This first step is to lay a strong foundation on which to build your children's education. 
Enjoy the bi-weekly articles below.
These sections  are organized by age level, but the information is not confined to that age group. Consider looking at other age ranges as well. Also, make sure to check out the Archives.

LET MONEY HELP WITH MATH
Do you and your children pick up pennies you see on the ground? Do you put your loose change in a jar to save? Do you help your children know how much money each coin stands for?  If you do these things, you are teaching your children math.
Money provides a perfect, authentic opportunity to explore mathematics.   Candace Lindemann
Money can be used for counting, sorting, comparing, measuring, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. When children understand how to know money in these ways, it can even be used for more advanced math functions, like fractions and decimals.
Young children can learn a "brown" penny is one. They can learn to count by ones with pennies even to 100 if you have enough pennies. They can learn about a nickel being the same as five pennies and learn to count by fives. Soon you can help your children to know a dime as ten pennies or two nickels and then count by tens. You can add or subtract what your children have.
Parents can help their children experience money. You can help your children know how much things cost. Maybe Grandma has given them some coins or you have given them coins for helping you in some small way. They have collected their coins in a small glass jar so they can see money that is theirs to use. When they want to buy a small toy or a snack, you can help them count their money to see if they have enough or even have some left over. It is satisfying for children to have their own money to buy something. 
Help your children know the difference between wants and needs so they learn to know how to spend their money. Starting with coins helps them learn whether they have saved enough to buy something and whether they want or need it. These are lessons you want to help your young children learn. As children grow older, you can pay them an allowance and help them learn the value of dollars and how to convert their coins into dollars.
You also need to help your children learn to spend. Do they have enough money of their own to purchase what they desire? Can they afford to buy the object with what they have in their glass jar or do they need to wait longer. By not purchasing the object for them, you help them to learn to live "within their means." Hopefully, they see you using your money carefully, too.
Figuring out how to save and spend their money is a way to use math in a practical, everyday kind of way. It also helps your children to know the value of money as they count, add and subtract what they have saved. Keeping the money in a glass jar allows them to see it better than in a bank that may not be see-through.
bedtimemath.org/using-money-to-teach-math/ provides great ideas for you to use to help your children practice math skills.

NO LABELS,  PLEASE
     As this new school year begins, it is important that you don't attach labels to your children, or allow their siblings to do so.  Even seemingly harmless labels can play a lasting role in promoting self-esteem, behavior, and long-term personality.  A child who hears certain labels soon begins to see himself as that label.  He works to become what that label says about him/her.  Labels have much more of an impact than we realize. 
Labeling has a very powerful effect on parents' own sense of self-worth.  When parents label their children, it might be because they have become what they were labeled when they were growing up.  
          Negative labels can destroy self-worth through shame.  Positive labels can destroy self-worth through an overinflated ego.            Ryan Sanders as quoted from Christopher A. Brown
     Six ways to control your use of  labels are given in the following suggestions from www.fatherhood.org/bid/185434/
          1)  Reflect on your own childhood and how labeling might have affected you.
          2) Ask your child the why behind the what.  Listen to your child to give yourself the opportunity to guide.
          3)  Focus on the action not the actor.
          4) Explain the reasons for your comments or label.
          5) Ask your spouse (other parent), relatives and friends to "call you out" when you label.
          6) Apologize to your child when you label them.
 
     Parents, you  need to have the attitude that you can move away from labeling your children and focus on their skill set and how to strengthen it.  Children need to know they are more than the label and can become whatever they want to be. Children need to be encouraged to try new things.  If a children strive to match only the label, they are limiting their ability to explore other aspects of  themselves.  They become afraid to try something different because they will lose the love and admiration they have earned through the label.  A young man is a basketball star winning many games for his school, but he wants to take an art class because he sees things in a special way.  Don't let the label become the sum total of your children's unique characteristics.  Encourage your children to explore all kinds of opportunities and enjoy them as a family when you can.  Give your children experiences to read and write about and to grow on.  One family used to go camping often with their children and opened their son's eyes to become a park ranger.
 
     Use labels when necessary for educational and medical intervention.  Even then, be careful they do not limit the growth of your children.  Labeling a child as dyslexic may lead to their not learning to read when all they have needed is more of your attention, repeated practice, and much patience. Celebrate every new sound your child remembers, every syllable they remember to put together to form a word, every success and praise them for every accomplishment.
 
          Keeping the focus on your children's positive attributes, while avoiding labels, can encourage children to be happy and                  healthy. thekidcounselor.com

Building Blocks to Reading
     Parents, these are the steps to help your children learn to read successfully: 
          1) Familiarity with print and books -- teach respect for books, follow words with finger, talk about the book before                  and after, talk about new or different words.
          2) Describe objects, events, and relations. Develop vocabulary, play with words.
          3) Recognize letters -- magnet letters to play with on frig or other metal surface, call letters by name when seen,                      read alphabet books.
         4)  Sounds of speech -- read books and poems that rhyme, recognize parts of words (syllables.)
         5)  Phonemic awareness -- sound of each letter, sound of letter with vowel, sound of letter group.
     You can do so much by just talking to your children and reading to them everyday.  

Talk to Your Children About Reading
     To  interest your children in learning and books and eventually in learning to read, you need to have materials in your home to read -- books, magazines, newspapers, even catalogs and flyers.  Children who see books all around them and see you reading will interest them in wanting to read also. 
     Let your toddlers hold books and look at the pictures.  If you teach your little children how to respect and care for books, you can go to the library with them and enjoy the beautiful, colorful books there.  So many libraries now have story times and book sharing for little people.  Reading books before bed time is also a wonderful way to help your young children learn to love reading.
     Learning to recognize common words, like STOP, store, car, their favorite cereal and food helps them to see letters and how letters form words to tell about things.
     Knowing sounds of letters, colors and numbers add to young children's knowledge.  Soon their scribblings become the letters of their name. Words that sound like their name  or rhyme with their name are fun to hear. when you play with words like this, you help your children hear language used.
    When they begin school, the teacher may send home lists of words  the children must know. Again, if you make a game of learning these necessary words that may not be able to be sounded out, you help the children recognize them in books and on signs. 
     Talk to your children about everything you do and everything they see.  This helps them to hear word and builds their vocabulary so that when they read, they will have heard the words before.
     You are your children's first teacher.  If they see you enjoy reading, they will, too.