It's nearly time for your child to more into the next phase of their life and begin school. You want to help ease the transition for them but what can you do?

Mom, Dad, play with your child.

Take out some paints, some paper and help your child discover colors. Mix colors as you name them. Paint shapes, paint animals with the shapes.

Take your child to the park. Talk about what you see. Show them boats in the bay or on the river, lake or creek. Go feed the ducks.

Go visit a farm and introduce your child to the cows, pigs, horses,kitties...whatever. Buy some farm produce and go home and make a salad or cook some veggies.

Bake with your child. Talk about measurement… 1 cup of this or that, ½ cup of that… 1 tbsp. of brown sugar, 1 tsp. of vanilla. Make something with cloth. Measure it first…perhaps a little pocket purse or pouch. Talk about which is heavier…a pencil or a toothpick, which is more…a drop of water or a cup of water.

Take them to the zoo and come home and make a book of all the animals you saw together. Find pics of them on the net and print to place in his/her book. http://www.cpinternet.com/~sarah/rdr012.html

Make letter cards…practice them with your child. Practice the sounds as well as the names of the letters. Make number cards and do the same.

Have library day…go to the library and pick a book to read with your child. Go to a second hand bookstore and buy some books for your child. Read the books over and over again. Ask questions about the story. Have your child retell the story. Have your child draw the story.

Buy some play money. Talk about pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. A penny is 1 cent, a nickel is 5 cents (etc.) Ask how many pennies are in a nickel. How many in a dime? How many coins make 12 cents, 13 cents (etc.)?

Review shapes with your child …have a shape of the week, number/letter of the day, color of the day, shape of the day.

Get a children's magazine and read the stories, do the activities with your child. Help your child direct a play with neighborhood friends. http://www.parentinginformation.org/booksboxes.htm

Hug your child, pray with your child at night, go on walks in the woods with your child. Go to the pool with your child. Love them and take time for them. They grow up quickly. My youngest is going into 10th grade!

Get Your Child Ready for School, From U.S. Dept. of Education: http://readyweb.crc.uiuc.edu/library/1992/getready/getready.html

Caroline Shaw holds a B.S. degree from Duquesne University in Secondary Education, English. She is mom to six children,editor and publisher of the Online Magazine,"AMomsLove.com" Each issue contains informative articles for WAHMs,single moms, working moms, and more. She lives with her husband, three "still at home" children, a collie and three kitties in Western Pennsylvania. Her hobbies are writing, cooking, gardening, decorating and crafts.