Summer Fun Ideas

Looking for some ideas to keep your children engaged, but still working on skills?  Here are some ideas:

• - draw letters and numbers in the beach sand.
• - go on a walk with your child and have them gather a handful of pebbles, shells or other items that they find.  Sort them into categories (colour, shape, size, texture, etc.).  Have them count them and practice writing the numeral for them.
• - look for words in their surroundings that they recognize (on signs, advertisements, the newspaper).
• - get a Library Card and take out some books together - read, read, read on a daily basis.
• - start a journal or scrap book of your summer adventures.  Have your child draw a picture and write about what they did.  Take a picture of an activity and glue it into your scrapbook.  Have your child label and write about it.
• - if your child has a piggy bank, empty it and sort the change by the coins (pennies, nickles, dimes, quarters, loonies and toonies).  See if your child can name the coins and tell their value.  Try adding some small coin sets together (e.g., 8 pennies, a nickel and 2 pennies, a dime and a few pennies, 2 or 3 nickles together, etc.).  JKs should be able to add a subtract values to 10, while SKs are working towards adding and subtracting beyond 10 (no higher than 20).
• - continue practicing the Reading Rainbow Sight Words.
• - When reading stories together, have your student name and describe the setting, the characters, the plot, the problem and solution.  Have them retell the story in order from the beginning to the end.  -
• - When reading a story, see if your child can make personal connections to the story (I remember when I ....., That reminds me when I/my brother/my sister/my cousin...).  See if they can make connections from the story to the world and community (I remember when that happened in Bondhead at the....., I remember watching the news and seeing something similar).  Try to make connections to other texts/stories/medias (I remember in Snow White the queen had a magic mirror just like Belle had in the Beauty and the Beast,).
• - Go on a habitat safari - explore your backyard and have your child make diagrams of what they see living there.  See if they can observe how they've made their homes, what they eat and some of the behaviour they see in the animals/creatures observed.
• - bake and cook together, allowing your child the opportunity to help measure the ingredients and read the procedures/recipe.