Focus and Self-Control involves paying attention, remembering the rules, thinking flexibly, and exercising self-control.
Regulate Emotions
- Teach your child how to calm down and focus with deep breathing techniques. Stretch out your fingers and trace over them with your other hand from pinky to thumb. Breathe in as you move up one side of the finger, then breathe out as you move down the other side. Then do it again in the other direction, going from thumb to pinky.
- Any game that requires controlling impulses and movements can help children regulate their thoughts, emotional responses, and actions. Try playing games such as Red Light, Green Light or Musical Chairs.
Observe Details
- When reading a picture book, embrace your acting skills and give each character a different voice/personality! Intonation and actions used will make the story more exciting and help your child notice the story's details.
- Engage with your child and talk with them about whatever activity you're doing. Describing everyday actions like cleaning, grocery shopping, picking up the mail, etc., helps your child focus on the details!
Classify and Compare Objects
- Next time your child is helping to clean up toys, make a sorting game out of it. Ask for all the toys with a specific attribute (such as color or size). Next, try items with a particular function (such as toys that make noise or that can be snuggled, stacked, or rolled).
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Perspective Taking refers to a person's ability to consider a situation from a different point of view. It requires you to put yourself in the other person's position and imagine what you would feel, think, or do if you were in that situation.
Introduce New Ideas
- Share your thoughts and feelings. If you are having a bad day, let your child know, emphasizing it is not their fault, and share how you will cope. Ask your child to do the same when having a rough day by expressing their feelings using words.
- Use puppets or stuffed animals to act out different scenarios (for example, one puppet takes a toy from another). Then, ask what emotions they might be feeling. After labeling the emotion, ask what the puppets should do next to help with handling the feeling.
Provide a New Perspective on Something Familiar
- Roleplay with your child. When children pretend to be doctors, teachers, police officers, grandmas, or puppies, they step into another's role. Encourage them to act out their story, think about how they would feel in a situation, and consider what they would do.
- Play "Can You Imagine?" by taking a regular activity and adding a twist! For example, after walking the dog, ask, "Can you imagine walking a pet dinosaur? How would it be different?"
- Help your child become aware of the effect their behavior has on another person. Following a conflict, talk about how they viewed the conflict, why they had that view, and how they felt during the conflict. Then, do the same for a positive interaction.
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Communicating is figuring out how to express what we want to say and realizing how others will understand our communication.
Use Rhymes or Wordplay
- By singing and rhyming with children, we teach them how to articulate words and practice the pitch, volume, and rhythm of their native language. This helps them develop the listening and concentration skills essential for brain development and memory.
- Play "I Spy" with rhyming words. For example, "I spy with my little eye something that rhymes with 'bear'!" Then use the rhymed words to create a song, story, or poem.
- Sing and read about animals using the sounds of each one. Animal sounds are fun to make and provide an opportunity to practice the many sounds we use when speaking.
Expand Vocabulary and Use New Words
- Spice up your conversations! Substitute synonyms for everyday words. Synonyms are usually more descriptive than the original word. When it comes to vocabulary building, “Enormous” is always better than “Big.”
- Bring books to life! Give characters different voices and sound out the actions. Adding this element to stories will draw kids' attention to the rhythm, intonation, and actions used.
- Build on your child's basic comprehension of well-known words by making labels for commonly used items. This will help them learn to recognize what the words look like. You can label rooms in the home, kitchen items, and tools in the garage. Be creative!
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Making Connections involves figuring out what's the same, what's different, and sorting things into categories.
Reinforce That Mistakes Are a Part of Learning
- Making mistakes is part of learning. Instead of immediately trying to fix things, step back and watch your child troubleshoot the problem. Start with, "Can you think of a better way?" and offer tidbits of support and advice when asked.
- Some of the coolest inventions came from inventors' mistakes, from Popsicles to Velcro. Research and talk about the many wonderful “oops" discoveries we use every day. Supply basic materials and let your child invent their own cool contraption.
- Play problem-solving games such as scavenger hunts, board games, and word puzzles. Games help kids understand that obstacles are an essential element of life.
