A Little Summer Schoolin'

I had really good intentions of doing lots of fun somewhat-educational activities with Cooper this summer to reiterate what he learned last year at school and to help him learn more.  It was supposed to be quality time for him and me while little brother napped.  I have to admit, for us at least, it is so much harder to teach your own child than someone else's!  My hat goes off to all the home-schooling parents out there!  Although we didn't end up doing very much at all, we did some activities here and there.  This particular activity was very spur of the moment and not something I had planned before.  We were bored, Jake was sleeping, I needed Coop to be quiet, so my brain got to spinning, and I came up with "Smarty Math!"

I made flashcards for the numbers 0-5 and drew corresponding lines under each number.  First, Cooper identified the numbers.  If he didn't know one, then I had him count the lines to determine the number.  Next, he put the flashcards in order.  To jazz things up a little, I then gave him a pack of Smarties (that were leftover from Halloween...) as his manipulative.  He counted out the correct number of Smarties for each number and placed them on the lines.  The absolute coolest thing about this is that a pack of Smarties has the perfect number of candies for this activity.  Don't you just love when things turn out like that?!  Of course, the best part of this activity was when he was done, he got to eat them!  It was fun (probably more for me than him as I got to itch that teaching bug I get every now and then), educational, and yummy!

Another thing we did that was really fun was working on writing his name.  He's known the letters in his name but hasn't learned to write them.  To begin with, I printed off the letters in his name in a font that had outlined them and was large.  Then he used finger paint to trace the inside of the letters and get a feel for how each letter is made.  Once the letters were dry, we trimmed the paper, put the letters in order, and attached them to each other to make a banner.  He was so proud of his work!  I told him we could hang his banner wherever he wanted, and he decided to hang it on the front of his bed.  

We also played letter swat, number swat (both with one of his toy hammers and flashcards), made a ninja turtle sight word book (I see Leonardo.  I see Mikey.  Etc.), worked hard on writing our name, used scissors and glue to make some beautiful unique masterpieces, and practiced tracing shapes and letters.  He was cooperative for the most part, as long as I didn't make an activity take longer than ten minutes!  In other fun summer news, we discovered ITunes radio this summer (click the music icon on your phone and it's at the bottom where playlists, songs, etc. are), and in particular, we discovered the Frozen channel.  It is all Disney songs from old and new Disney movies.  We love it and listen to it all the time!  If you have little ones, then I promise you will love it too!