Summer Activities
Wow! It’s just barely July and already you and our other No Time For Flash Cards readers have sat down and shared over 8000 books with their kids. I am so excited to see such amazing numbers coming in week after week.
If you haven’t joined our Summer Reading Challenge yet you are not too late. All the details are here but the gist of it is that you read with your kids, tally up how many books you have read, submit a tally sheet once per submission period ( see below) and then you are automatically entered to win a $50 Amazon.com gift card at the end of the summer. Pretty cool!
Submission Periods :
June 3-9th , 10th -16th , 17th- 23rd , 24th-30th
July 1st-7th , 8th-14th, 15th- 21st , 22nd-28th
July 29th – August 4th
August 5th-11th , 12th-18th , 19th -25th.
The winner will be drawn on the 26th of August.
Submit Your Tally Here
Summer is the perfect time to learn and play outside so grab the sunscreen and head outdoors. Kids love water and even if you don’t live near a beach or have a pool you can still let them play and explore to their hearts content. Here are some fun water themed activities like Letter Spraying ( pictured above) to try this summer. 
Color Mixing ( check out his hair in this post , all my fault!)
Angry Birds Water Balloon Game
Our Summer Reading Challenge is well underway but that doesn’t mean that if you haven’t participated yet you still can’t get in on the action! It’s so simple and all about spending time reading with your kids. Read 10 books or more with your children each week, fill out this form ( one per child), and you are automatically entered to win not just the weekly Alphabet Crafts eBook but also the Amazon.com gift card giveaway at the end of the summer. How simple is that? Oh and if your child is like mine and likes reading the same book over and over that’s not a problem, just list it more than once in the form. The goal is time reading not how many different books you read ( although that is great too!).
Summer Reading Challenge Reminder!
This week in celebration of our growing family we are giving away 5 instead of 1 Alphabet Crafts eBook to say thanks for making this challenge such a success! We have read almost 4000 books with our kids this summer , which just blows me away!If you haven’t participated yet , it’s not too late every week is open to new and previous participants.
Also this week only you have until NOON Monday June 28th PDT to get your forms in .
Time to get in your forms. List all the books you have read ( at least 10!) with your child this week , fill in this form and you will be entered to win a copy of my eBook Alphabet Crafts as well as get an entry for the end of summer Amazon.com gift card giveaway. To be included in this week’s contest you need to fill the form out before noon on Monday June 28th PDT.
Need more info? Check out the details.
There are so many opportunities for playing with textures with every day art supplies but rough is one that doesn’t come as easy, but it’s not impossible. Sandpaper is really fun to use for all sorts of things. Just remember that when you do a sensory art project that you need to be prepared for mess since the whole point is to touch and feel! My son had so much fun ( by fun I mean made a huge mess)with this that we ended up in the bath immediately after.
- Gather your materials. You will need 2 sheets of sandpaper, some yellow and/or orange paint, a marker, a paint brush , scissors and glue.
- Draw a circle on one of the sheets.
- Cut the circle out, leave the other sheet whole, you will cut the rays into triangles later.
- Start by letting your child feel the sand paper, some kids will recoil from it, some will love the texture and explore it with their finger tips and nails for a long time.
- Next get the paint ready we wanted to use both colors since we were looking at pictures of the sun and I quote ” It’s not all yellow like I thought mommy!” so both colors were poured into a container for this project.
- Start painting the circle. We started with a brush and the sound the bristles made were really interesting. However I didn’t even have time to get a photo of him using a brush on the circle, he went straight for finger painting.
- Next he compared the rough paper to his smooth hands.
- Pass them the full sheet when they are ready.
- Remember that when you encourage finger painting, often a mess will follow, this is why you always use washable paint. These were not the only two hand prints on my table or his body, just the prettiest.
- Set the circle and other sheet up to dry and get in the bath.
- When dry ( ours took forever cause we had globs). Cut out the rays. If your child is willing have them cut, my son wanted NO part of cutting the sandpaper and I admit , I don’t enjoy cutting it either. I had shivers the whole time.
- Add glue to the back of the circle.
- Add your rays and let dry.
Other Activities About Texture:
