Update on Summer "Schedule" & Our Summer Reading

I always like hearing updates or longer term reflection on all these great ideas people have online - whether it be discipline, shore charts, allowance, and so on. I figured someone might be interested in a little update on how my proposed summer "schedule" with the kiddos has gone.

First of all, despite all of my intentions to not make a "to do" list, we did. In order to not feel the pressue of getting it all done by school starts, I'm thinking of the term summer very loosely. We've had a few fails (one that is a double fail - once this year and once last. I will post about it though!), but we are slowly chugging along.

As for the morning routine I shared that we had started? Well, that has sort of died a little. They still have to make their beds and get dressed right away, but the morning exercise (preferably a walk) has all but vanished. I really liked that though, so I'm going to try and start again. 

 The morning jobs need adjusting as I think the cats were being overfed and the potted flowers died (between being over-watered and then not watered at all while we were out of town).

The learning segment of the day is less restricted to mornings, but still has been happening. We have done the very best with the writing journals. I can't tell you how much I love them! The workbooks we aren't doing as well on, but also still working on. The reading has changed from my original want of 15-20 minutes a day. Let me tell you how!

I decided to just focus on each boy passing off a book from their reading list to me. Like I said in my other post, my 6 year old got a list from his teacher of recommended books at his reading level. For my 5 year old, I just use our beginner books and found a chart of them online to check off as we go.

The boys know right on the where to find their book that are specifically for "reading time" versus just to look at and read if desired. The 5 year old's are in a basket.

The 6 year old's are next to that basket (and pretty much all from the library - we reserve 10 at a time and when they are done get 10 more).

After they have passed a book off with me, they write the title of the book down on a list, I date it and then check it off on the main list of books I have for each boy. The lists are on just the shelf right above the reading books.

Once a book is checked off, it goes in the return to library pile, or in a bag of completed books -ready to go back into storage until little sis is big enough to start  reading.

I have liked this system way better than a minute requirement each day because I figure - it's summer. I am having them do enough learning things that their brains won't turn to mush and this works really well for us. 

As for the other things I had planned for our routine (art and nature), they are also just sort of going so-so for us. We have a local bird chart and have been watching in the neighborhood, but haven't ventured out in real pursuit yet. We have hiked and been in the outdoors, so that is still great. And, when we went on a road trip earlier this month, we saw a bear along the highway, so that was a great nature sighting! 

 We also saw the drama unfold of a deer almost getting hit by a logger truck, then darting up a hill too steep to climb, then back out into the road and finally to safety in a field. (Not the greatest pictures, I know, but we were mostly watching with out eyes, not through the camera.)

We've only done the van Gogh project for art still, and I'm okay with that. It's another thing I don't mind stretching beyond summer.

One last thing I've added though is learning more about the US, but in a very brief format. I requested from friends and family all over the country to send us postcards (an idea I from Kids Activities Blog) and we're loving them showing up in the mailbox each day. What we do once we get them will be saved for another post! :)

Theme of the Week: Fairy Tales

My girls don't go to formal preschool, but I like to create a sort of preschool-like routine at home. We have what we call "Theme of the Week". Here is how our "Theme of the Week" works.

So each week we have a topic we focus on in addition to a letter, number, working on shapes, colors, talking about weather and the calendar, etc. So this week the theme is:

FAIRY TALES

  

The nice thing about this theme is there is no shortage of books about the topic. In fact, because there are SO many books and ideas that go along with this theme, we actually have Fairy Tales be our theme two times a year. Here are a few of the books I have on the topic. Most of the stories we read over the week were from the "Once Upon a Time" book, which is just a generic fairy tales book.

 

I don't pretend to be an artist, but here is coloring page I drew for my girls to color with this theme.

We read Jack and the Beanstalk, which is sort of fun for any kids that have recently seen the "Puss in Boots" movie because they reference it there.

Here are the directions to the first activity we did (I think the idea came from a Mailbox magazine but I got it a long time ago and am not sure).

Supplies:

-Jack template

-Long piece of green butcher paper (ours was about 5' tall)

-Crayons/Markers/Colored Pencils

-Scissors 

-Tape

-Yarn that is twice as long as your butcher paper

-Single hole paper punch

Here is the Jack template that  I had my girls color.

Cut Jack out (which was great for all those fine-motor skills we have been working on)

Take a piece of yard that is twice as long as your paper and tape your Jack right in the middle of the yarn length.

