Plymouth Center School

Developing Fine Motor Skills 

Fine motor skills involve the use of the small muscles of the hands.  Many school activities, such as writing, cutting with scissors and drawing, involve fine motor skills.  Sorking on these skills at home will be helpful to your child.

• Play with jacks and marbles.  These games will help your child learn how to control his/her motor movements.
• Use spring-type clothes pins to clip things together.  Make index cards with numbers written on them and have your child clip the correct number of clothespins to the numbered index card.
• Play with clay and playdough.  Use forks and other utensils to cut the clay into pieces.  Using a garlic press, whisk, rolling pin, cookie cutters or a rolling pizza slicer can make the activity even more fun.
• Sort small objects such as nails, screws, botlts, paper clips and buttons.
• Use a water mister to mist plants or grass.
• Cut small shapes out of cardboard and poke holes through them.  Stringing beads, tube macaroni, cheerios or fruit loops are fun ways to help reine your child's motor coordination.
• Put coins intoa a bank, play with wind-up toys and twist bottle caps ona dn off.
• Use clothes fasteners such as buttons, zippers, snapas and shoe strings.  Minipulating the fasteners requires fine hand control.  Dress up and doll activities provide a good context for using fastening skills.
• Play with games and toys such as blocks, puzzles, Lite-Brite, Legos, pick-up sticks and easy to assemble models.  Working with these games and toys uses the small muscles of the hands to develop fine motor skills.
• Screw nuts onto match bolts.  Start with the largest first and then move to the next size down.
• Use a hole puncher to make confetti out of scrap paper.
• Cut, color, fold and paste paper.  Working with paper is a great way to develp your child's fine motor skills.  Use child-size scissors that have small openings for the thumb and a larger opening for the ring and middle fingers.  The pointer and pinky fingers do not go into the scissor openings; they help the hand open and close the scissors.

Writing Tips

Tips on how to support your young writer....

1. Have your child write whatever letters he/she hears in a word. In the beginning, this might just be 1 letter or a line of markings. Try not to be overly concerned with spelling. Instead, praise your child for the imagination and ideas he/she expresses in writing.

2. Let your child create a quiet writing corner in the house and encourage him/her to write frequently.

3. Give him/her ideas to write about. For instance: "Write a note to Grandma to thank her for the birthday present". or "Write about your favorite part of the museum we just visited.

4. Have your child write lists of anything from what she wants for his/her birthday to what his/her favorite movies are.

5. Let your child see you writing and talk about how you're using writing to communicate.

6. Get the whole family involved in keeping a "special days" journal.

7. Buy your child a fancy journal or fancy paper to write on.

8. Let your child use the computer to type a story.

9. Write a story as a family.

10. When writing together, take the time to point out correct letter formation and use of lowercase and capital letters. See the Handwriting Without Tears link for more information. http://www.hwtears.com/parents/newtohwt

Kindergarten 50 Sight Words  

I

like

see

she

no

will

in

my

we

go

is

us

it

said

a

to

look

and

not

do

the

he

can

you

yes

am

me

at

this

play

here

but

have

up

of

with

did

that

for

come

who

out

good

give

down

they

little

what

are

where

Kindergarten Level Books to Read  

Count and See by Tana Hoban

Dig, Dig by Leslie Wood

Do You Want to Be My Friend? by Eric Carle

Flowers by Karen Hoenecke

Growing Colors by Bruce McMillan

In My Garden by Moria McLean

Look What I  Can Do by Jose Aruego

What Do Insects Do? by S. Canizares and P. Chanko

What Has Wheels? by Karen Hoenecke

Cat on the Mat by Brian Wildsmith

Getting there by Young

Hats Around the World by Liza Charlesworth

Have You Seen My Cat? by Eric Carle

Have You Seen My Duckling? by Nancy Tafuri

Here's Skipper by Llynn Salem and J. Stewart

How Many Fish? by Caron Lee Cohen

I Can Write, Can You? by J. Stewart and L. Salem

Look, Look, Look by Tan Hoban

Mommy, Where are You? by Ziefert and Boon

Runaway Monkey by Margery Facklam

So Can I by Ann Prokopchak

Sunburn by J. Kennedy and A. Eaton

Two Points by Canizares

Who Lives in a Tree? by Canizares

All Fall Down by Brian Wildsmith

Apple Bird by Brian Wildsmith

Apples by Deborah Williams

Bears by Bobbie Kalman

Big Long Animal Song by Mike Artwell

Bunny, Bunny by Kirsten Hall

Cats by Deborah Williams

Ways to Help Your Child Read  

Reading Strategies: Ways to support your young reader.

    There is no way to overestimate the importance of reading.  Try to make time everyday to read to and with your child   Below are some suggestions of ways you can support your young reader during family reading time.  Please don't feel that all of these need to be done all the time.  Choose a few to focus on each night.  The most important thing is to make reading time fun and enjoyable.

Before Reading:

1.  Look at the title and take a picture walk.

2. Ask your child to make predictions about what might happen. Ask your child to tell you what he/she knows about the subject of the story. 

3. Point out some tricky words that your child might come across.  Talk about the meaning of the word.  Notice the beginning sound.

During Reading:

If your child is stuck on a word, you can say:

After Reading:

1.  Talk about the story.  Have your child tell you what happened first, next and in the end. 

2.  Talk about your favorite parts.  A part that made you sad, happy, surprised, etc.

3.  Ask your child if he/she would do what the character did or how he/she would feel if something like that happened to him/her.

Read your child's favorite books over and over.  Studies show that each time a child listens to the same story, new kinds of learning take place.  When your child knows the book by heart, let him read it to you.

Specials  

Kindergarten – Mrs. Bellantuono’s Class