Offer New Perspectives
- Pick out some everyday items such as a potato masher, a remote control, or even a soap dish. Ask your child to imagine other uses for the items. Encourage them to imagine themselves in different settings. For instance, what could they use the object for if they were at the beach?
- Everyone sees the world from their own perspective. Teaching children this concept is not easy. Be creative! Take a look at puffy clouds in the sky and ask what they see. Is it a dog, a dragon, maybe a castle? Try this with mountains, rocks, or even splatters of paint.
- Ask your child to take an object and see how many things they can pretend that it is. That big box could be a race car for one child and a fairytale castle to another. Neither choice is right or wrong.
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Critical Thinking is utilized by observing, making predictions, and evaluating information.
Evaluate Information (Fact or Fiction)
- Encourage conversations. Help your child find family, friends, and neighbors to talk with about something they have learned. Not only will your child get experience relaying information, but the recipient will love the attention, too!
- Encourage your child to take a close look at their surroundings and ask questions. If there is something you are unsure of, research and learn the answer together. You don't need to know all the answers—in fact, it is beneficial when YOU ask questions and model curiosity as well.
Help Children Make Predictions
- After reading a storybook, read a non-fiction book related to the topic. Talk about the difference in the type of information in the books. For example, read The Three Little Pigs and then a non-fiction book about wolves. It's a fact: Real wolves can't walk on their hind legs!
- While reading books, make guesses about why the characters took certain actions. Talk about the motivation behind their behaviors by linking them to an emotion. Then talk about why the characters would have felt that emotion.
Present a New Concept or Idea
- Supply art materials and help your child make a daily journal for recording thoughts and events. Ask your child to draw a picture to express their feelings, and add their favorite activity of the day.
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Taking on Challenges helps in learning how to be resilient and how to persist through difficulties and stress.
Model Resilience and How to Cope with Stress
- When working with your child through mistakes or mishaps, avoid immediately placing blame. Instead, encourage them to take a problem-solving approach. Invite them to think of solutions. Start with: "Can you think of a different way?"
- When you hear, "I can't tie my shoes" or "I can't read," teach your child to add the word “yet” to the end of these sentences: "I can't tie my shoes yet" and "I can't read yet." This one word turns the obstacle into an achievable goal!
Praise Effort and Strategies, Highlight a Growth Mindset
- It's not always about winning. Remind them that doing their best is the real win. Tell your child that when they are struggling to do something, the important thing is to continue learning and improving—not to do things exactly right.
- Instead of saying, "You're so smart!" praise the process itself. By praising effort, you will encourage children to challenge themselves, take risks, try, and continue learning and growing.
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Self-Directed and Engaged Learning is beneficial in helping us realize our potential and grow into lifelong learners.
Extend Learning
- Offer new experiences and information that build on your child’s interests. Are trains the latest cool thing in your child's life? Visit a model railroad museum, build a cardboard box train, and check out train books from your local library. Be creative!
- When going on an outing, do a little research beforehand about what you will be seeing. Compare and contrast notes about what you researched and what you saw in person.
Present a New Idea
- Provide plenty of simple, inexpensive toys for endless creative play. Keep plenty of blocks, balls, boxes, toy animals, or anything that can stimulate imagination and problem-solving.
- When you hear, "I'm bored!" don't immediately step in and find something for your child to do. Allow them to come up with safe, creative ideas for entertaining themselves.
Model Setting and Achieving Goals
- Provide your child with opportunities and time for independent self-care activities, such as dressing themselves, washing their hair, making the bed, and putting together a healthy snack.
- Break down goals into smaller milestones. For example, try baking cookies. Start by finding a recipe, then learn about measurement and cooking utensils, visit the grocery store for the ingredients, and finally make the cookies!
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Off to School
Congratulations! You've completed the Glendale Public Library's School Readiness Program!
Now that you've completed the program, please take a moment to
complete a survey about your experience. These surveys help us evaluate the program and create future library services.
Continue to provide daily support to your child, strengthening their mastery of the 7 essential life skills that you've learned, and they will have the best learning experiences in school.
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