Sunday, June 17, 2012

Ideas for some Fun

Tomorrow is the big day! Can you tell I'm excited?  I don't do countdowns, but this one I will, because I will be just like a little kid and not be able to sleep tonight!

Let's talk about a couple of activities that will be happening at Summer Fun Camp: Listening and Language.  There will be a group of little campers, ages 2-4 years old.  They will have fun with Quack, Splash, and Pop!  You can do this easily at home.  The focus will be with little yellow ducks; you can use a variety of stuffed animals, taking care there is a distinct animal sound for each.  We plan on going out in the playground area, made up of dirt, tires, and various small mounds or hills.  The adult will hide ducklings while the little ones are busy in a play area.  Then while they are playing, an adult will point to their ear and say....'Listen, I hear that! Do you hear something?'  Another adult will make the 'Quack, quack! sound'  'Let's go find them!' and the hunt begins. Great hide and seek for those little ones just beginning to seek out items they can just barely see.  If you have a variety of animals; not to big and not to small, you can do the same in your backyard.  After finding each one, have the little one imitate the animal sound and respond with, 'Yes, that's right and duck says 'quack, quack!' 'oh, listen, I hear another one!' and so it goes.......

Our junior and master travelers will be seeking out the long, lost dinosaurs - you know the ones we are always curious about and even more for our children.  One of the activities you can share with younger and older children are names and features of dinosaurs in their hiding activity.  Use modifiers of nouns to talk about different groups of dinosaurs, some dinos, most dinos, another dino, either dino...., or use adjectives to have them find specific dinosaurs.  'I saw one in the yard that has a spiky tail with jagged plates on its back.'  'Did you see the one with the bumpy skin and sharp teeth?' You can also work on past tense in questioning; 'Should we push the wheel barrel to pick up the huge T-rex?' One child may answer, 'I pushed it yesterday to find the food for the dinosaurs!' yeah! 

You can do all this and more while having some summer fun in your backyard!  Wow, look what Listening and Language can do!

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