Summer Learning: Math and Reading Sidewalk Chalk Activities

by Shell Rouch on April 29th, 2019 | 5 Comments »

Very soon, the kids will be out of school for summer. While that means lots of fun activities, we don't want them to experience too much of the "summer slide," where they lose some of what they learned during the school year. To avoid this, it's a good idea to add some educational activities to your summer plans. But that doesn't mean you have to sit down at a desk and use workbooks. You can make learning fun!

All you need is sidewalk chalk and you can practice math and reading skills with your child all summer.

Reading Activities:

Write out the letters of the alphabet and have your child identify each as he/she jumps from one letter to another.
Have your child spell out common words by jumping to the correct letters in the word in order.
Write out capitals and lower case letters and have your child match them. Your child can jump from one to the next to make a match, or throw a ball or bean bag (or even water balloon!) at the matching letter.

Write out common sight words and have your child find the correct one as you call them out, or have them read the words as they hop from one to the next.
Have your child throw a bean bag and give rhyming words for the word they land on, or make a sentence using that word.

Math Activities:

Draw a number line. Depending on your child's age, you can have them write in the numbers.
Practice number line math: start on 3 and take 5 steps. So 5+3=8. You can also do addition and subtraction or skip counting.

Write out numbers and have your child count their way up or down as they jump to the next correct number.
Toss a beanbag to land on an odd number or even number.

Your kids will see it as playing games with sidewalk chalk, but you'll know that they are learning!

What other games can you play with sidewalk chalk?

Shell- known as @shellthings on Twitter- wrangles chaos and mayhem on a daily basis (otherwise known as raising three boys). When she’s not breaking up wrestling matches or ducking Legos, she spills her thoughts on her blog, Things I Can’t Say. Featuring the popular weekly link-up “Pour Your Heart Out” and a guest post series titled “Things They Can’t Say,” Shell’s blog is all about encouraging community and support among bloggers. In her free time (ha!), Shell is cofounder of Other Half Media, which takes on blogging and social media projects for bloggers and companies alike. She also team-teaches classes for bloggers on How to Rock Your Blog.