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😎 10 Skills to Work on with Kids Over the Summer

Summer break is the perfect opportunity for kids to explore, learn, and grow—without the rush of school schedules. By blending academics, life skills, creativity, and hands-on experiences, you can help your child stay engaged and start the next school year with confidence. Here are 10 essential skill areas to focus on this summer: Good read @ Library while Lego building! 1. Reading Fluency and Comprehension Reading regularly over the summer helps prevent the “summer slide” and builds confidence. Create a summer reading list with picture books, early readers, and chapter books. Read aloud together and discuss the story to boost comprehension. Join library reading programs or create a family reading challenge. Encourage kids to keep a “book log” or draw a picture about each story. 2. Writing and Storytelling Skills Writing builds communication, creativity, and fine motor skills. Keep a summer journal with daily drawings or short entries. Write po...

Phonemic Awareness: Word Play

It's Summer 2024 and no better time to slide into Summer Learning. In this post you'll discover simple phonemic awareness  games, many of which require no extra materials, that you can play at home or on that road trip. 

Rhyming Puzzle Game

1. Rhyming Cards:

Materials: Cards with pictures/ pictures & words, calling cards.

How to Play: Call out a word, and the children find a picture on their card that rhymes with the word.


2. Sound Matching:

 Materials: A set of picture cards.

How to Play: Spread out the cards. Children take turns picking two cards that start with the same sound.


3. Syllable Clapping:

Materials: None needed.

How to Play: Say a word and have the children clap the number of syllables. For example, "banana" would get three claps.


4. Phoneme Substitution:

Material: None needed.

How to Play: Say a word and then ask the child to change one sound to make a new word. For example, "cat" to "bat" (changing /c/ to /b/).


5. I Spy with Phonemes:

Materials: None needed.

How to Play: Say "I spy with my little eye something that starts with /s/." The child then looks around and guesses objects that start with that sound.


6. Phoneme Blending:

Materials: None needed.

How to Play: Slowly say the sounds of a word separately (e.g., /c/ /a/ /t/) and have the children blend the sounds together to say the word.


7. Silly Sentences:

Materials: None needed.

How to Play: Create silly sentences where all the words start with the same sound, like "Silly Sammy swiftly sang songs."


8. Jump to the Sound:

Materials: None needed.

How to Play: Say a word and have the children jump forward for each sound they hear in the word. For example, for the word "dog," they would jump three times (/d/ /o/ /g/).


Take Away

These activities can be played inside or in the great outdoors. The goal is to make it fun while being engaging and educational, helping young children develop these foundational phonemic awareness skills.

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