Stimulating Summer Learning

I decided to be purposeful this summer and come up with activities for Alexis every weekday during her vacation.  Although I had planned on this for awhile, our last MOPS meeting of the summer gave me the structure.  Someone handed out a useful worksheet that assigned each day of the week a theme: Make-It Monday (crafting day), Take-A-Trip Tuesday (go somewhere fun), Water Wednesday (do something with water outside), Thinking Thursday (science and research).  I changed Friday to Food and Free Friday.  We're going to take it easy at home and create some fun recipes.  I like this way of thinking about the week because it gave me a jumping off point to plan our summer.  But, if it seems too overwhelming to plan a whole summer of activities, I have another idea.

When I was creating our summer calendar I asked Alexis what she wanted to learn more about.  She said octopuses, geckos and electricity (she has since added eels).  I love stimulating learning during the summer.  Why should learning stop at summer vacation days?  I value the freedom to do whatever you want in the summer, but I also like the idea of encouraging those interests and curiosities our children naturally have.  If you don't want to plan a whole summer, you could ask your child/children what they are interested in learning more about.  If you have multiple children, maybe each child gets to pick one or two subjects.  Then plan on your calendar a day for learning about those subjects.  You don't have to plan on interacting with the subject the entire day, maybe 2-3 hours or so.  Today was our octopus day.  Here's how it went:

First, we went to the library and picked up some books on octopuses.  The ones on top are about octopus facts; the bottom was a cute fiction story for fun.  We read the books together.  Alexis was totally interested in the books.  They were great for preschoolers.  I asked her some questions afterwards like "How does an octopus protect itself?" and "What if it loses an arm?" and "Why does it change color?"  I found a little mini book online that asks, "If you could change color, which color would you be?"  (The entire octopus unit is here, although I didn't follow this unit at all except using the mini book).  Alexis had fun deciding what colors she would be if she could change color with her emotions.

Next, we created our own octopuses.  You should view these as if they are swimming and you are seeing them from above, their big bulbous "nose" in the front.  I saw this idea online.  You stuff socks with poly-fill, tie them with a ribbon to create a head, cut the bottom of the socks to make the eight tentacles, then put on eyes (made out of felt).  In the picture I saw online the octopuses had circular eyes.  I asked Alexis if she wanted those or the horizontal eyes octopuses actually have and she chose the later.  I think they are cute!  She, of course, then played with them and acted out some of the facts about them all on her own.

Finally, drawing octopuses was completely Alexis' idea, "Since it's homeschool day," she said :-)  I drew mine going after a crab, an octopus' favorite food as we learned.  Alexis drew hers above a crab and also getting its tentacle bitten off by an eel fish (you can see the rest of the tentacle lying on the sand--the red line).  I think the fact that octopus arms can grow back impressed her.

So that's all we did for octopus day.  Read some books, made some octopuses, drew octopuses.  It wasn't complicated and she learned more about something that interested her.  We probably spent maybe an hour and a half to two hours.  So go ahead, ask your child what she wants to learn more about, do an internet search for ideas, pick up some books at the library and have fun!