No Summer Brain Drain Ideas

Ahh, summer, relaxing, long days filled with nothing but what you want to do, swimming, playing, baseball, reading, and fun games.  No summer brain drain here.  There are so many activities to do with the kids that are fun, stimulating, and prevent them losing what they worked so hard to learn all school year.  I do some of our NSBDs during our quiet time and some during other parts of our days.  Some NSBD ideas include:
Rush Hour game by Think Fun--we have several Think Fun games and I highly recommend them
Deck of Cards (variety of games can be played and made up)--math facts
Tangrams--we have tangram manipulatives as well as some on our computer and iPad.  Here, here, and here are for the computer. The tangrams are fun to create pictures with and then trace around and color the picture in, create patterns, and grab a handful or two and create a bar graph with them.
Marbles--good for physics, counting, patterning, problem solving, graphing
Writing Codes--use shapes, numbers, mixed up letters, create a code and write secret messages

I recently found this mystery word idea and can't wait to use some Scrabble game pieces to set it up for the kids.

Source

Nature Walks--my goal is to do this at least weekly.  This fun nature scavenger hunt idea is flying around the web and I think we will have to use it as well as make up our own.

Creative Art--I've had fun giving the kids a variety of items and letting them create and play.  Last week the items found on our nature walk were used to create.  I, of course, had my idea of what they should make, but they each made their own creations, none of which were what I had in mind.  I've also given them some straws that I cut up in to various lengths and some pipe cleaners (not cut) and let them play.  The idea is not original to me, but I can't find where I got the idea :(

Have a great week and never stop learning...my Gen Psych class starts today!