Kindergarten is such an exciting year of growth! As a kindergarten teacher I am always asked the same question by parents, “How do I prepare my child for kindergarten?” In preparing your young child for kindergarten, you know how important a good start in early elementary education is. So ease the transition with these 5 math activities to help prepare your child for the first day of kindergarten!
1. Beach Ball Letter Recognition
This activity is great for focusing on letter recognition. Using inflatable spring brights beach balls and Sharpie® chisel tip markers, write a series of uppercase and lowercase letters around the circumference of the beach ball. Toss the ball back and forth with your child. Identify the letter closest to your thumb. This is a great activity to play on the beach, in the park, or even in your own backyard! 
Learning your letters can be fun by focusing on a small series of uppercase and lowercase letters (ex. A-F, G-L, M-S, T-Z). Work on each series of letters until your child has mastered all the letters. This activity can also be used for number recognition as well!
2. Bean Bag Toss - Letter & Sound Recognition
This game is one of my absolute favorites and your child will love it too! Set up a series of buckets in a triangle-shaped assortment. I love Oriental's bright colorful bucket assortment for this activity. Have your child pick out an alphabet bean bag, identify the letter, and toss the bean bag into one of the buckets. You can make it more of a challenge by having your child take a step backwards if they get a bean bag into one of the buckets. 
If your child is able to recognizing all his letters, have them identify the sound the letter makes. Assign point values to each bucket to make it a competition among family members! This is a game that your child will absolutely love!
3. Duck Letter Hunt
One of my favorite educational products from Oriental Trading are their ABC rubber duckies! These ducks make learning the alphabet so much fun! Every duck is dressed-up to represent the letter printed on the front of the duck. A great activity to do with your child is to hide the ducks around the backyard or park and take your child on an adventure to find all 26 ducks! 
What's better than swimming on a hot, summer day? Place the ABCs rubber duckies into an inflatable pool or bathtub. Have your child pick out a duck, identify the letter and/or sound, and place the ducks in ABC order. It's time to have some fun in the sun!
4. Rhyme Time
These rhyming sorting books from Oriental Trading are perfect for any incoming kindergartener. Rhyming is a creative and a fun way to play with language. The pictures on the cards and books make it easy for your child to identify the rhyme. The answers are also displayed on the back of each book to allow for self-checking! 
The pocket dice is a perfect way to reinforce any concept and/or skill with your child. The make-a-rhyme pocket dice card sets are perfect inserts to reinforce rhyming. Have your child roll the pocket dice, identify the picture, and name a word that rhymes with the picture. Your child will be rhyming in no time!
5. Practice Makes Perfect!
These top-loading dry erase sleeves and black dry erase markers are a perfect way to practice any concept or skill without wasting paper. Download this free, 7-page kindergarten printable activity guide to use with your top-loading dry erase sleeves. This printable provides practice on rhyming, letter recognition, and printing. 
All of these activities focus on keeping your child active this summer while learning concepts to better prepare them for a successful kindergarten year!
