Summer--week 5

This week we learned about weather and seasons! 

We created a weather graph at the start of the week to keep track of the weather each day (we're at 6 sunny, 1 rainy here).

We also talked about how the sun provides heat and filled some ziploc baggies with water and covered them with white paper, black paper, orange paper and aluminum foil and left them in the sun for a few hours to see which bag the sun heated more. 

We talked about how the wind blows things--like clouds, water and sand.  The boys pretended they were the wind using straws to blow clouds (cotton balls), water (drops of water) and sand. 

One of their favorite things each night was to act like different types of weather as we walked up the stairs to bed--luckily they didn't pick tornado too often or they might have fallen down the stairs!

Unrelated to our theme (but we had a groupon to use up)--we went to the Wildlife Experience and saw an I-Max movie and enjoyed the exhibits there--dressing up as animals, uncovering shark teeth fossils, and searching for animals in the various habitats. 

We also got in lots of swimming this week!  Ethan started up swim lessons again this week, we went with my sister Joanna to the local water park and went to another water park for my niece's b-day!  Good thing the boys are like fish and LOVE the water!

I found tons and tons of weather/season books!  I think we checked out like 20 books this week!  I won't list them all--but these are a few good ones (we also found non-fiction ones for each season and almost every type of weather).

-Un-Brella by Scott E Franson

-Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit by Il Sung Na

-The Snowy Day by Anna Milbourne and Elena Temporin

-Ella's Umbrellas by Jennifer Lloyd

-Spring Things by Bob Raczka
-Snowy, Blowy Winter by Bob Raczka

-Colors of Weather by Laura Purdie Salas
-Mama, is is Summer Yet? by Nikki McClure

Summer-week 4

Well this week was Family Week!  In preparation for Father's Day, I thought we would talk about families and make cards for Jon--that kind of thing.  But it also coincided with the week of Young Women's camp.  So my boys spent the week with Dad and both grandmas (that works for family week too, right?) and I spent the week with 18 wonderful, sweet teens from church (well I was jointly in charge of the 18--but we were part of almost 200 youth and leaders) up at a beautiful camp site in Wyoming!

While I was gone, Jon took the boys to the library for a storytime and puppet-making, they put up the pool in the backyard, played at both of their grandmas' houses, and enjoyed another trip to the waterpark (they got a 10 pass--so we'll probably be going weekly).  It was the ribbon cutting/grand opening of the waterpark, so besides the water, they enjoyed food samples from local businesses, received balloon animals, and other fun stuff!

At YW camp, our theme was "Live Like You Believe" and daily we hiked up and down a big hill in the camp, helped with canoeing, I actually shot a bow and arrow, spent time talking with and enjoying the company of our YW, laughed with fellow youth leaders, enjoyed being in nature, and was uplifted with inspirational messages.  It was so fun to attend YW camp as a leader!  Although by the end of the week, I was ready for a shower, my bed and a flushing toilet! 




Our books this week were:
-I Love My Dad by Anna Walker
-Blue-Ribbon Dad by Beth Raisner Glass
-Kevin Helps Dad by Liesbet Slegers
-Daddy is a Cozy Hug by Rhonda Gowler Greene
-Before You Came by Patricia MacLachlan
-My Side of the Car by Kate Feiffer
-Sleepover a Gramma's House by Barbara Joosse
-If I Could Keep You Little by Marianne Richmond

And we have a tradition of giving Jon a "daddy" book for Father's Day--so we have a bunch of those books we read too!

Summer-week 3

Our theme this week was Animals!

This week we were able to do lots of fun things:

-the library had the "Jungle Lady" come and bring various reptiles to show the kids

-we went to the zoo with Aunt Jocie

-went to the new water park in town with Grandpa and Jocie

At home, we also made paper plate snakes

went on a bear (stuffed animal) hunt--and took pictures with our "cameras,"

acted like animals and sang lots of animal songs (5 little monkeys swinging in the tree, Going to the zoo, Sally the camel, Hickory dickory dock, I had a little turtle, BINGO, Old McDonald, 3 monkeys jumping on the bed, 5 little speckled frogs--so many animal songs!),

and we read LOTS of animal books!

-Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown

-Happy Dog, Sad Dog by Sam Lloyd
-Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr
-If You Give a Pig a Party by Laura Numeroff
-The Wolf's Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza
-Click, Clack, Moo-Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin
-Owl Howl by Paul Friester
-Black Out! Animals that Live in the Dark by Ginjer L. Clarke

-Tweak Tweak by Eve Bunting
-Baby Badger's Wonderful Night by Karen Saunders
-1 Zany Zoo by Lori Degman
-Wee Little Bunny by Lauren Thompson
-The Noisy, Noisy Farm by Stephanie Stansbie
-The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson
-Farm by Elisha Cooper
-Millie Waits for the Mail by Alexander Steffensmeier
-Meow Said the Cow by Emma Dodd

Summer-week 2

This week was Human Body/5 Senses Week! 

Some of the things we did were:

-A guess that smell/guess that taste game (they loved this!).  I blindfolded the boys (except Grant took it off because it was "too dark" and then pulled out various herbs, spices and stuff from the fridge and pantry to have them smell or taste (ie., smell: pickles, oregano, vanilla, & cinnamon and taste: sugar, salt, lemon juice, peanut butter, unsweetened chocolate, chocolate chip, ketchup, & maple syrup).  The boys enjoyed this one so much, they played it with Jon too!

-We played What's that Sound?  It's an older Discovery Toys game that has a cd with various sounds and "bingo" type cards where you put a marker on the picture when you hear that sound.  We also played an I-Spy game and Simon Says. 

-Played with play-dough

-Painted with finger paint

-Sang some "body" songs: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and Hokey-Pokey

Other things we could have done: Make slime, draw a self portrait, walk on bubble wrap, or make "binoculars" out of a toilet paper/paper towel roll and go for a nature walk (we may end up doing this another week).  I also didn't have Ethan do any writing practice this week.  And our "field trip" consisted of watching our new back patio get poured!

Our books this week were:
-My Bones by Carol Lindeen
-My Body by Gladys Rosa-Mendoza
-Smelling by Rebecca Rissman
-Hearing by Rebecca Rissman
-Touching by Rebecca Rissman
-Healthy Habits by Rebecca Weber
-Sleepy Boy by Polly Kanevsky
-All of Me! a Book of Thanks by Molly Bang
-Look at You! a Baby Body Book by Kathy Henderson 

-The Magic School Bus Comes to Its Senses by Kristin Earhart
-Guess What I Hear by Liesbet Slegers
-Guess What I See by Liesbet Slegers
-We've All Got Bellybuttons by David Martin

On Wednesday

he ate through 9 strawberries, but he was still hungry

that would be this little caterpillar: