Below are tips for fun and stimulating summer kids activities, written by Natalie Smith, a public school teacher who is BELOVED by my nieces (as students) and their parents. Natalie has been teaching for 10 years (3 years in first grade and 7 years in kindergarten) and is also a certified ESL teacher. She has a wonderful website, Wonder and Spark, that offers parents and teachers valuable insight on how to capitalize on a child’s natural wonder about our world and with that wonder, spark a desire to learn. Please check it out at www.wonderandspark.com.
As the warm days of summer are upon us, we want to enjoy the season with our children and engage them in activities that bring family members together and stimulate the mind. Check out our Top 5 Pick’s for the summer!
Book: ‘The Read-Aloud Handbook’ by Jim Trelease is a parent and teacher must-read! It offers insight on the process of learning to read, developing language skills, and strategies for helping your child foster a life-long love of reading. The second half of the book contains a priceless collection of book and poetry recommendations. It includes different genres, age suggestions and a synopsis of each book. Buy your own copy or borrow it from your local library!
Game: After an energetic day at the beach, you crave a game that can bring the entire family together; one that stimulates the mind while relaxing your sun-kissed and tired bodies. Try a game of dominoes! (Make sure you purchase double-nine dominoes.) This classic tile game gives children the opportunity to practice cooperation, good sportsmanship and matching quantities. Most important, when children play with these dot formations, number values become engrained in the mind. Children begin to recognize the patterns in our numeric system. (The 5 is simply 4 with 1 in the middle!) Ask family members to verbalize each domino they play and differentiate for the ages of your children. A toddler will say the colors he is matching, while a pre-schooler will say the number quantity of each side of a domino (nine and two). A school-age child can make a domino into an addition sentence (nine and two makes eleven), while an upper-elementary child will create a multiplication sentence (the nine is three rows of three).
Car Game: Mind Reader is a game modeled after ‘20 questions’, but challenges your child’s scientific thinking and language-building skills. A parent will say “I’m thinking of something that starts with mmmmmmm”. (Always say the beginning letter sound, instead of the letter name. This aids in the phonological development needed for learning to read.) Children will ask questions that can only be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Teach your child to begin with bigger questions (“Is the thing you’re thinking of living?” “Is it found in a house?” “Does it breathe underwater?”), then move on to guessing specifics. Most likely you will need to model this line of thinking for the first few games, but this thinking process (big ideas to small, asking questions to illuminate possibilities and matching guesses to the beginning sound) is exactly what your child needs to become successful in the areas of science, reading and creative problem-solving!
Website: StorylineOnline.net has a collection of books read by actors from The Screen Actor’s Guild. Hollywood’s Finest bring the stories to life and viewers can read along or just listen. You’ll see an excitement percolate when your children see the same books in the library and want to read the stories again and again!
Conversation: Your children have great ideas waiting to be unearthed and depend on you to stimulate their thinking and communication skills. During your summertime adventures, ask your children open-ended questions about your surroundings. This gives you insight into their thinking, which can drive further questioning and reasoning. Start with “What do you notice?” Take note of their observations and focus their attention to details that create new learning opportunities. Afterwards, ask “What does it make you think of/remind you of?” This elevates your child’s thinking to a higher-level and allows the brain to make connections with prior knowledge.
Wherever your summer plans take your family, powerful and practical activities are always at your fingertips!
Note: For your convenience, the above may be printed out by clicking on: Top 5 Summer Tips.
