Summertime is my favorite time of the year with warm weather, no school, and baseball! Below are my top three favorite summer time activities and suggestions for making them a hit with your child.
Sidewalk Chalk:
Sidewalk chalk is the perfect activity for kids with creative minds and perhaps not enough paper to write or draw on. It is also an enjoyable way to work on shapes, letters, and color recognition. Ed Emberly has a variety of step by step drawing books that use simple shapes to create an assortment of objects, animals, or faces.
Skills to add on:
- Basic Concepts
- Endless Expressive-Receptive Language
- Fine Motor Skills: Writing Letters, Name, Numbers; Drawing
- Gross Motor: Draw a maze to navigate through or ride bike/scooter
Scavenger Hunts:
Scavenger hunts can happen anywhere: your backyard, in a park, on a walk, or even inside your home on rainy days! Invite some friends/peers to join you and your child, which gives an opportunity to facilitate social interactions. Chelsey at Buggy and Buddy put together an amazing list of free printable scavenger hunts that are sure to keep you and your child learning while targeting some of the skills listed below.
Skills to add on:
- Gross Motor Skills: Walking; Climbing (if needed); Jumping
- Social Interactions
- Shape/Object Recognition
- Identifying items by feature, function, class
Water Play:
What better way to cool off on a warm summer day than to play in the water?! Here are a few water activities that are sure to keep you cool: colored water (food dye) mixing and pouring, water table, water balloons, and playing in the sprinklers.
Skills to add on:
- Color Identification
- Fine Motor-use an eyedropper, funnel, measuring cups to transfer water
- Shape/Object Recognition
- Imitation
- Gross Motor
- Play and Leisure Skills
I hope that you will enjoy these activities with your child this summer. Remember to incorporate meaningful activities into your daily routines and always take DATA!!