I drew the beanstalk on the paper, punched a hole at the top and bottom of the paper, and threaded the yarn through the top and bottom hole and tied a knot where they met in the back of the paper so you have the yarn in one big circle. You can see I made my yarn a little too long, so it was sagging, but it still worked. Also, we had to make two Jacks just to avoid any fighting. I then taped the butcher paper to a shelf. You want to make sure that you tape it pretty well because the kids will be pulling on the yarn and if the tape isn't secure it will just pull the butcher paper down.

When I told my husband what we are doing, he said it sounded like too much effort for what I was going to get out of it, but even he had to admit he was wrong later when my girls LOVED this!! They played with it over and over again, pulling the string above Jack and below Jack to make him go down and up the beanstalk. It really was a pretty fun activity. My kids requested we leave it up for a few days so they could keep playing with it.

Next we read The Three Little Pigs.

 

As I read the story, I acted it out with this puppet I made a long time ago. I don't have a template for it, but it would be easy to make your own. I used felt, googley eyes, and a tiny bit of ribbon. I cut each shape, glued it together and then put a square of velcro on the back of each character and the wolf's breath/wind to be able to take them off and on the glove as the story went. I had the opposite piece of velcro on each finger tip and the palm.

We then used this picture to make the three pigs houses.

We used string/yarn for straw (you can use raffia if you have some), toothpicks for sticks, and legos for brinks.

They also thought this was a fun one and super easy activity to put together for them to do.

We didn't use glue, it was just fun to build onto of each house.

My sister, Natalie, make these finger puppet for us which can be used to tell Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Three Pigs.

My girls took turns retelling The Three Pigs story with the finger puppets and the three houses they had built.

Next we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears with them acting out the parts with the finger puppets.

It is also important to eat porridge (Malt O Meal in our case) for breakfast to be like the three bears. :)

 

Then we read The Elves and the Shoemaker

I put together this picture of a few different types of shoes for us to "make" after having read the story.

I printed the above picture on red paper, laminated it, and then used a single hole punch along the shoe.

We then used a couple different colored shoe laces to "make" the shoes like the elves did.

As you can see, again, this is another GREAT fine-motor skills activity.

 

Here are some instructions for a fun princess hat for fairy tale fun from "Artstarts for Little Hands" book.

If you are feeling extra ambitious, here are some instructions about how to make a castle out of styrofoam food trays.

 

There is a lot of love for princesses and dressing up at our house, so playing make believe being princesses, etc. was also a key part of our week. Watching "Shrek" is a fun way to view many fairy tales all mushed together.  There really are so many fairy tale themed activities out there that we really just touched on a few stories. 

Lanterns & Dragons

Today is Chinese New Year (aka Spring Festival) and marks the start of the Year of the Dragon. It is also the biggest holiday in China. There are a lot of fun traditions and festivals leading up to this day each year and I only read about them, so I'm not going to pretend to be any kind of expert. Some of the things that they do are have a lantern festival and watch parades with people dressed as dragons and lions.

Before we started our two projects, I read my boys the book "Lanterns and Firecrackers." It was a simple run down of what goes on during the Chinese New Year.

We also got "Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats" to read later today, as suggested by Let's Explore (who has some great monthly book lists).

Both projects are simple and require few supplies.  Construction paper, scissors, glue, a stapler, and paper plates should do the trick.

 To make the lanterns, fold the paper lengthwise, from the folded side make cuts about 1.5 to 2 inches (or really, whatever distance you like) without cutting all the way to the edge of the paper. Unfold it and roll it up like pictures and secure with a couple of staples.

Red is a more traditional color to use, but my boys wanted different colors, so we made a whole rainbow of them.

You can add handles to the lanterns by cutting a strip of paper and stapling it on two sides of the lantern. We use the short end of the construction paper, but any length is fine.

 Our next project was to make some dragon masks. If you look at pictures of Chinese dragon masks you will see that they are very colorful and there is a lot of variety. My boys like being able to just make it up as they went without feeling like they had to have it a certain way (though they did seem to copy elements of mine).

 We used the bottom side of the paper plates so that that masks would curve towards our faces. My younger son wanted his to have eye holes, so we cut those out before gluing on the paper so he could see. From here it is a free for all. I ripped all my pieces for a different sort of texture. My older son cut his with scissors. My younger son wanted stripes. As you can see, there are so many ways to make the masks. You could even just paint or color the masks with crayons.

Ta-da! It took awhile for the glue to dry. At their request after I was done taking pictures, I added popsicle stick to the bottom so they could hold them that way. 

 Enjoying making these projects and using it as a time to teach your kids about customs that people have in other countries. And to top it all off, have Chinese food tonight!