Here’s a fun twist on ‘Simon Says’ that will reinforce letter recognition as well as promote direction-taking. The perfect game, in other words, to help prevent a summer slide before Kindergarten.

I laid out alphabet flash cards using only the lower case letters, so as not to make things confusing. If you have older players, you could hypothetically include capitals and lower case.

“Simon” began giving Travis directions .Put your toe on ‘w’, put your thumb on ‘e’.

Turn over the ‘h’ card.

Whoops! I didn’t say ‘Simon Says’, and Travis laughed about being tricked.

Now he was the Simon and he loved getting to be the boss and give mommy directions. Simon Says put your toe on ‘p’!

He was gleeful when I did a direction that omitted the ‘Simon Says’, and immediately wanted more rounds. We’ll be playing this one all summer!