
02 Jan 20 family literacy activities to keep you busy in 2020
A new decade is upon us, making this year’s New Year’s Resolutions extra special. Most will aim to lose weight, exercise more or save more money, but ABC Life Literacy Canada has another idea – make family learning a daily habit.
The national literacy organization is once again running Family Literacy Day, which takes place on January 27 to raise awareness of the importance of reading and engaging in other literacy-related activities as a family.
In celebration of the 21st annual celebration, ABC Life Literacy Canada is offering 20 tips for families to do during 2020 to make sure everyone keeps their literacy skills sharp.
- Plan a Day Trip: Go online together to find fun (and free) places to go in your city for your next family day trip.
- Sing it to Me: Play a song and then pause it. Ask your family to sing the next line – do they know it?
- Pop-up Kitchen: Follow a recipe together – a yummy way to practice math and reading.
- Aqua Adventure: Visit an aquarium (or aquarium store) to learn about nature and the environment (see cool fish too!)
- #TTYL: Keep in touch with teens and impress them with your amazing texting skills (like using popular hashtags while using full sentences.)
- Weekend Hike: Enjoy the great outdoors and learn about nature – why not make it a scavenger hunt!
- Shop Till you Drop: Shopping together can be fun if you’re prepared (no really.) Write a list together of what you need and take turns finding the items on your list.
- Hopscotch Count: Make a giant hopscotch calculator, ask math questions and hop to the answers!
- Reverso Story: Tell your favourite story, backwards – start with the ending. Can your family guess the story?
- Library Passport: Use your library card at the library as your passport to travel the world. Where will you go and what will you learn?
- FGN: Start an FGN (Family Game Night) with your family and friends, and switch houses each week.
- Picture Maker: Make pictures out of modelling clay to go with your story. Get inspired by Family Literacy Day Honourary Chair Barbara Reid (have you seen what she can do with modeling clay? WOW!)
- Tell it 2 Me: Write a secret message with numbers and do math to solve it.
- Animal Walk: Read street names and think of animals that begin with the same first letter of each street.
- Eat Your Words: Play with your food and write words with alphabet cereal and soup (we like cookie letters too!)
- Story Switch-A-Roo: Take turns reading a bedtime story together, kids and adults each read one sentence at a time.
- WOW Palindromes: Find words that are spelled the same way forwards and backwards. How many can you find? (Some to get your started: wow, mom, dad, radar.)
- Abracadabra: Find cool card tricks from the library or by going online with your family. Practice and show your friends – can they figure out the tricks?
- Word Dynamo: Say a word and ask kids to say a new word that begins with the last letter of the word you just said (apple, eat, tidy, yawn.)
- Watch a Book: Read a book then watch the movie together. Talk about which version you liked the best.
Visit FamilyLiteracyDay.ca for more activity ideas, free downloadable resources and to check for local Family Literacy Day events.