ReadSquared Reading Program

100 Things To Do Before Kindergarten

List of fun things to do with your child before they enter kindergarten.

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Read

Reading together develops vocabulary and comprehension, nurtures a love for reading, and motivates children to want to learn to read. Shared reading (interactive reading) is an important way to help children get ready to read. Reading with children will show how books and written language work and that stories have a beginning, middle and end.

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Traveling to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond with NASA’s Artemis Project

NASA is taking the first step in the next era of human exploration with the Artemis spaceflight program! In ancient Greek mythology, Artemis was the goddess of the Moon and twin sister to the sun god Apollo. Much like NASA’s Apollo program, which took humans to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s, the Artemis program will take humans, including the first woman and the first person of color, back to the Moon and prepare us for traveling to Mars and beyond for the first time.

The following activities are all about the Artemis program and NASA’s plans for a new generation of crewed spaceflight. Complete three of the six activities to earn your “Moon, Mars, and Beyond” badge.

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Back to the Moon with NASA’s Artemis Project

NASA is taking the first step in the next era of human exploration with the Artemis spaceflight program! Going back to the Moon and building a permanent presence on the lunar surface is a crucial step towards putting humans on Mars for the first time.

Learn all about NASA’s plans for lunar exploration and earn the "Back to the Moon" badge by completing four of the eight activities below!

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Sing

Singing emphasizes many early literacy practices, and it contributes to oral language development by slowing down language and making it easier for children to hear the words. Singing is also a great way to increase children’s vocabulary as children’s songs and nursery rhymes include many new and uncommon words. Songs are a natural, fun way for children to learn language. When children sing, they hear different parts of words, pay attention to the rhythms and rhymes of language, and develop listening skills.

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Many Miles to Mars with NASA’s Artemis Project

NASA is taking the first step in the next era of human exploration with the Artemis spaceflight program! The Artemis program is all about sending humans back to the Moon in preparation for an even more challenging goal: human travel to Mars, the Red Planet!

Earn this badge and learn more about Mars by completing three of the five activities below!

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Talk

Talking with children helps them learn oral language, one of the most critical early literacy skills. Children learn about language by listening to parents and caregivers talk and joining in the conversation. Talking in a way that encourages children to talk will help them understand what they later read. When children listen to spoken words they learn: how letters and words sound, the meaning of words, how words can be put together to communicate ideas, information and feelings.

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Planning and Prototyping with NASA’s Artemis Project

NASA is taking the first step in the next era of human exploration with the Artemis spaceflight program! Space travel requires massive amounts of planning, design, prototyping, and testing to ensure the vehicles and tools sent with astronauts into space are safe and reliable.

Dive deeper into NASA’s planning and prototyping process for the Artemis missions and earn this badge by completing three of the five activities below!

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Write

Just like reading, writing teaches children that print has meaning, letters represent sounds, and written words represent the oral words they use every day. Scribbling and writing help children learn that written words stand for spoken language. For children, writing: begins with developing small finger muscles which will build dexterity for scribbling, then drawing, and eventually writing letters, helps develop hand-eye coordination, and helps build awareness that print has meaning.

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Play

Play is an essential part of childhood and is one of the best ways to learn language and literacy skills. As children engage in many types of play and across many scenarios, they talk with a wide variety of adults and peers, therefore developing their oral language, narrative skills, and vocabulary. When children play, they: develop narrative skills through imaginary play, act out real situations, learn communication, cooperation, construction and much more!

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