Hone skills doing these easy and fun ideas

This summer, help your kids sharpen their math, reading, writing and social skills with these easy, fun and inexpensive ideas.

• Lemonade Stand
• Jailbird Cupcakes
• Puppet Theater
• Videos open at top of the story.

Encourage your children to be reading detectives! Whether they're toddlers or grade-schoolers, everyone can play along. You can challenge your kids to find letters or words in a variety of places such as the park, zoo or local pool. A fun idea might be to set up a game where your kids are tasked with finding a specific word such as "big" or "special" as many times as possible throughout the day. You'll be amazed by how adept your reading detectives will become.

If your children are fascinated with taking pictures, a reading photo album may be the perfect family project. This idea was inspired by those funny YouTube videos where you see the same guy doing a dance in all sorts of different places such as The Parthenon in Greece or Times Square in New York. In this less exotic version, your children will create a summer photo album filled with pictures of them reading in different places. Some ideas include reading at the park, the beach, the hammock in the backyard, or even on top of a Ferris wheel. You can make it a family challenge to come up with as many different and unique places as possible.

Help your kids get into the entrepreneurial spirit while strengthening their math skills with a timed honored lemonade stand. Not only will your kids reinforce their measuring, counting, adding and subtracting skills, but they will also learn the value of a dollar, which is always a valuable lesson. Be sure to watch our Mommy on a Shoestring video at http://www.pioneerlocal.com/ to find out how our lemonade stand experts, Sam and Tom Casey of Glenview, choose savvy locales and clever marketing techniques to get the most out of their business.

When I was an educational therapist, this was one of my favorite ways to incorporate reading, math and art into one giant project. Here are some helpful hints to make the experience extra-special.

•When adapting a story into a script, try choosing a well-loved fairy tale or fable, which are often filled with a mixture of rich characters and interesting plot twists to keep the show moving along.

•Make puppets using tube socks, tacky glue, scraps of material, yarn, googly eyes and anything else you might have on hand.

•Use a large box, fabric and tacky glue to create a puppet stage. If you do not have an empty box on hand, try finding one at your local hardware or appliance store.

• Encourage your children to create their own playbill, which can be passed out to audience members as they arrive. Not only is this a nice feature for the audience, it's also an excellent writing exercise for your children.

•Don't forget about refreshments! Work with your children to bake treats such as cookies or cupcakes that can be "sold" during intermission or enjoyed after the show. Cooking is an excellent way to incorporate sequencing, measuring and counting which are vital math skills at any level.

Family game night is an entertaining way to strengthen core math, reading and social skills, while promoting family togetherness. I tend to like games that cater to a multi-age /multi-skill level crowd such as Bingo, Candyland, Monopoly or The Game of Life. Make the evening more memorable by creating a favorite game night snack such as the Monopoly inspired "Jail Bird Cookies." Check out our video at http://www.pioneerlocal.com/ to learn how to make these quick and tasty cookies.

Special thanks goes to educators Danna Friedlander and Elaine Duckler for their advice and insight regarding this article.

Have a craft idea or recipe you'd like to share? E-mail Beth at Beth@engelmanriggs.com. Be sure to put Mommy on a shoestring on the re: line and include your contact info!