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Many preschoolers are not particularly fond of sitting down at the kitchen table to ‘work’ on their ABC’s, or complete activities in the myriad of books available to help your child get that head start in learning.  Children learn through play, games, and modeling.  There are lots of ways to incorporate early literacy into your daily lives, and to make it fun, easy, and inexpensive too.

Driving around

Ever feel like you spend alot of time in the car with your little ones? Driving older ones here and there, running errands, taking them to classes, you know the drill.  Rather than popping on that high tech DVD player to satisfy the boredom of the five point harness, here are some fun and easy games to play in the car with our little learners.

1. Pick a letter and see if they can count how many "A's" (for example) they can see on signs as you drive.

2. Have them try to find the letters of their name, or any other word, on license plates. Remember that one as a kid?

3. Guess the password - give rhyming clues so your child can guess the right word. "It rhymes with can, and starts with the 'fff' sound.

4. Recite favourite nursery rhymes together, have them do the actions (keep your hands on the wheel Mom!).

5. Make silly changes to rhymes they already know: Row, row, row your car, gently down the street.

These ideas can also be used on neighbourhood walks, on the bus, in the mall or at the doctor's office.

Bath time is a great time to introduce literacy activities. You have a captivated, somewhat contained audience and literacy can easily become part of the bath time routine.

1. Have kids play imagination games and role play with bath toys. Is that sponge really a fish? A mermaid? A jellyfish?

2. Draw with bath crayons. Let kids write on tile and it washes right off.  Or, write with your fingers on steamy windows.

3. Take the opportunity to learn the names of body parts. Can they wash in alphabetical order? Wash that ARM before your BACK or CHIN.

Using everyday items in your house, and found objects you can easily create some quick, fun and inexpensive activities for your kids.

1. Let your child play with letters and pictures cut out from newspapers, magazines, and flyers and you're helping the environment by using some of those flyers that would just be landing in the recycle bin anyways.

2. Encourage your children to use real life literacy items in their play. For example, grocery receipts, empty boxes, and coupons for playing store or a small notepad for taking 'orders' at a pretend restaurant or junk mail and old greeting cards as mail for the postman.