A day with a difference

This app plays like an eBook without interactivity while the story is being read to your child. The app seamlessly moves into activities that reinforce what is happening in the story. Fortunately, the app uses simple tap technology and the words “Yes” & “No”, making it easy for younger children to practice early learning measurement concepts. Learn to make comparisons like big/little, same/different/, long/short, more/less and even sorting. To reinforce reading, you can always turn off the volume and read it yourself.

The settings page is a nice feature where you can select the number of questions asked, and select the % of questions to get correct for all the bonus games. Our child testers stayed engaged and one five year old even suggested upping the % they wanted to get right. I found it to be the perfect opportunity to introduce the idea of percentages. The game can be reset and works for more than one child, however it does not save scores.

Activity 1: A Look at Measurement

In 1st grade your child will be:

• Measuring the lengths of objects by laying multiple shorter objects end to end.
• Expected to put objects in order from longest to shortest or tallest to shortest.
• Draw conclusions about objects based on information they have gathered. For example: the penny is shorter than the domino and the domino is shorter than the pen, then the penny must be shorter than the pen.

Support your child learning measurement with this activity:

Give your child a bag of objects, such as a remote, a book, a comb, a toy car, etc. Then give them several pennies. Have them lay out the pennies next to each object. Be careful not to overlap or leave a gap between the pennies.

Activity 2: Stained Glass Sorting

Start your child with sorting activities to give them a strong foundation for measurement later.

What You’ll Need:

• Box of cereal that has different, easily identifiable pieces.
• Muffin tins or egg carton.
• Paper.
• Glue.
• Marker.

Young kids sort a lot in school (or they should be). It is great for the classroom to give kids a bucket of objects and have them sort, but many kids don’t want to repeat those kinds of activities at home. Here is a way for you to encourage sorting in a way that encourages creativity with a motivating product.

Identify a simple image such as a shark, butterfly, flower, or train that your child is interested in. Either draw or print the image on a piece of paper. Using the marker, draw lines in the picture to create a stained glass effect. Do this together with your child, show them how you create the lines so that they can try it themselves later.

Dump out a portion of the cereal onto the kitchen table. Using the muffin tin or egg carton, sort the cereal by color or like pieces. Talk with your child about the differences and similarities in the pieces reinforcing measuring language like: bigger & smaller, same & different, more & less.

Once you are done sorting, start your stained glass picture. Each section of the picture should use all like pieces of cereal. If you are feeling adventurous you can even start counting how many pieces of cereal went into each section, which reinforces measurement of area. When you are done and everything is dry hang the artwork in a window that gets a lot of sun and enjoy the colorful rainbows you will have in your home.