January

Get Ready for School

Skills to Practice this Month

Teach your child positive ways to disagree. Talk to your child about how to cooperate with others and ways to express anger, frustration, or a different opinion without hitting, biting, or other unacceptable behaviors.

Teach your child to say “please” and” thank you” by using these words yourself. Praise your child for using them.

Activities

Make “Feelings Puppets” to help your child talk about emotions. Have your child draw or glue pictures of faces on paper plates to express happy, sad, angry, and surprised. Tell a short story and ask your child to hold up the puppet that shows how the people in the story might feel. Then let your child tell the story and you hold up the puppets.

Ask your child, “What makes you happy?” “What makes you angry?” Write their responses in the blanks and sing the “Feelings Song” to the tune of “Are You Sleeping?” Sing the song several times by including other feelings: grumpy (see me pout), silly (see me wiggle), sad (see me cry).

I feel happy, I feel happy.
See me smile, see me smile.
Happy, happy, happy,
_______ makes me happy.
See me smile, see me smile.

I feel angry, I feel angry.
See me frown, see me frown.
Angry, angry, angry.
_______ makes me angry.
See me frown, see me frown.

Get Ready to Read

Skills to Practice this Month

Provide pencils, markers, and paper and encourage your child to draw and scribble or write. Pretending to write and read is an important step toward becoming a good reader and writer!

Help your child improve his small motor skills by allowing him to use crayons, pencils, and scissors. Keep scrap paper and pencils available at different places around the house.

Be Healthy

Skills to Practice this Month

Your child’s school day will follow a routine, with certain events happening at the same time each day.

Create your own daily schedule that includes waking; breakfast, lunch and dinner; time for fun; time for chores and schoolwork; and time to relax; and bedtime.

Establish a bedtime that gives your child 11 - 13 hoursof sleep at night. Create a bedtime schedule that lets your child know that it is now time to start getting ready for bed. Talk about your day. Do quiet activities like reading a book or telling a bedtime story.

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