During the summer, I am planning learning activities for my children as many days I can.    I view summer learning as a fun way to reinforce skills and concepts learned during the school year. This sneaky mom doesn’t want the kiddos to catch on that they are actually still learning!

Last week I may have blown up over 30 balloons for Lily’s sixth birthday. Those balloons have been bopped, kicked, and chased all over the house. This week my goal was to introduce our new Alphabet Flash Cards from Educational Toys Planet. I needed an activity for my emerging reader, six-year old Lily, and my pre-reader, three-year old Cortland.

Enter in the balloons and the flash cards – such a fun combination! I took the word from each flash card and wrote it on one of my balloons so that each card matched a balloon. Put 26 balloons in one room and you are bound to have fun! I gave each child a card and sent them on a treasure hunt to find the right balloon. My daughter matched the words while my son matched the first letter. When they found a match they tossed the balloons on the bed until they had matched all the pairs. My children loved this activity and have asked to do it several times.

After we made all the matches, we played several games that were outlined in the card pack. We mixed up all the letters and then sang the ABC song to put the cards back in order. Once they were in order we matched the pictures from the lower case letter cards to the right upper case letter card. I love that ABC Flash card set came with both upper and lower case letters! The cards were colorful and my kids thought the pictures were fun.

The best part of this activity was the smile on my daughter’s face when she found a match. Success – fun and learning! I am so excited for the rest of our summer learning activities. Stay tuned for a fun 4th of July reading activity as well! Until then I am going to be trying out a great idea from my sister who blogs over at Live to be Inspired. Shooting site words with a nerf gun – pretty sure my kids can get into that!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Linking up to Tot School!

The post Simple Ways to Make Reading Fun appeared first on KeepMovingForwardWithMe.