Ice cream fun

Colors/Alphabet game

We take turns and hide a letter under a card. The other players need to say the color to guess where the card is. Good way to memorize and reinforce ABCs and colors.

DIY Picture cards

Pretend play Picnic

Letter K (Home made Play Doh)

Beads

Home made no cook play doh

Play Doh Recipe - you can find it here

You can add glitter, food coloring and flavors!

Ice cream addition fun

Letter U (Crystals)

DIY Summer Book

Playing with water

Letter X (Pom poms)

Letter Q (Paint)

Pom poms fun

Calendar routine - new additions!

Color of the day!
Shape of the day!
Every day the kids pick a new one and then go around the house looking for things that have that shape and/or color!

And two new very cool and educational channels on YouTube!

Calendar Routine

Summer is the perfect time for our new Calendar Routine.
I bought a white board from the local Dollar store and covered it with gift wrapping paper I had bought last December. Then I simply added the rest.
The Calendar includes:
- letter of the day
- number of the day
- year (good starting point to work on place value)
- month of the year
- day of the week
- weather
- word of the day

This is how it works.
We sing a "good morning" song and start talking about the weather. We go to the window or outside then we choose the right picture/word.
Then we move on to the "number " of the day, which is how we start working on Math. First we check what the number is, my little one looks for the number on some puzzles we have and similar toys, the oldest one writes it on the easel. Since my little one is just 2, I am still working on number recognition and on helping her understand that a number means a certain amount of things. So, today it's July 9th, so she had to look for number 9 on the puzzles we have, and among the magnetic numbers, etc. and then stack 9 blocks and count 9 balls on the abacus. With my oldest one instead I am working on place value, additions, subtractions, odd and even numbers, greater than and less than, lately we started talking a little bit about fractions.
I always try to include a fun activity that is also educational: matching a number on a card with the corresponding amount of hair bands, beads, marbles, crystals, figurines, dice, and so on. We also work on colors and shapes.

After working on numbers, it's time to focus on the day of the week. Cue in some fun songs:

And of course we dance and sing along. A bit of exercise is always good :)
Then we move on to the letter of the day, which could be the first letter of that particular day of the week or of another word my children like. Starting from their names. While my oldest one writes a list of words that start with that letter, my little one looks for that letter on the puzzles we have and when she finds it, she puts something on it just so as to mark it.

Sometimes I send them on a letter hunt around the house, looking for objects whose name starts with the letter of the day and we put them all in a bucket. After a bit we then all meet again and they show one another what they have found.

Matching the number on each cube with the amount of figurines (or any other small toy or item) we put on top. I also use the cube to play a short "Guess where" game. I hide a plastic letter under one of them and ask them to tell me the number of the cube where they think I hid the letter of the day.

Then we take a break and move to the computer. We check the letter of the day here (great website!!) and then we watch some songs that are about that letter, such as:

And of course we dance and sing along again. Then it's time to wrap things up. My oldest daughter writes down the word of the day on a card that she then hangs on our calendar. My little one and I read books that I chose that talk about the letter of the day, while my oldest one focuses on some more activities.

Written activities for my 4 year old... I always try to include a bit of everything, from Math to coloring, to writing words and lately sentences, sorting, patterns. We used to do a lot of tracing when she was learning to write, but since she likes tracing, I still offer her the choice to keep practicing.

A special book we are preparing. My oldest daughter chooses a book and looks for words that start with the letter of the day in the book. I try to always find a new reason for her to write something.
Then we clean up and sing a goodbye song.
My kids really enjoy this time together and it's very nice to see that they keep singing those songs we watched during the day or keep mentioning things we talked about during our calendar session. For example, during lunch while they are talking they tell each other: "Hey, that word (you just said) starts with (the letter of the day)". Which shows me that what we do sticks with them. We try and  have a "calendar session" every day, sometimes, it's shorter, sometimes longer, depending on how much time we have and how busy/tired we are. Very positive experience!

Monthly art board

I couldn't keep hanging my kids' arts and crafts and the wall... I had to find another way... so I bought a white board from from the local Dollar store and this is where we show what they work on every month!

Telling time

Bossy R poster

Seasons - more posters

Science experiment