Summer Activities Challenge: Letter / Number BINGO

My toddler is soon to be a preschooler ... I am so not sure how I feel about that!  But I do know that I am trying to maintain a certain level of structured learning time during these summer months.  That effort has lead me to the 2010 Summer Activities Challenge hosted by education.com.  The challenge is to complete 10 activities before August 29th.  There are thousands (not exaggerating) of activities to choose from, and every age level - from preschool to high school - is covered!  The preschool level includes activities in ten different categories.  There is so much to do here, it's just silly ... and I mean that in a very good way! In addition to being a great resource for activity ideas, the challenge also boasts the chance to win prizes.  Now that's fun!  And motivating!

Natalie and I completed our first challenge.  We did something simple and fun.  We played BINGO, a version focusing on letter and number recognition.  The activity explanation is here, and it even includes ready-to-print templates of the bingo cards.

We used mini marshmallows to cover the letters/numbers, which made it more fun ... or should I say, delicious :)  Each time she identified a letter/number, she got to eat a marshmallow and then put one on the card.  All that picking up of mini marshmallows made for good fine motor practice.  Overall, the game held her attention.  But I made it harder by giving her one Letter card and one Number card at the same time.  This required her first to figure out which card to look at and then find the correct square.

The templates for the caller cards contain ALL letters/numbers, but the Bingo cards themselves do not, so I called a lot of letters/numbers she didn't have.  I guess it was good practice searching and then realizing she didn't "have" that one.  But, boy, was she disappointed to miss out on a marshmallow!

The game of BINGO can be easily modified to just about any and all learning content.

The next activity on our list ... Weave a Colorful Yarn Mosaic!