10 Outdoor Summer Activities for Kids {The Sunday Showcase 6/14/14}

Summer seems to mean we spend lots more time outdoors.

Whether you're at the park, enjoying the beach, frolicking in the pool

or just playing outside your home, you'll want to check out these awesome

Outdoor Activities for Kids. They're perfect for summer fun in the sun!

Click any of the links below for the full post and how-to's 

on these Outdoor Activities for Kids shared on last week's linky.

Driveway Scooter Maze

(School Time Snippets)

Easy DIY Water Blob

(Outside Kid)

Fizzing Sidewalk Chalk Paint

(The Pleasantest Thing)

Swatting Bubbles

(My Nearest and Dearest)

Water Shooter Painting

(Fantastic Fun and Learning)

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Here are a few of our favorite Outdoor Learning Activities:

Numbers Water Balloon Target Practice

TP Roll Binoculars Nature Hunt

Water a Sight Word Garden

Rhyming on the Go

Sight Word Hopscotch

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Looking for more ideas?

Don't forget to peruse our Pinterest Board -

Outdoor Fun and Games

I love pinning awesome ideas from around the web for my girls to try.

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Now it's your turn to share!

Do you have fun Outdoor Activity ideas to share? 

Please share them with me in the linky, 

by commenting below or by visiting our Facebook page. 

Be sure to link up your child centered ideas while you're here.

I love to see what everyone is doing.

If you have been featured, grab a button you deserve it!

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The Sunday Showcase is hosted on FOUR blogs!

Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Here Come the Girls

Inspiration Laboratories

JDaniel4's Mom

Each blog showcases their own features so be sure to check them all out!

If you are here for the first time please read this informational post for the full details.  Anything kid friendly and/or child centered is welcome!  You are welcome to share more than one post,  but we don't accept links for giveaways,  shops, or downloads for purchase, etc.  They will be deleted.

If you're linking up we encourage you to visit other links 
& our Pinterest board!  

*Important* 

Please note that by linking up you are giving us permission to use a photo (with proper link to you!) in our featured section and on our Pinterest board!  

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Link up and share your child centered ideas with us!

Bern

An InLinkz Link-up

Outdoor Cookie Cutter Games for Kids

Summertime is the perfect time for outdoor play and games. Deidre from JDaniel4's Mom has so much fun with her son. Today, she is here to share some outdoor play they enjoyed with cookie cutters and bean bags. Here's Deidre........

On a beautiful summer  day when the grass was green from summer rainstorms and the sun is shining children love to get outside to play.  I introduced a new outdoor game to my son and the boy next door to explore called Cookie Cutter Targets on such a day. They in turn shared with me several other ways to play the game.
As I headed outside to supervise the boys outdoor play, I grabbed two bean bags from an old tossing game and several cookie cutters. We have quite the collection of plastic cookie cutters in various sizes. I tried to grab some large and medium size ones.
Once we were outside, I explained to the boys my new game.  “I am going to scatter these cookie cutters on the ground and you are going to try to have one of the beanbags land on one. You can have one point for each cookie cutter target you hit,” I explained. 

Each boy stood in a designated spot and tried to hit a cookie cutter when it was their turn. At first they both over or under threw the bean bag. It took a couple of minutes to get their eye and hand coordination working. Once they both were focused, they both started hitting the targets.

After awhile they both noticed that if you hit the edge of the cookie cutter targets hard enough, you could make them flip.  They decided that was very cool and within seconds the game changed to a new outdoor game called Flip The Cookie Cutter Targets.
Later the game changed again to Tell Me What Target To Hit. One boy would tell the other which cookie cutter to aim for. If they hit the correct cookie cutter, then they got a point. I noticed that neither of the boys was selecting the large cookie cutters for their friend to hit. They went for the trickier,  smaller ones. 
The boys had a great time with the original outdoor cookie cutter target game, but I think they had a better time creating their own outdoor games with cookie cutter targets.  Watching children create and change the outcomes of a game is such amazing fun.

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a teacher, she became a stay at home mom . Her blog features ways she and her 5 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on twitter as @jdaniel4smom and on her blog's FB page.

Digging for Letters: An Outdoor Learning Activity for Kids

Hands-on, sensory play is such a fabulous way to learn. Today, we have one of the lovely sisters behind the blog, The Sugar Aunts sharing a wonderful learning activity with us - Digging for Letters.  Here's Colleen..... 

We have a dirt pit in our yard where we spend lots of time digging, building with bricks, playing with construction vehicles, and even planting acorns...Little Guy is still hoping for baby tree to sprout up!

 I buried pieces from our foam alphabet puzzle in the dirt one afternoon and let the kids know there was a surprise waiting for them in the dirt pit!

I couldn't help adding this picture of bare piggy toes checking out the buried letters.

Little Guy loved this!  He would find the letters and pull them out of the dirt for us.  Big Sister (almost 6 y/o) is working on sounding out words and putting short words together to spell.  This was a great activity for her.  Little Guy (a new 4 y/o) can identify a few lower case letters, so this was a great challenge for him as he brushed off the dirt.

