Developing a predisposition to the natural sciences is one way to help your child learn to enjoy her science classes. To encourage a young one, take her outside with you. Create a rain gauge by marking a jar or glass with measurement marks and monitoring the amount of rainfall every day. She can write the rainfall on a calendar, and will soon understand the differences in rain through different parts of the year.
Another idea is to follow the stages of the moon each night with your child. Have him learn the differences between the stages and eventually predict when the moon will change. Each of these activities takes very little time from your day and can teach your child the scientific process, beginning with collecting and analyzing data, as well as drawing conclusions from the data.
Early childhood is a great time to focus on the understanding and development of language skills. Whether you pursue further mastery of English or planting seeds of another language, now is the time to begin. If you want your child to start to learn another language, use an online service or contact your school district to help him find a pen-pal in another country. Help him write letters to his friend. Your child will learn a second language and make a friend at the same time.
If English is your child's strong suit, you can play games that encourage her to think creatively. Write letters of the alphabet on index cards and have your child draw a predetermined number at random. Encourage her to make words out of them, allowing her to access a dictionary for help. Reward her successes with ample praise.
Believe it or not, even young children can be surprisingly good at math. Children will do math if it seems fun to them, so choosing the right activity is essential. One interesting and kid-friendly mathematics-based activity is Sudoku. Sudoku combines math and puzzle skills to create an extremely beneficial and inexpensive game that can she can do by herself or with your aid.
Another math game is Yahtzee! This game provides the excitement that a child still has at playing a board game with the built-in benefits of addition, simple statistics and game theory. Many other seemingly normal board games feature mathematics principles that help children understand the basis and significance of numbers and math.
Kids often dread their history classes, but getting a jump on the subject by exciting your child about it early can help them focus down the road. Many adults enjoy trivia based games such as Trivial Pursuit. These fun, fast-paced games can serve as building blocks for historic facts and inspire research to learn more about events.
Supervise your child as the two of you do research about the history of a town or city you will be visiting, and have the child select an interesting historical site or two to visit when you are there. Museums, art galleries and concert halls are just a few of places often associated with interesting and colorful history.