Summer is here!!!!

I know that most of you are still in school for a few more days, but our school let out early so I have been home with my kiddos for a few days now.  We have been having a blast.  We created some summer jobs to do as part of our daily routine. Gavin, my 6 year old has a Reading, Writing and Math tub, of which we do something each day. We aim to spend about 30 minutes but not more than 45 each day to avoid the summer slide. He has been reading books at a level I/J which is a beginning/mid 2nd grade level and he is going into 1st grade so we want to keep that jump and keep him moving:)  Writing is not his favorite activity and his fine motor struggles a bit (I know, 1st grade boys don't have the neatest handwriting) but he can when he slows down. So we have been working on writing stories and some handwriting practice, along with some fine motor tasks to strengthen his hands. He also has a math tub or miscellaneous tub. Yesterday he did a fun subtraction activity that I created. It was double digit subtraction and he used a hundreds chart to count back. It was so neat to see how fast he picked up on it. He then wrote his answer and then scanned the QR code to check his answer. It was motivating for him, as it is for many of my kiddos at school:)  He also made a reading pledge to read 1,000 minutes this summer and then we will take a trip to Nickelodeon Universe at Mall of America. We started off our summer there for Mya's Bday and will hopefully end it there as well:)  My newly 3 year old (she turned 3 on Tuesday) has a bucket herself. Hers is full of fine motor activities, name writing tasks and some counting and number recognition. Her fine motor was tricky as well, but the last few days she is really coming along. She knows many of her letters by recognition and can write a few, specifically those in her name. As of last week she was still struggling to trace her name but this week tracing is a breeze. I had her painting her name at first because it doesn't take as much fine motor strength and we have now moved onto markers and will progress to pencils as she is ready. She is even starting to make some of the letters in her name on her own. Everything she does she wants to put an M on and boy do they look great:)  She was also doing an activity in which she had to count the objects and then color in the correct number and she got them all right as her number recognition is about 70% up to 10:)  She still likes mommy teaching her things but I am sure that will fade as it did with Gavin so I am excited for her to start preschool in the fall (although I don't want it to come too fast as this summer break is MUCH needed). 

We also created a Summer Bucket List with a variety of fun crafts, outdoor activities, adventures, etc to do. Each day we pick one and do that. We also created a park passport for all of the area parks and are going to try to hit up each one at least once this summer.  Today we picked the seed planting card so I took out seeds from 6 packages (cucumbers, carrots, watermelon, corn, beans and flowers) and they had to make predictions based on size, feeling and prior knowledge to what they think the seed type is and what it will grow into to. I was amazed at their reasoning!  It was very fun!

So, since I am out enjoying my summer and many of you have a few days left, I decided to post a freebie that I had for sale in my TPT store but have since made it free for you at the end of the year. It is a Summer/Beach themed Real/Silly word Sort QR code style. My kiddos again love anything with QR codes, so I hope you find it useful. Click on the picture below for your copy:) 

Don't forgot to link up with Freebie Friday and Manic Monday or to check back there for more awesome freebies.  Enjoy the last few days of school!