"Living Things" Day One

     Our weeks of themed summer fun have kept us going.  We've been learning new things, experimenting, and tapping in to our deep creative side! This week (and possibly next week), we have chosen the theme of "Living Things." It's quite a big umbrella to tackle, so we are starting small and working our way up.
     Yesterday, Monday,  we learned about plants, what they need to grow and flourish, and some of the other living things that help them... bees.  We made our own flowers using toilet paper roll centers, and some construction paper, and bees using paper and craft sticks.  The boys loved learning about a bees "job." They got to practice is for themselves by playing with their own creations... pollinating flowers!

 Our next project was planting our very own tree!  This may have been their favorite part of the day!  They got to dig, make piles of rocks, and get really, really dirty! Daddy did most of the heavy lifting and digging, but our little guys were still a big part of this living thing!  Now we will have the privilege of watching it grow in front of our house for years to come!

Rocket Week Part 2

School has been out for two whole weeks which means my life and daily routine has changed drastically! The days seem three times longer since they aren't split up by driving to and from school. And the opportunities are endless! There are a million fun things I want to do with my kids, however a few roadblocks already stand in my way. I knew of course that it would be challenging planning things around a baby's schedule and needs, but what I didn't expect was the amount of laziness and whining from my older two! oh my goodness... you would think I was torturing them just to get them to do a few simple things. "Mo--oOOOOmmmmm! Do I have to? Uh... why? Can't I just watch a show, or play a computer game?" Uh no... it's kind of beautiful outside and I don't want your brain turning to mush on my watch! They are allowed a certain amount of "screen time," but I want the summer to be filled with so much more than that!

Last week we finished off Rocket Week an extension of the first themed week of the summer. We ended up doing some pretty fun things, but our week was a little more relaxed than the first week. We started out trying an experiment using mentos and Diet Coke. The "Wow" factor was not quite what I had hoped for. It was suppose to shoot up into the air causing much excitment and amazment... nope, ours just kind of bubbled and sputtered and then quickly exploded over the top without really going high up into the air.

I registered the boys to be a part of the summer reading program, so on mondays, we go to the library and they get a sticker and a small prize for showing their reading log of books we have read.  Half of the books we are reading are rocket-related, and the other half are just fun ones that they wanted. We also started reading a chapter book during story time called "Ghostville Elementary," which they are loving! I could read to them all day and never get tired of it, but we have to mix it up a little...

One day we made miniture rockets out of toilet paper rolls. They had a lot of fun doing that... lots of cutting and pasting and creating...

Then we hung them from the curtain rod as you can see here.  The rocket names were from the week before. Another cut and paste project we did was making a collage. We chose things that either started with the letter "r" for "Rocket" or were related to rockets/ space. Here are some picture of their collages:

I love that there are so many resources out there for EVERYTHING! We have been watching "the Magic School Bus" which happened to have an episode about going to the moon! We also have that particular book, which we read a few times this week.

The vote is still out for next week... it's a tie between Superhero week and Living Things... maybe you can help us decide. We'll end up doing both and probably for more than just one week. When there is so much fun to be had on just one subject it's hard to spend only one week on it! I have a lot of ideas for both themes...

Rocket Week!

      I decided about a month before school let out that I wanted to do this summer differently.  Not only did I want us to do normal fun summer things, but I was feeling really ambitious... we are going to do it all... books, projects science projects, crafts, experiments, cooking, art, music, letters, math, games, and every free community activity I can get my hands on. Well, not only all of that, but I thought, every week we will center all the activities around a special theme to pull it all together and really have an amazing summer! I know what you are thinking... she's crazy! Yes... a little bit. And of course over-ambitious on how much I can get done with a 6 year old, 4 year old, and a 9 month old baby.
     My inspiration for the theme idea came from all the summer's my mom did "summer camp" for kids when I was growing up. She always had a million crazy-creative-resourceful ideas that made every day a fun experience. That's what I want for my boys. I spent much of last summer very hugely pregnant... and very hot... and mostly in front of (sorry to say) some sort of kids show.  I don't want a repeat of that( the extensive tv time, not the pregnancy.. although I also don't want a repeat of that either)!!!
     So, the first week of no school and we are off to a pretty good start on ROCKET WEEK, which with a unanimous vote from the boys deserves an extension over through next week as well. I thought I would try to keep up on everything and post all the fun things we are doing throughout the summer. Here are some of the things we've done so far...

5...4...3...2...1...BLAST OFF!  This was our rocket snack... they even made it to the moon!

This is suppose to be a cardboard rocket... it turned out to be more challenging than I had imagined.

The love being the pilot (however, there is only room for one...)

Rocket activity/behavior charts and Rocket themed books

Lunch one day... (cheese roll-up rocket with red pepper wings)

This was a small experiment to show them how combustion works.

We did this experiment too about thrust... very simple. Wish I had gotten a picture of them doing this, they had so much fun!

We also borrowed a stack of books from the library all about space, the solar system, astronauts, and all things ROCKET! We are having a great time. Even though the days are really busy this way, it makes them more fun and purposeful. We're making messes, mistakes, and lots of memories and loving every minute