1. Welcome! Moms & Muffins 2010

4. Read a poem. Let your child guess what the next rhyming word will be.

6. Visit a library. Get a card for your child. Check out some books.

7. Learn a tongue- twister with your child.

9. Share memories of a special holiday with your child.

10. Read a story. Make puppets out of small paper bags. Put on a puppet show.

11. Take a walk. Look for signs of the season. Talk about what you see.

13. Create a family tree and have your child draw the portraits of the family members.

14. Make a personalized bookmark with your child.

16. Help your child decorate a box. Put it by the door to hold homework and books.

17. Put reading skills to practical use. Gather bus and subway route maps and schedules to a special place in your area -- the zoo, a museum, a football stadium. Let your child plan a trip for friends or family. Figure out the travel time required, the cost, and the best time to make the trip.

18. Play a game after reading the directions together.

19. You are free to visit the book fair this morning starting at 8:30 AM…

21. Find a cozy place to read a favorite story. Have your child retell the story.

22. When driving with your child, turn off the music and talk about the day's events.

23. Read about Pennsylvania’s state symbols with your child.

25. Read directions for a project. Work together to create the project.

26. Turn a large calendar -- commercial or home made -- into a personalized family communication center. Have your children fill in the blanks with morning messages, weather reports, birthdays, special activities, or notes to the family.

27. Watch a nature program on TV. Talk about what you see.

29. Let your child see YOU reading and writing. Write a long overdue note to a friend.

30. Use the Weather newspaper section or weather websites to check temperatures across the nation and the world. This is good geography practice, too.

31. Cut a comic strip apart. Have your child create a map of your home.

33. Choose a new recipe. Read it together and have fun making it.

34. Cut words out of the newspaper. Arrange them on paper to make a new sentence.

36. Have a treasure hunt. Leave picture or word clues to follow to reach the treasure.

37. Discuss baseball and football scores and averages on the sports pages. Who are the high scores? What are the percentages?

38. Start reading a story and stop before the end. Ask your child to predict the ending.

40. Have your child describe a family member or friend. Guess who it is.

41. Take a walk. Close your eyes and listen for the sounds of summer. Make a list of the sounds!

42. Make a family time capsule!

44. Help your child plant flower or vegetable seeds. Make a graph to chart their growth.

45. Have your child write a note to a friend or relative. Be sure to mail it!

47. Students may NOT arrive at homeroom before 8:45 AM.

48. Start telling a familiar story. Have your child write a new ending.

49. Have your child make a list of enjoyable things to do. Describe what makes them fun.

50. Talk to your child about fire safety. Discuss a fire escape route and have a mock fire drill.

52. Help your child write and illustrate a story about a favorite animal.

53. Read many stories with rhyming words and lines that repeat. Invite the child to join in on these parts. Point, word by word, as he or she reads along with you.

55. Discuss new words. For example, "This big house is called a palace. Who do you think lives in a palace?"

56. Teach classification skills with dinnerware. Ask your child to match and stack dishes of similar sizes and shapes. Also have your child sort flatware -- forks with forks, spoons with spoons.

58. Promote creativity and build muscle control with a pail of water and a brush. On a warm day, take your children outside to the driveway or sidewalk and encourage them to write anything they wish. Talk about what they've written.

59. Make fractions fun. Fold paper towels or napkins into large and small fractions. Start with halves and move to eighths and sixteenths. Use magic markers to label the fractions.

60. On trips, make a game of measuring distances and times.

62. Teach estimating skills. Ask your children to guess the weight of several household objects -- a waste basket, a coat, a full glass of water. Then show children how to use a scale to weigh the objects. Next, have them estimate their own weight, as well as that of other family members, and use the scale to check their guesses. Some brave parents get on the scale, too!

63. Encourage hypothesizing (guessing). Use several objects -- soap, a dry sock, a bottle of shampoo, a wet sponge, an empty bottle. Ask your child which objects will float when dropped into water in a sink or bathtub. Then drop the objects in the water, one by one, to see what happens.

65. Do an online search for educational games and activities. You’ll be amazed at the variety of free resources available for children! And most are FREE!

66. Have your children select four or five pictures from magazines and newspapers, and put them together to tell a story. Ask your children to number the pictures -- 1,2,3, etc. First, ask them to tell the story with the pictures in numerical order. For variety, have your children rearrange the pictures and tell a new story using this different arrangement.

67. "Parents and families are the first and most important teachers. If families teach a love of learning, it can make all the difference in the world to our children." -Richard W. Riley

68. Thanks for a Great Year!