Below is a list of resources that parents and guardians may find helpful:
International Baccalaureate (IB) and Advanced Placement (AP) Information for
parents of Grade 9 students
Games and Activities Parents can do with their Children
Email your ideas to stanleyjones@cbe.ab.ca, so we can share some of them with our community!
Literacy Focus
- Write a letter to a family friend with your child (welcoming a new baby to the world, telling a friend how much they appreciate them, etc.).
- Have your child help you make a grocery list. Before you go shopping, look through the fridge and cupboard with them and talk about what you need to buy. They could help clip coupons before the grocery trip and help write/type up a list. Bring them with you on the shopping trip and check off items on the list.
- Read to your child each day, in any language.
- Go for a walk in your neighborhood and point out what you see and why it’s there (Ie: power poles, phone poles, community mailboxes, fire hydrants, manholes, etc.)
- Watch the news on TV with your child (Grade 7 and above). Discuss what news items capture your child’s interest. What stories make them feel happy? Upset? Are there stories that confuse them? Will anything that’s seen on the news change your family’s behavior?
- Read everyday things together- when cooking read the instructions on the package, look up a phone number or address, read a recipe, make it and eat it. Look for the street signs together.
- Keep a whiteboard in your child’s room, where you can each write notes to each other for the next day. Notes could be asking them for opinions, eliciting ideas to plan upcoming family events, fun drawings depicting weekend events, etc.
Math Focus
- Keep a calendar in your child’s room, and have them track upcoming family events. Discuss, from time to time, how many days away you are from events, etc.
- If your child is attending a sporting event for a sibling, have them keep statistics about the game to share after the game, such as shots taken, goals (or baskets, etc), how many times the sibling was in possession of the ball/puck, etc, take-aways, etc. Encourage the use of tally marks, and have them share overall positive observations!
- Have your child help you cook dinner. Show them how to follow the steps of the recipe, measure ingredients, turn on the oven etc. Have your child help you set the table, count how much cutlery is needed and clean up afterwards. Take time to discuss all the steps as you complete them and use sequencing language such as “first we...next we...last we…”.
- Have your child involved in your cash payments at the grocery store or any other store. Have them help you find the correct bills and coins to pay for the items.
- Give your child cash ($1-3) at the dollar store and let them find items that they can buy with that amount of money.
- Practice estimation often. For example- how long do you think it will take you to fold your laundry? how many kilometres do you think are between here and Grandma’s?
- Play cards or board games as a family - go fish, crazy 8’s, cribbage, war, Love Letter, Splendor, etc.
- Practice quick recall of basic math skills by playing addition, subtraction (take away the smallest number from the biggest number) and multiplication war with a deck of cards (remove the face cards - Kings, Queens, Jacks, and Joker - leave in the Aces, they have a value of 1).
- When driving to a destination have every family member make a guess about when you will arrive, specific to the minute. Keep a running total of who is the closest.
- Visit a bank, talk about the jobs people do in banks. Show them a bank ATM machine, point out the numbers and signs on an ATM machine. For Grade 2 and older, open a bank account. Interact with a banker, read signs in the bank together, do some math problems together ( e.g. If you deposit $5 every month in a bank, after how many months you will have $100 collected in your account?) For middle school and high school children, talk about simple interest, compound interest, planning for the university funds, how credit cards work, budgeting, etc.
- Give your child a piggy bank and help them track their funds and calculate what they can buy (spend/donate/save jars are also a great idea!)
Social / Community Focus
- Play active games with your child! Games like tag, follow the leader, rolling a ball, throwing/catching a ball, kicking a ball, street hockey, frisbee and traditional games will all help develop their movement and manipulative skills.
- In the summer, visit some of Calgary’s free splash parks and wading pools. Riley Park, Canmore Park, Mount Pleasant Park, Prairie Winds Park, Rotary Park, South Glenmore Park and Valleyview Park all offer this free, family-friendly activity.
- Take your family out to a picnic in the park. Bring some active toys and lots of friends or family! Your child can help with planning, preparing and packing the picnic.
- Eat dinner as a family without the TV on.
