Learning ABC's and Numbers

I am determined to teach my child. I loved school, I loved teaching, I should have become a school teacher but maybe it wasn't meant to be, maybe I was suppose to have a cute little girl and teach her. Most of the time I turn our play into learning, I somehow sneak letters, numbers, reading, counting, into how we play. "If you take one princess away, how many does that leave?" Today was a great day, after dinner Summer wanted to go outside and since clouds blew into town the weather dropped at least 10 degrees if not more. It was late, about 7:00 pm, but we headed out front and grabbed the bucket of chalk. I was tempted to get the camera because I can barely resist chalk smudge pictures but I didn't, instead I drew pictures with Summer. A good 20 minutes into our chalk time I started writing numbers in boxes and turned it into a learning game. I told Summer to stand on number 1 then move to the next number, 2, 3, 4, etc. Then I had her hopping to certain numbers and jumping to other numbers. Then I had her put her left foot on the number 3, right foot on the number 4 and so on.

By the time I did go get my camera to take a picture it was pretty dark out, we actually just came in, but here is our number game.


After I made the number game I figured I had to make an alphabet game or two and do the same thing, start on the number A and follow it through the alphabet. She easily knows her alphabet but this game was challenging, she had to stop and think about the next letter, with a little help. She knows her letters A-I pretty good but it also helped when I would just call them out and tell her to step on the certain letters.


She still confuses her G and H so by calling them out, she had to really remember which letter was which. Then I got a great idea that didn't end up being anything like I thought but still worked - I made a circle and put letters in boxes around it, told her to stand in the middle and when I called a letter she had to quickly run to that box with the letter. Then I had her stand in a box and I told her I would only call a letter on either side of her and I had her moving back and forth around the circle.


A little hard to see but I think you get the idea. Somehow we incorporated a shark and she had to hurry before the shark got her. She is only barely 3 and her attention span lasted a whole 15 minutes before the learning got to be too much, or maybe it was the fact that it is kinda late, but I feel like I added a bit of learning in with our fun play time, what more could a mom ask for?

If you like my ideas and give them a try, let me know, and if you create a different variation let me know that too, we are always playing with chalk and she really enjoyed the games I made.