Jump the rope for letter J

We jump for letter J! During the week of letter J, we took the kids outside and had them jump over the jump rope.

To make it more interesting, you can say different words one after another and have them jump every time you say a word that starts with the letter J. Another idea is to say different letters and have the kids jump every time you say the letter J.

Painting a Jar

For our art activity for letter J, we painted some jars that we decided to use as candle holders and decorate our porch with it.

You will need:

glass jars

acrylic paint

paint brushes

newspaper

This art activity is fairly simple, just have the kids pick out 3 colors tops (more colors will cause the paint mix into brown) and place them on a palette.

Then have the kids paint the jar they picked. You might want to place newspaper underneath the jar in order to keep the surface from getting dirty.

We got some cute jars that decorate my porch table now. I am using them as candle holders!

Summer Reading Program

Does anyone have the best library in the world? We sure think our library is the best and we love our helpful librarians for being so friendly and helpful to us and our kids! Every summer they put together a Summer Reading Program, to encourage the youth to keep up the reading and maybe even sharpen up their reading skills over their summer break.

Check your local library if they offer the same program.  

 

As a kick off to the program, the librarians threw us all an awesome party, where we got delicious ice cream...

 

... the kids got to participate in some crafts, such as wet chalk and crayon drawing on a black paper...

...or recreating "The Starry Night" by Van Gogh using paint. 

We also got to sign up for the program right on spot, which was very helpful too. Way to start the summer break!!! Happy reading!

Letter I is for Ice cream

Letter I for Ice cream!


We start with the letter recognition.
We lay out the letters (alphabet cards) that they worked on so far, which is A through I in this case. We place them on the floor and have the kids pick a letter, you pick one as well, (if the new/introduced letter is not chosen by the kids the adult usually grabs that letter) Have them run around and sing "we're running, we're running, we're running in a circles."

  Then you yell out "stop!" or "freeze!" This is where they place the card on their head and we ask: "What letter do you have on your head?" or "What letter do I have on my head".

It seems to work with our kids so far they learned their letters this way.

Then we go straight into our do-a-dot activity. The kids dot around the letter I.

Next up is letter hunt. Sometimes I find perfect objects for our activities. How are these cute little ice creams I found for our letter hunt? One container includes ice cream erasers and the other ice cream magnets.

Find letter I on the page. You can download the page here.

The little kids are learning patterns. Go ahead and download here. If you are just starting patterns, say the pattern out loud and have the kids finish it with you. You can also have them finish it themselves, or if they are advanced, have them work on it alone and then review it after they finish. 

For Art Jar we made colorful popsicles. Please, see this post  for instructions. 

We created number order 1-5. Have the kids put the numbers in order and create a yummy ice cream!

You can download Ice cream 1-5 here.

For more math, we counted ice cream flavors. 

You can download Ice cream counting here. Have the kids count the ice cream flavors and place the same amount of objects underneath the ice cream. We used small marshmallows because we didn't have enough magnets or erasers. 

And how about making your own ice cream? Here is a link to a separate post that gives you detailed instructions. Yummy!

This letter was too much fun! Enjoy and don't forget to check out some of the letter I books listed below.

 

Make your own ice cream

For our treat on letter I day, we made ICE CREAM!

You will need:

ziploc bags - 1 sandwich size, 1 gallon size


For the sandwich size bag:
1/2 cup of whole milk
1 Tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla


and for the gallon size bag:
1/2 bag of ice
6 Tablespoons of rock salt

We wrote kids names on each of the bags so they don't get mixed up.

Have the kids help you measure the ingredients for the sandwich bag.

Put the vanilla in.

Then pour the milk. Ask the kids to tell you when to stop.

Put the sugar in, close up the bag and have the kids carefully mix it by gently squashing the bag.

Get the ingredients ready to the gallon size bag. Pour the ice into the gallon size bag and add the salt.

Place the small ziploc bag (make sure it's really closed tight) in the large ziploc bag and close the big bag up. Now comes the fun part for the kids - shake the bag for about 5 minutes. We had to help as their hands got cold from touching the bag.

You might have to add few minutes to the shaking and stop when the consistency reaches the consistency of ice cream. 

Squeeze it into the bowl and your dessert is ready!

Tissue paper popsicles

As an art project during the week for letter I, we made tissue paper popsicles (I is for Ice cream). 

You will need:

glue

card stock paper

popsicle sticks

different colors of tissue paper

First kids glue the popsicle stick to the paper. Then they put the glue above the popsicle in a shape they want their ice cream to be. in this case we made a circle. We helped the little kids.

Then we gave the kids different colors of tissue papers. they love the variety! We always save tissue papers from presents for times like this!

Kids pick the tissue papers they want, crumble them up, and place them on the glue that's on the paper.

And here is the final product! This is so cute and colorful!

We also had the kids come up with new ice cream flavors! They each named the ice cream they made.

LEGO addition

Our boys like to build and LEGO is a big hit. So I had an idea to incorporate LEGO blocks into our math lessons. 

For this LEGO addition activity, you can just handwrite plus sign and equals sign on a white paper, give them some LEGO blocks and let them build their own equations.

Make sure you choose blocks that are suitable for the level your kids are comfortable with. If you give them bigger blocks, the addition will end up go over 10. But if you kids are advanced, give them higher numbers!

Have fun!