• Keep a Summer Journal along with your child:  Write and draw pictures of summer experiences.
• Sing together everyday.  Teach your child some of your favorite family songs.  Write down the words and create a family songbook to read and sing from.  Memorizing simple, traditional folk songs is still one of the most delightful ways we have to develop language and literacy skills and fond family memories. (See Recommended Children's CD's.)
• Enjoy memorizing rhymes, poems and chants with your child.  Reciting and reading rhymes and poems will help your child with important reading skills.  Practice the language over and over again.
• Visit the library weekly and help your child select picture books to read.  Set aside 20 minutes each night to read and enjoy books together.  Include some from the list of favorite predictable books and “Books that Sing and Rhyme.”  (See Predictable Books That Children Love to Read.)
• Talk to your child about what it was like when you were six years old:  Where you lived and what you liked to do.  What are some of your best memories?
• Create a simple art/writing area for your child at home: A place where they can draw and write, color, cut, paste and create their own books.  See How to Create An Art/Writing Center at Home.
• Take evening walks and notice the stars and the moon.  What do you wonder about the stars?  Learn about familiar constellations.  Enjoy singing the lovely song, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star together.
• Listen and watch for local birds.  See if your child can spot a blue bird, robin, sparrow and hummingbird.  Talk, read, write, draw, and learn about local birds.
• Teach your child to handjive (patti-cake style), skip, dance, jump rope and/or march to the steady beat of favorite songs.  A good sense of rhythm supports not only coordination for athletics, but reading development.
• Take a city bus – or a train ride.  Talk about what you see and hear.  Did you read any signs?  Maybe the experience will remind you of the song The Wheels on the Bus.
• Make favorite picture books come alive through connections to real experience:  e.g., feed some local ducks and then read Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.
• Explore a different park each week (find great swings and climbers), or take a walk around a part of town that is new to you.  Talk about what you see.  Take pictures of your child in action at the park and make them into a book.
• Spend a day at the closest children’s museum or marine science center.
• Look for wildflowers along the roadside – or flowers in your garden.  Learn the names of them and take pictures.
• Encourage your child to be a storyteller.  Keep a storytelling clipboard with paper and pen handy so that you can rapidly take dictation from your child or let the child practice their “kid writing”.  Then point to the words as your child reads the story back to you.  Invite your child to illustrate their story or experience.  Keep the ongoing collection of stories and illustrations in a special notebook.
• Cook together – what a delicious way to learn! (Download recipes free at Latest Free Picture Recipes.)
• Plant a garden together.  Read about seeds and plants and watch the garden grow.  Keep a plant journal.  Draw pictures and write about what is happening each week as the plants grow and change.
• Keep learning American Sign Language.  This is a fun family activity! (See the ASL Browser: Michigan State University ASL (American Sign Language) Browser for a great visual teaching resource.)  Find sign language books at the library.
• Pick one special interest that your child has and each month make that topic a fun family learning project to research, observe, read about, see videos on, etc. Cats? Spiders? Snakes? Dinosaurs?  Encourage your child to become an “expert” on the topic and invite them to share their “expertise” with all who will listen.
• Tell silly jokes to each other.  Teach your child at least one “knock, knock – who's there?” joke that she can tell Grandma or the neighbors and later – their new friends at school.
• Encourage your child to draw a special picture of the whole family (including their hamster and dog!) for their new teacher.  Label each family member.
• Walk in the rain.  Step in mud puddles, laugh – enjoy moments of serendipity with your child.  Celebrate childhood.
• Provide addressed envelopes so your child can draw pictures and write letters to their last year’s kindergarten teacher and a favorite Uncle or Grandma.

Keep these family activities enjoyable for your child.  Remember – above all –we want to develop a love of learning.