She got a kick out of this one once she sounded it out:

After we found all of the letters, we dumped them into a soapy water bin and washed them off with tons of suds. 

What a fun sensory play experience this was on a hot summer afternoon!

Little Guy discovered he could pop the bubbles and poke the letters down under the water with a stick.

And, "Yes, you can squirt the letters across the driveway with the hose."

Looking for more ways to learn letters?  You may also enjoy:

Magnetic Letters on the Garage Door

Letter Ice Muffins

Thank you for joining us!  You'll want to follow the Sugar Aunts Blog,  Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest and Instagram so you don't miss a post.  

Colleen is one of 3 sisters behind the Sugar Aunts blog.

Play to Learn: Water a Sight Word Garden

It's time for me to share another fun Sight Word Review Game we played this summer to help get the Littlest Diva on the road to reading.

Water a Sight Word Garden

The Littlest Diva loves flowers. She draws them all the time and begs to water the bushes outside our home. The poor girl probably wishes her mom had some sort of a green thumb. 

On a hot and humid day, I went outside a drew a chalk garden. I added some target sight words into each flower, the tree and the sun in my drawing. Then I filled a spray bottle with water (I have no idea where our watering can went) and invited the Littlest Diva outside to water her sight word garden.

I called out words and she happily watered that particular flower (or other part of the drawing). She was amazed at how quickly the sidewalk kept drying up and she begged me to call the words out over and over again because her garden needed more watering.

It was a simple activity that got my Lil Diva moving, happily playing outside and learning at the same time.  

Happy watering!

Bern

Play to Learn: Numbers Water Balloon Target Practice

 I am in full "Getting Ready for Kindergarten" mode with the Littlest Diva. I am spending time reviewing the basics with her so that she is feeling confident and ready to learn when school begins in a mere 3 weeks (where did summer go anyway?).

The other day I decided to do some quick number recognition review. I subscribe to the thinking that there is no better way to learn than through play so I turned the review into a game.  Being summer (and incredibly hot and humid here in FL) I wanted to incorporate water to entice her to play. When she came to me with our bag of balloons asking me to blow one up for her, I was inspired.

Water Balloon Target Practice

This can be used in many different ways - we will surely be doing this with sight words very soon.

Set-up:

I kept this very simple. I went outside and drew a large target/circle with 4 rings using various chalk colors. Then I randomly added 2 digit numbers in each ring. The middle target had a 3 digit number (a challenge!).

Play:

To play, each Lil Diva armed themselves with a water balloon and threw it at the target. They had to read whichever number it landed on. Our game ended when the numbers had been washed away.

It was quick & easy to set up, fun (and wet) for the girls to play and they didn't even realize they were working on basic math skills. I love when I can sneak in learning into fun time, don't you?

Other Ways to Play:

- sight words

- math facts

-vocabulary

- letter recognition

and more

How else would you use this game? 

I'd love to hear what you come up with.

Bern

Looking for more fun math ideas? Check our Preschool Math section or our Math Fun board on Pinterest - it's chock full of fab ideas.

*Note*-  Children should always be supervised when playing with water balloons.

Learning Through Play: Sight Word Hopscotch

Pin It

After sharing our 10 Fun Ways to Learn Sight Words Through Play and seeing all the positive feedback I wanted to start sharing our Learning Through Play ideas more often with you. There are so many games I play with the Lil Divas and never sit down to blog about. I am excited to try to share them with you from now on & hope to do so on a weekly basis.

Sight Word Hopscotch 

This is such an easy & fun way to practice sight words.

What You Need:

chalk (multiple colors work best) for outdoor play

or use colored tape & bring the fun indoors

rock or bean bag

What To Do:

1. Using chalk make a hopscotch board.

2. In each square write target sight words, spelling words, letters, etc...

3. Child should throw rock onto hopscotch board. 

Whichever word the rock lands in is the word to be read.

4. Repeat until all words have been read at least once.

Different Ways to Play: 

We play this a few different ways aside from the basic way listed above.

 Some rounds she reads every word she hops on or

uses the word in a sentence (this is especially useful for homophones)

Other times, she tries to spell the target word after reading it.

Sometimes, we sing-spell the word she lands on to the tune of B-I-N-G-O.

Variations: 

1. You can play with letters to help aid recognition

or practice letter sounds (I do this with the youngest Diva)

2. Use numbers to aid in number recognition.

3. Use colors to help with color recognition.

4. Play with spelling words.  Have child read word, 

then look away and practice orally spelling the word.

5. Play with vocabulary words - 

child tells you definition of word they land on.

6. Play with foreign language words 

For example, write color words like red 

and child has to tell me word in spanish word - rojo.

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Both Lil Divas love this game. 

It's an active, fast-paced & fun way to learn.

Have you played Sight Word Hopscotch (or a variation of it?)

Can you think of other ways to play? 

Bern