Preparation for the first grade- games suggestions

The first grade is the starting point of any person's academic life; it's an adventure full of excitement and fears. The educational plan by the ministry of education is full of educational- pedagogical assignments that affect the child's play time, recess time, and the development of social skills and emotional maturity, while placing a lot of burden both on the kg teacher and on the child.

Entering the first grade is transferring from a world of less rules, contingency movement and flexible structure, to an entirely different setting,with structured classes, longer sitting times, less mediators and less play time (there are, off course, more differences; and there are different schools and approaches).

It's preferable to play with our children as a preparation for the first grade, and not to  burden them with learning more academic skills, since they will do it any way in the Kg (some love to do it at home too).

You can play games and sing songs about letters, numbers and more; read books, talk and develop spoken language and work on social and emotional skills.

You are welcome to enter the following posts and play to improve the key aspects that will lead to their success in entering the first grade; educators-  - it is highly recommended to work on those skills in the first few months of the a school year and you'll see a lot of  improvement in the children performances:

1.       Sitting and concentration

2.       Strong shoulder belts and hands

3.       Balance, posture

4.       Emotional expression abilities

5.       Basic motor skills- for girls and boys

6.       Social skills- cooperation, empathy, loosing and winning

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We'll be happy to have you in our community, and we'll love answering any question you might have.

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All the responsibility is on the parent and/ or educator.

All the posts and materials belongs to togi let's play, and Sharon Michaeli- Ramon  ©

Games to Practice Patience, Restraint, Coping with Frustration and Error

Playing games can teach us many skills, both formally and informally. In this post I will be presenting you with 2 easy games that work on:

1. Social cooperation
2. Developing patience and restraint
3. Memory
4. Responsiveness speed
5. Requires the ability to continue and play though we were mistaken or defeated
6. Making connections to other topics and creating a casual learning of important topics by playing other games, such as: colors, numbers, letters, word patterns, connections etc.

What's in the Hoop?
You place 2 hoops on the ground, and place 4-5 identical objects in each of them. You call out the name of one of the objects. The first child that grabs this object from their hoop and run to you is the winner. You can exercise colors, numbers, pictures of different categories etc.

What's hiding underneath…(game of speed and luck)
Place a handkerchief or a box at some distance from the children.
Show them two objects and hide one of them when they don't notice. The children need to run, and the first who reached the spot gets to be the first to guess. If they were right, they receive the hidden object or a hug. If guessed wrong, the turn goes to the other.
The advantage of this is luck and speed, so it has no connection to knowledge, only guessing.

You are invited to look at our post that deals with how to teach restraint (and off course consult with us on it).


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All the responsibility is on the parent and/ or educator. 

 All the posts and materials belongs to togi let's play, and the writer ©

A quick Observation Game

In this post we will present to you a simple, fun and beneficial game for children.
You can play the game with random objects or with prepared set of pictures, or with special cards everyone can simply prepare at home.

The cards can be simple (shapes, colors, animals etc.), or more complex. for example:

1. letters and words
2. Numbers, mathematical equation, mathematical equation results.
3. The beginning of a an idiom, known squat etc.
4. Formulas and equations....

You can download our cards in PDF files (Acrobat), 10 A4 Colored pages here, or Black & White file that you can print and color with your kids here.

The game works on various skills, and you can raise the difficulty in different ways.

The instructions are simple:
The parent/teacher stands with the children at the starting point and asks them to bring him "X" The children need to locate a sample of this "X" and bring it to the parent/teacher or to their box/hoop.

A variation of the game can be played when one of the children is the one giving the instructions to his friends/parents/family - thus challenging him to take a lead.

Difficulty levels:

1. Hearing observation - singular, double or triple for example:
   Singular - bring me a red circle (in lower levels you can ask for only a circle/triangle etc.)
   Double - bring me a green turtle (from a group of animals)
   Triple - bring me a pink big horse.
2. Memory observation - for example, bring me a red triangle and a green square.
   Raising the difficulty level - bring me a red circle, yellow turtle and a pink horse.
3. Categorical observation.
4. Observation skills.
5. Response speed
6. Speed - who can run the fastest and collect the objects from the predefined play zone.
7. Focus - listening and perform.
8. With small children - focus them with concentrating all the cards/objects to the instructor, or to each of their boxes or hoops.

You can play this game with 1 child and more - up to the size of a class. You need to match the number of objects/cards/pictures accordingly. In my class each child has a set of cards with letters, numbers etc for different games - personal and group ones.

In my experience, children love this game because it is challenging, fast and interesting. In the social aspect it encourages a healthy competition or a collaboration against the instructor in teamwork, if they all decide to collect everything as a team and help each other.

In the educational-teaching aspect this is an excellent game for creating a flow and practicing and memorizing a recently studied material in a fun way.

For example: recognizing letters, the construction of a word or a phrase, recognizing numbers etc.

The game can be played with children in various ages.

Attached for your convenience you can find 2 PDF files with optional cards in our public Drive.

Do you have questions? Comments?
We will be happy to hear them, here, our facebook page, twitter, or ourYoutube channel.
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All the posts and materials belongs to togi let's play, and the writer ©