This summer is our last complete summer together

After this year Esther and William will be at school for all of June and July

This year we are having a great big #summerofplay

As we #countdowntobigschool

We have lots of lovely days out planned

A few trips further a field

Visits and visitors

And three very special birthdays to celebrate

I will be documenting as much of it as I can on the blog

And sharing some of my top tips for preparing for school

And learning through play

Starting with these 10 ways to inspire a love of learning

We are going to be trying these this summer

Will you?

10 Ways to Inspire a Love of Learning This Summer

1: Read
Read with your children every day. Read everything. Cereal boxes, books, menus, instructions, ingredients, TV credits. Immerse your home in words. Share stories and poems, jokes and riddles. Read aloud, read to yourself, share what you are reading with your children. Be a reading role model. Find time every day for reading. Help your children to have fun with letters and sounds and words. Knowing their alphabet and being familiar with some letter sounds will help children enormously when starting school. More important though is to have some idea how books and stories work, know some characters, settings and be able to choose a book they might like to share at school.

2: Write
Writing is a skill that we do not use nearly as much as we used to but it is still an important life skill for children to learn. It will be very sad if we lose the art of writing through evolution, revolution and technology. Esther and William are not great writers. At only 4 years old I am not overly concerned about this. Their prematurity means that their motor skill development is slightly delayed and so they find holding a pencil difficult and find writing more tiring than perhaps they should. My plan over the summer is to help Esther and William be able to confidently write their names. To be able to write them clearly with all their letters a good size and correctly formed. Esther is already good at writing her first name. William is going to need a lot of help. The plan is to practise writing their name every day of summer until it come easily and naturally to them. My hope is that by mastering their names they will be confident enough at forming letters and comfortable enough with their pencil grip to attempt writing new words. To aid the physical aspect of writing we will be doing lots of fine and gross motor skills activities. Lots of the small world, sensory and messy activities that we already do. If you do not feel confident doing this yourself there are so many ideas and tutorials online. There are many books available to buy and you could even consider hiring a tutor to lead some sessions in your home that focus on early learning through play.

3: Numbers
Lots of young children know their numbers before starting school. Esther and William love numbers. They are confident with counting and ordering to 20. They can complete simple number problems but only because we do number work regularly. Nothing formal but through our play. We have not done much number work recently so I plan to do lots over the summer period. Pinterest is a great place for sourcing inspiration for developing numberness through play. I am collecting the ideas I find at Edspire Numberness. Once Esther and William are at school I will continue to work with them through school holidays on numberness as I think it is important to put learning from school into use in real life and I know that if you do not continue to practise and repeat skills, particularly over the long holiday periods, some learning can be lost. That is why many parents choose to have a tutor for their child over holiday periods. This is something I might consider if my children choose to sit their 11+ in the future or during the summer between primary and secondary school.

4: Messy Play
We adore getting messy in our house. I find messy play very therapeutic and the perfect way to diffuse any difficult situations. Messy and sensory play also allow you to explore familiar and favourite themes, topics and stories in a very different way. William is obsessed with trains, has been for years but the passion is very very strong at the moment. In a bid to get him to do more I add trains to new ways to play. For example, this afternoon we took our trains outside and painted with them on a large roll of paper. We used a ramp to propel the planes through a puddle of paint and on to the paper. It was great fun. Esther loves The Lion King and loves to tell the story. Today we went to the woods and acted out the story of the film, we have also created Lion Territory in our tuff spot. Messy play can be as simple or elaborate as you like. There are lots of ideas on Pinterest and on this blog. I am collating my favourites here at Messy and Sensory Play from Edspire.

5: Get Physical
We love physical play. Developing gross motor skills underpins all learning. It is thought that reading readiness is related to physical abilities. Children with refined motor skills definitely find writing much easier than children who do not. Over the summer we are going to be doing lots of outdoor play. Lots of climbing, sliding, swinging, bouncing and running in the garden. We are also going to be visiting local play parks for more physical fun. We are going to be working on our swimming skills and getting out and about on our bikes. Keeping fit and healthy is great fun. We will also be heading out to explore the fields that surround our village. One of our favourite things to do.

6: Adventure and Explore
We will be having lots of adventures this summer and through our adventures we will be exploring places and things. We will be learning through our adventures. We might have a number hunt on the beach, we might make letters with shells on the beach, we might think about capacity while playing with water in a lake or by the sea. We are going to go to places we have not been to before, we will be revisiting favourite haunts and trying to experience them in a new way. I want to foster a sense of awe and wonder in our children as they grow. The world is amazing and I want my children to learn all about it. And I want them to learn with me! What a privilege it is to introduce our children to new things, show them new places. I cannot wait to adventure and explore with my little family. We are going to have such fun!

7: Talk
Talking is so important. I talk to Bea all the time. Whenever I am doing something and she is with me I narrate what I do. I have always done it with all our babies. Now Esther and William are 4 they talk non stop to one another. I have to make sure that we have times in our day when we can all sit down and talk together. Meal times are an obvious time, when we are in the car, as we have bedtime cuddles. Talking together is important for modelling good speaking and listening, demonstrating and practising good manners and getting to know one another.

8: Prepare
Last year with the August arrival of Bea we did not really do much preparation for school. This year we are going to do more. We are going to talk more about what to expect at school, we are going to do things that require good sharing and turn taking and waiting. I am going to make sure Esther and William have some key skills such as being able to do their own shoes and coats, being able to dress and undress themselves for PE. I also want to prepare them for a busy noisy classroom. Esther and William will have been at home since Easter with no preschool or classes. I also want them to have some time away from one another as it is not guaranteed that they will be able to do everything together at school. Lots to think about over the next three months to ensure Esther and William are ready. I want them to prepare for the big adventure that is school. And when the time comes for term to start I want to celebrate them starting and find special ways to mark those earliest days.

9: Eat
One of the things I want to do this summer is find a way to improve our diet as a family. Esther and William are quite fussy eaters and Bea seems to be following suit. When I try baby led weaning style finger foods Bea looks at them all with interest and then throws them on the floor. If not perfectly packaged by Ella’s Kitchen Bea is just not interested and the twins have a similar loyalty to Heinz! David and I have healthy evening meals but our snacking and lunches leave much to be desired. Family food is going to become a focus for the summer and beyond. I want to kick start some healthy eating habits that will last us all for life. I hope that by trying lots of new tastes over the summer tackling school dinners will be less of a thing and Bea and I can go out together for lots off nice lunches once school starts full time.

10: Remember
My to do list for our #summerofplay is long and ever growing. There are so many things that I want us all to do together, while we still can. I want to make memories that will last a life time. I want to build up Esther and William to be happy and confident before they start their school career. I want them to walk into class with their head held high from day one and know that whatever they do, as long as they try their best, it is enough for me. I want us all to make memories this summer. I want us all to remember how happy we make each other. I want to make magical memories as we prepare and #countdowntobigschool

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