We have been taking a bit of a break around here while I struggled with the first trimester, but I am happy to report that I am beginning to feel up-to-snuff again. I lamented for a while over what to do this summer. We will be beginning Winter Promise’s I’m Ready to Learn preschool curriculum later this year, but I didn’t want to do so until much closer to fall. I also did not want to spend tons of time putting units and things together each week.
Last week my mojo came back, and I was inspired to create a whole summer full of fun activities based (very loosely) on the ABCs. Now that the planning is done I know what I am doing each week and just have to gather a few supplies on occasion. So these are our plans in case anyone wants to follow along.
My goals for this program are for John to learn his letters and possibly some of their sounds. I also want to give Olivia a review of all the letters and sounds since sometime in this year we will begin a formal reading program to see how she takes to it. The only other goal was to have some activities for FUN already planned out and ready to go, so I am not scrambling to come up with something all the time.
Here is the plan in a downloadable Excel worksheet. Summer Fun ABC Download. Some of the activities are from the Internet, while others come from resources I have here at the house. My plan is to create a post for each letter giving the links or brief directions for the activities so you can follow along if you desire. We plan to spend 3-4 days on each letter. We are also trying to form a little co-op of preschool friends to meet and do some activities with us. If you are local and want to come, shoot me an email.
This was the logic behind each activity:
- Art Activity 1: An activity made using the form of each letter to introduce the letter and form to the kids. All of these activities come from the wonderful blog No Time For Flash Cards.
- Art Activity 2: This is almost always a “process art” activity. The end product is not as important as the DOING is. They also tend to be a bit messy.
- Food: Something for us to make together and eat together. Yes, it is fun, but there is so much preschoolers can learn while cooking in the kitchen.
- Books: These are books that we already own beginning with each letter (most of the time). There are still a few holes. Feel free to substitute books you own, books more appropriate for your age child, and books you can grab at the library. Basically the list is the get us reading lots of books this summer and not fall into a rut. We will also point out the letters as we see them.
- Activity: This is a non-art activity. Sometimes it is a song, sometimes sensory, sometimes number recognition or math related, sometimes science, sometimes geared more towards Olivia, sometimes more towards John. The criteria was FUN.
I have also included a few general activities that we will do for many of the letters. The easier, no planning ones we will do for every letter. The ones that are a little more involved we will only do sometimes.
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- Learn each letter in sign language -- practice daily
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- Scavenger Hunt of things that start with that letter. Sometimes use the camera and print out the photos.
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If you have any questions, please let me know. If you decide to do some of the activities, we would love to hear from you too.
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