She wasn’t paying attention so I repeated myself (which is typical these days) … “You take your pencil and draw down, up, down, up.” We are learning the letter W this week. She got up and wrote it on the Playschool chalkboard four times. She got it on the last try.
She was bored. I could tell. Uninterested, even. I knew we had to switch it up so we headed outside for some alphabet review.
I have Googled “outdoor alphabet practice ideas” (or something along those lines) for occasions just like this one. Miss Monster is only 3 so I know she’d much rather ‘play‘ than ‘learn‘. Being the tricky Mommy I am, we do both quite a bit!
I found this fun alphabet game the other day at Toddler Approved called Alphabet Bug Spray. SuperDAD ironically brought home some spray bottles the other day so I thought we’d give this game a try. I altered it a little to accommodate both my 3 year old and the sweet 4 year old boy I watch during the day.
All we needed were some spray bottles, chalk, OH… and of course the cute kids!!
When we got outside we sat and I snuck in a sly little science lesson. We learned that bugs have 6 legs. I showed them how to draw one with a head, body, 6 legs and antenna (Which my girl, sweetly enough, thought were antlers. I’ll save the antler lesson for another day.)
OBVIOUSLY someone slept through our science lesson …… 
After the driveway was crawling with bugs I started writing a letter on each. We have been learning upper AND lowercase letters so there were two of every letter.
Once all the bugs were drawn and lettered we began the game. I explained how to play….
I would call out a letter and they would race around and find either the uppercase or lowercase bug. When they found it they had to “stomp” it.
**Disclaimer** I do not condone bug stomping! However, Miss Monster can’t seem to stop her bug stomping impulse. I hope it’s something she outgrows. I give her my “living thing” speech and ask her next time not to stomp. ANYWAY, since she loves to stomp, I told her she was ALLOWED to stomp these bugs.
Once they stomped their bug they sprayed it away with their “bug spray”.
They had SOOOO much fun stomping, spraying and trying to be the first to find the letter I called out.
I will absolutely play this again soon!
It’s a great way to review the alphabet but could be altered in so many ways. For younger kids it could be used for color or number review. For older kids, word or math fact review.
Next time I think I will try it with the letter sounds.
So, what do you think? Would your kids like this outdoor learning game??
Have fun! Go play!
Heather
xx
Thanks so much, Alonya loves playing with water and chalk! So now we can work on her learning too lol
Tai,
And you could do colors or shapes with Annalise. Since she probably can’t spray easily a paintbrush or watering can would be easy enough for her. HAVE FUN!!!!!!