preschoolers will enjoy simple science experiments that don’t require much of an effort on your part (use gumdrops and toothpicks to create a shape), yet are jam-packed with fun learning opportunities. Your school-age children can try science experiments that are a bit more involved but won’t leave your house a disaster area when they’re finished. A garden teaches preschoolers how plants come to life. It’s also an easy way to teach him about nutrition and get him excited about eating the vegetables he’s grown. School-age children can keep a gardening journal, study a plant’s scientific name, and grow more difficult plants. Preschoolers may not be the best website designers, but they’re not too young to have their own website. With your help, they can take pictures for their site, tell you what they want to say on their blog, and learn what it takes to make a website run smoothly. When they’re older, you can redesign the site together and turn over the keys without having to do as much for them. School-age children are ready to manage most of their own site, which will help improve their writing and thinking skills. You can also use their website to teach them how to stay safe online. Preschoolers can enjoy making crafts he might find in other countries and tasting authentic foods you cook together. School-age children can study cultural etiquette, find a penpal from that country, and learn words from the official language.
