As educators, we know that the habits developed in the classroom—such as staying focused, thinking ahead, and managing frustration—require reinforcement at home to truly take hold. But parents often ask, “How can I help my child without just giving them more worksheets?”

This week, we are introducing two new comprehensive guides you can share with your families. These resources translate important learning skills into fun, actionable family activities, helping to align home play with school goals.

Here is an overview of the resources available for you to distribute to your parent community.

1. For Early Childhood (Pre-K & K): Building the Foundation

Target Skills: Self-Control, Remembering Rules, Flexible Thinking

For our youngest students, play is a powerful means of learning. This guide helps parents transition from simple supervision to active “coaching,” utilizing games to develop three core skills: self-control, flexibility, and memory.

Resource Highlights for Families:

• Clear Learning Goals: The guide explains how games like Simon Says practice self-control and how Memory Match strengthens the ability to hold information in mind.
• What to Say: It provides parents with specific language to use. For example, during puzzles, instead of solving the problem for the child, parents are encouraged to help manage frustration by saying, “This is tricky! Let’s take a deep breath and try again”.
• Flexible Thinking: It encourages kids to switch gears by asking “What if?” questions during storytelling or by changing the rules in games like Red Light, Green Light (for example, adding a “Yellow Light” for slow motion).

Share this PDF: Weekly Actionable Play Tips for Pre-K & K Parents

2. For Elementary & Middle School: The “Game Night” Curriculum

Target Skills: Strategy, Planning Ahead, Managing Emotions

For older students, the focus shifts to sharper thinking and character building. This guide helps parents structure “Game Night” as a brain-training exercise, reinforcing the “stop and think” habits we cultivate in the classroom.

Resource Highlights for Families:

• Strategy Over Luck: The guide explicitly discourages games that rely solely on chance (such as simple spinners). Instead, it steers families toward age-appropriate games that require decision-making, such as Connect Four (K-1st), Mancala (2nd-3rd), or Settlers of Catan (4th grade and above).
• Encouraging Reflection: It provides prompts for parents to ask when a player gets blocked, such as “That changed things! What’s your Plan B?”, which helps normalize the need to change plans.
• Building Sportsmanship: It includes a “2-Step Intervention” for when emotions run high. This teaches parents to pause the game when frustration rises and help their child use a polite phrase, such as, “I’ll try a new strategy next time.”

Share this PDF: Weekly Game Night Tips for ES and MS Parents

Implementation Idea

Consider attaching these guides to your next weekly newsletter or printing them for upcoming parent-teacher conferences. They are an excellent way to show parents that we value their role as partners in developing the whole child.

Want to Go Deeper? If you enjoy these guides, we highly recommend “A+ Parenting” by Eva Moskowitz and Eric Grannis. Think of our slides as the quick-start and this book as the master class—it is packed with hundreds of additional game recommendations and strategies to turn everyday moments into learning opportunities.

👉 Get the Book Here