Resource Spotlight: Ready at Five

Ready at Five is a non-profit organization based in Maryland.  Ready at Five's mission supports the idea that all children in Maryland should have the opportunity to develop all of the skills to be ready to start kindergarten and be able to succeed in school.  Their resources are meaningful to and practical for parents, teachers and caregivers of young children.  The information is age appropriate for early childhood and is accessible for time-crunched parents and caregivers.  The resources are not wordy and are not too academic; the information is straightforward.   

Ready at Five has a resource component that includes a monthly, online newsletter called Parent Tips and activity boxes.  The parent newsletter is archived here since the 2003/04 school year.  Every school addressed a new topic in depth.  Topics include health and safety, language and literacy, parents as a first teacher, science and math skills.  Each newsletter downloads as a doc file and is one, single page in length.  The concepts discussed are bulleted for a quick read, but still provide important ideas and information. 

The activity boxes are quite cool.  These are pdf files for each of the following topics: social and emotional development, physical development, language and literacy, mathematical thinking, scientific thinking, social studies and the arts.  Each activity box file includes information about the skills that young children should be developing prior to Kindergarten with the support of loving parents and caregivers.  Each activity box also suggests activities to do with your child including the activity name, the appropriate age range, the purpose of this activity, supplies needed, instructions, follow up activities, and literature resources (which you can probably find at your library!).  And these activities are not complicated and can be turned into fun games and time spent with your child.  

This resource is one to bookmark and share - check it out in case Ready at Five has some information that would be useful or new for you!