Christmas Gifts that Teach

Several parents have asked if there are any specific items that you can buy to help your child with their reading and math. My best advice is to find games that teach. Below are a few games and toys that I highly recommend:

• Scrabble Flash - Students make as many words out of the letter combinations as possible. It is very similar to the Making Words activity that we do in class each Friday. Students will start to see patterns in words as they can change only one or two letters to make a new word. The great thing about this game is that it has automatic scoring and can be played independently.
• Bananagrams - The game is played like Scrabble but does not require the board and is easy to travel with. Through playing with words, students will begin to make more connections between the spelling of words.
• Bendomino - This is a twist on classic dominoes, which I also love. Dominoes help students with number recognition and can be used as manipulatives in a variety of ways. As you play dominoes with your child, have them add the two numbers of the domino before placing it down.

With those recommendations, I must say that I believe children do need time to just play and be kids. It is great to find teachable moments at home to reinforce what we are learning at school, but it is just as important to let children express themselves in stress-free, unstructured play. For that, I recommend having a supply of crayons, markers, blank paper, Legos and other types of blocks.