Some of Our Activities

In trying to make sure my children's minds are stimulated properly this summer I planned some activities. Yesterday I declared it "Cookie Day."

First C cut out two circles to be the cookies out of a paper grocery bag. Then he wrote the word cookie on them. After the "cookies" were ready we played a game. We had three dice and the kids took turns rolling them, counting the number and then placing that number of chocolate chips on their cookie. Once my little pile (aka leftover bit of a bag) was gone, then they rolled the dice to see how many they could eat. M had totally system breakdown and once she started eating she didn't stop. C ate only what he rolled and at the end, with one chocolate chip left, he rolled a lot of rolls before he got a one! After the game we listened to some cookie songs and then read some books about cookies. Then I sent them off to play again.

I call that fine motor skills, spelling, (cookie is a word he can spell without help already but it's still good practice) subitizing (knowing what number is on the dice without counting, C has pretty much got that down now) counting, the beginnings of addition and subtraction, snack, reading and music. That's like a full day of elementary skills in about 20 minutes which is all I am committing to this summer.

And it turns out it doesn't matter at all if I want them to have focused learning time because all my guy wants to do is write books. Mo Willems books. Here is a recent sample:

He's going through paper like mad! He ran out of the light blue paper yesterday and had to switch to the green paper and he doesn't care for it as much. It's not stopping him though. These are just the books from the past two days.

The books he has written are: The Pigeon 123, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Car, The Pigeon Gets a Book, The Pigeon in Trouble, Pigeon and Duckling, The Pigeon Wants a Walrus, The Pigeon Find a Walrus. 

I think Mo should give us a call for a creative consult because C's The Pigeon 123 is actually a really astute book and would make a good addition to the Smigeon of a Pigeon board books that he's already got in the collection. In it, Pigeon finds 1 hot dog, 2 cookies, 3 buses and then 10 hot dogs and 11 cookies. Mo could change the items certainly but the idea is sound.

Also, The Pigeon Wants a Walrus is the obvious sequel to The Pigeon Wants A Puppy, (a real Mo Willems book) where in the end he changes his mind and wants a walrus. (In C's version, he decides a cat is better choice at the end.)

You probably don't care about my 5-year-old and his current obsession with creating books in the style of his favorite author, I'm getting a little sick of it myself, but I mention it only because clearly I don't actually have to plan learning time because it's happening organically. I am practically unschooling over here. *Pats self on the back even though I did nothing except find the paper and occasionally spell a word for the kid.*

This morning we went to a park for a good long time. We had the entire park to ourselves which was so nice. I let them play until they decided they wanted to come home which took about an hour and a half. That's the recipe for a good summer I think. Outside in the cooler mornings and tire 'em out good.