playing with words

Playing with words is something you can do to beat summer boredom and help your children do something that engages their minds.  The one that takes minimal preparation is to find some magazines and ads from the paper and cut out words that the children choose.  Ideally the words would be close to an inch tall (or taller).  After you cut out the words, the words can be used to write sentences and glued onto paper.  If your children are old enough, they may be creative enough to write an entire story.

Another way to play with words is buy some magnets with words on them.  The words can be used to create sentences or sorted.  The two sets you see part of in the photos are from the company Magnetic Poetry.  (Both also happen to be from secondhand stores.)  The combinations can be serious or silly, and anyone who can read is able to do this.

Additional information

• If you decide to buy some a set of Magnetic Poetry, you may want to preview the words to check for appropriateness.  Some sets are marketed for adults.
• There are also sets for a handful of other languages.  

hexagon quilt

I finished my hexagon quilt!  I started it almost five years ago and I began making the hexagons while in Guatemala.  The fabric that I took wasn't sufficient, so it was at a stand still for quite awhile.  There are a lot of hexagons, and I had to look for more fabric several times.  Now it is all quilted and bound.  It feels good to be done.  This is one of those projects that I doubt I will ever do again because it took so long and it is almost all hand work.  It is a keeper, though. 

The Whispering Town

The Whispering Town by Jennifer Elvgren and illustrated by Fabio Santomauro is a picture book for anyone age eight and up. Annet, the girl in the story, lives in Denmark during World War II.  Her parents hide Jews in the basement of their home, helping them escape the Nazi soldiers. There are many cloudy nights, so Annet figures out a way the townspeople can help the Jewish people get to the boat and escape despite the dark sky.  Based on a true story, I will share this book with my students when we are learning about Anne Frank and World War II. 

wordless picture books

If your kids are tired of reading this summer, it might be time to change things up a little.  There are lots of wordless picture books with great stories.  Reading won't feel like a chore.  The reader tells the story instead of having to decode the words.  Books pictured above are The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Pett, Good Dog, Carl by Alexandra Day, I Walk with Vanessa by Kerascoet, Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola, Rainstorm by Barbara Lehman, and The Secret Box by Barbara Lehman.  A few others that my students or I really like are Hank Finds an Egg by Rebecca Dudley, The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney, Rosie's Glasses by David Whamond and Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson.

The Crayon Man

The Crayon Man by Natascha Biebow and illustrated by Steven Salerno is a picture book to share with everyone.  It tells the story of how Crayola crayons came to be.  With crayons so common and inexpensive, I don't think much about them.  This new book is an engaging narrative to help others understand how the so popular crayons got their beginning.  It will help children see how a person's passion and determination can help bring a product to life for others.

summer journal

Something to do this summer with your family to extend your children's learning is to keep a summer journal.  This could be a joint project for all members of the family.  You can write every few days and have those with an artistic bent add pictures, or you could assign one person each day to jot down a few sentences about what happened that day.  It will be fun to look it over at the end of the summer and review the things that happened.

Last summer I did a blog post each week about summer learning activities.  I won't be posting with the same regularity, but I do plan to add a few posts throughout the summer.  If you are interested in looking back at the posts from last year, you can click on the tab that says summer learning at either the top or the bottom of the blog.