Car Wash Fun!

Memorial Day Weekend was beautiful.  The temperature was beautiful and we got outside to play!  I have a 4 year old and 7 year old, so they do not always want to play the same things.  This is where my special education training in differentiation comes in handy!!  We can all play the same game, with a little twist for each kid.  Everyone is happy :)

We had a letter car wash.  Here are the materials that we used: plastic cars, trucks, planes, sponges, Vis-à-vis marker, chalk, letter cards, and towels.  Of course, we also had a tub of water to get the sponges wet!

We used the letters in my daughter's name, but each child had a different objective. 

 

My daughter had to find the letters that made up her name and put them in order in front of the matching "Car Wash".  We pretended that each bottle with a letter was a car wash, just for that specific letter.

 My son had to give me a word for each letter with a short and long vowel sound. 

 

After they matched or told me their words, they got to "wash" the car.  Since the letter was put on with Vis-à-vis markers, it comes right off with a damp sponge.  You would not believe how long we played this game!  The towels are for drying the cars after you wash them.

We also added a town with the same letters.  My daughter drove the cars around and parked them by the matching letter. 

My son used chalk to connect letters to build different words.  Then, he would drive the cars along the roads and read me his words.  For example, he created "hop".  We added more letters of the alphabet and he created "magic e" words.

When they were done with the cars, we broke out their bikes.  I wrote numbers on my daughter's bike.

 I wrote long vowel words on my son's bike.

We played these games a variety of ways.  For numbers:

-  Call out a number

-  Hold up your fingers and the child will identify or count the number of fingers

-  Put out a specific number of cars and the child will count and "wash off" the number

 For the words:

-  My daughter got involved by telling my son the first letter of the word and he had to find it.

-  I said the word and he searched for it and washed it off.

-  He picked a word, used it in a sentence, and washed it off.

You can write anything on the bikes or cars, so your kids can practice any skill.  It was great to get outside and "play" with water!!

 

I would love to hear how you keep your kids learning in the summer heat :)

 

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