Family Learn at Play, Every Day!

Literacy is more than writing and reading. It’s how we make meaning, how we make sense of the world. It’s what we put in and what we take out, it involves all of our senses.

Taking time each day to engage in a learning activity will improve your children’s skills dramatically and also provide an opportunity to keep sharp parent’s skills.

Here are some fun activities from Family Kickstart Georgia (FKSG) for your family to learn at play together:

• Spice up mealtime and have kids create a menu using grocery store flyers or by drawing food items – kids can take orders too!
• Pretend your family is anywhere in the world – point to location, on a world map. Find out more about that country. What is the weather, what sports do they play, what language do they speak?
• With your child write a grocery list and let kids find all the items in the store – a fun way to do the grocery shopping!
• Have a shapes scavenger hunt by taking turns to find shapes outdoors and indoors. Then together make each shape with your body – adults and kids work together.
• A fun way to learn together as a family is playing a board game.

Spend the Holidays Learning and Playing with Your Family!

Schools close for the holidays, but young bodies and minds need to keep busy. The perfect time for families to play games that reinforce learning can be the holidays.

Holiday family-time activities that FKSG offers are so fun that your little ones won’t even realize they are practicing important literacy skills!

• Turn the lights off, after your bedtime story, and create new endings to the story you just read together.
• Choose something you want to count during your walk. It could be stop signs, dogs, cars, trees or anything you want! Count how many you can find, on your walk.
• Explore websites or use your library card as your passport to check out books on different countries. Learn about their celebrations and traditions.
• Together, look online for the meaning of funny words like “onomatopoeia” and “collywobbles.”
• Start a family board game night and play a different game each week. Family members can take turns game cards and reading instructions as well as keeping score.
• Work together to fold a family fleet of origami boats.

When fun learning activities become part of your family’s holiday time, everyone stays sharp skills, kids and adults.

Make a resolution for lifelong learning with these literacy tips from FKSG:

• Upgrade your skills or take a course. People with higher literacy skills earn more income, are more likely to find full-time work and are less likely to be unemployed.
• No matter how old you are, read aloud together. Reading ability is like a muscle – if you don’t exercise it often, you may not be able to maintain the same level of reading ability as you age.
• Encourage all family members to read and discuss items from websites and newspapers to keep up-to-date on what is happening around the world.
• Exercise your mind, challenge yourself by doing the daily Sudoku or crossword puzzle.