K.I.S.S.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.  That's what I had to tell myself.  I'm supposed to be using the summer to organize, to gather and prepare materials, and to just generally get everything ready for the upcoming school year. 

ONE of the many things I'd like to do is make language cards.  These will be laminated photo cards that I can use with both children for auditory games to increase their Spanish vocabulary.  (I do not do reading or writing in Spanish with them and do not intend to until they are much older).  I can also make English labels for the cards, creating some Montessori-style reading activities for Bug, and he can use them when he's ready. 

I bought a beautiful book called Photos for Building Language Skills.  It has 900 color photos, divided by category.  The categories are actions/verbs, animals, bathroom, body, clothing, colors and shapes, emotions, food, furniture and household items, holidays and seasons, kitchen, money, music, nature and weather, opposites/adjectives, people and family, places, positional concepts, rooms at home, school tools, sign language, survival signs, time, toys, and transportation. 

Some of the cards I will not use.  We don't learn sign language, so I don't need sign language cards.  However, the vast majority of the cards I'll be able to put to great use. 

Back to the keep it simple part:  I had planned to pick out pretty scrapbooking paper for each category, mount the cards onto it, and then laminate them.  However, I realized that all the pages of the cards have a unique background color already on them.  Therefore, all I need to do is use my paper cutter to cut the cards out and then laminate.  That will save me a ton of time--cutting the backings and gluing the cards on them would have taken me many additional hours. 

I'm estimating that I'll be making at least 800 cards!  I do not actually know the Spanish words for all of the cards, although I know most, so I'll have to make myself a cheat sheet as well.  I think I'll cut and laminate my cards first, make cheat sheets that can be foled up, and store each set of cards and cheat sheets in slider sandwich baggies.  I also may need smaller ziplock sandwich baggies to separate the cards we've worked with from the new cards. 

And that's only one of the many things I want to do this summer.