Learning fun with Owen

This summer I have linked up with one of my favorite blogs - Teach Mama - and I am participating in the Smart Summer Challenge.  This challenge focuses on the importance of parents as their child's first teacher, and also emphasizes how necessary and easy it is to sneak a little learning in each and every day.
Last summer, Owen was all about any learning activity I would set up for him.  We would "play school" and he loved it.  This summer, he's a little trickier to entice.  Being 4 years old, he has MANY opinions of his own, and doing "learning time" with Mom is not cool and not fun.  So I have had to be even sneakier with my teaching moments and learning activities.
Yesterday was hot and humid, so we had a lot of time indoors.  While Owen was playing with his Legos, I snuck off to the kitchen and taped 9 letter cards all around in random places (the refrigerator, chairs, drawers, etc.). 

A Q is hiding on a kitchen drawer...

An R is on our refrigerator door!

Then I set up the challenge - I told Owen that he was going on a scavenger hunt to find 9 letters in the kitchen.  He of course was excited, because he loves to look for hidden things (we are STILL playing "egg hunt" in our house with plastic Easter eggs!).  I gave him one of my steno notebooks with 9 simple boxes drawn on it, and told him it was his job to write a different hidden letter in each box as he found them.  He LOVED this activity so much that I ended up hiding the letters three more times!

Here is Owen's completed recording sheet.  I love his handwriting :)

When he finished, I asked him which letters he had found, and he read them off of the sheet to me.  I just *happened* to choose some letters that he occasionally forgets or mixes up.  When we were finished, he moved back to his Legos, and that was it.  I am thrilled that I found an activity that he enjoyed and that added a little letter practice to his day!

If the Smart Summer Challenge sounds interesting to you, head on over to Teach Mama and check it out - you won't be disappointed!  Feel free to leave a comment or share a sneaky learning activity of your own!