Smart Summer: Beach Days and Under the Sea

I decided to combine week nine and ten of our Super Smart Summer Plan because you know, we all needed a break from the usual!  If you're new here, start here to read about our laid back learning plan.

Super Smart Summer... "Beach Days and Under the Sea" Weeks

Movies:

-Disney's Little Mermaid

Outings:

-Beach
-Aquarium
-Pool

Books:

-"The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister
-"One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" by Dr. Seuss

Activities:

-Shell creatures- This is one of our favorite activities to do at the beach!  When I was a little girl, my grandmother introduced me to her beautiful collection of tropical shells from all over the world then handed me a glue gun and let my imagination go to work.  We created all kinds of silly creatures together with those shells.

A couple of years ago I let Owen decorate a treasure box and try his hand at it.  This is what he came up with, and this is Martha Stewart's rendition.

-Sink and float activity- Collect a bunch of little items around the house and test each to see which sink and which float.  

-Paint shells-

-Shell sorting- Sort shells by color, size shape, texture

-Message in a bottle- What a great way to practice handwriting... write a message and send it out to sea or bury it in the sand.  (You can always pick it up during nap time so you're not littering.)

-Shark attack- These were made using paper plates.  Chomp!

-Other activities and ideas for things to make and do at the beach can be found on my DIY at the Beach Pinterest page.

Snacks:

-Goldfish crackers
-Tuna salad on fish-shaped bread
-Blue jello with floating Swedish Fish- "Shark infested waters"

You can find links to more ideas and coloring pages on my "Smart Summer" Pinterest board.

Smart Summer: Fun on the Farm

It's week eight of our Super Smart Summer Plan!  If you're wondering what I'm talking about, start here to read about our laid back learning plan.

This week was really low-key.  We just enjoyed some time together as a family and did a little learning on the side when we could fit it in.  This was our plan of action...

Super Smart Summer... "Fun on the Farm" Week

Movies:

-Charlotte's Web

Outings:

-Well, the obvious outing for farm week would be a farm, right!?  Is there a place near you where you can pick produce or pet the animals?

-Dairy farm
-Farmer's Market

Activities:

-Make your own buttermilk-  I put heavy cream in baby food jars and let the boys shake until it turned into whipped cream.  Shake more and it turns into buttermilk and butter!  Here's a recipe and more details.

-Farmer's Market Treasure Hunt- Have your little ones keep their eyes peeled for specific things on their trip to the Farmer's Market.  You can read my full post about this activity here.  If you'd like to print a copy of the treasure hunt page, you may do so here.

Snacks:

-Haystacks- These are a Southern favorite!  Crunchy Chow Mein noodles covered in butterscotch.

You can find links to more ideas and coloring pages on my "Smart Summer" Pinterest board.

Smart Summer: Weather

It's week seven of our Super Smart Summer Plan!  If you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about, start here to read about our laid back learning plan and to find links to each of our past themed weeks.

Before I start with our weather week, this might be a good chance to talk about our nature journals.  Each week the kids and I have done worksheets and activities related to our themes.  We have collected our papers into our "Nature Journals."  The journals are getting filled with all kinds of great work and my hope is to have a big party at the end of the summer when the boys can show off their work to their grandparents.  There are a lot more nature journaling ideas and links on my Smart Summer Pinterest Board.

Super Smart Summer... "Weather" Week

Movies:

-Climate and weather video for kids This video is fantastic!  It explains difficult concepts in an easy to understand way and even I learned something new!

Outings:

-See if your local news station allows tours.  Wouldn't it be fun to watch the weather being filmed live or see the meteorological equipment!

Books:

-Read Job chapter 38 about God's control of the weather.

Activities:

-Four season trees- we used Q-tips and finger paints to make trees that looked like the four seasons.

-Record the weather each day.  Here's a great printable for this.

-Seasonal Dress Up.  Write each of the seasons or weather conditions on a different notecard (sunny, windy, rainy, summer, winter, etc..) then turn them over.  Have the child choose the notecard and dress according to that season or condition using their real clothes.
-Sun spots. To study the effects of the sun, put objects on dark construction paper.  Leave it out for a day and then remove the objects to see the way the sun has bleached out the paper.  This is a great visual encouragement for the kids to wear their sunscreen!

Snacks:

-Marshmallow "clouds"

You can find links to more ideas and coloring pages on my "Smart Summer" Pinterest board.

Smart Summer: Planes, Trains and Cars

It's week six of our Super Smart Summer Plan!  If you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about, start here to read about the laid back learning plan I created for my boys this summer and to see a list of our past learning activities.

Beep Beep... it's all about transportation this week.

Super Smart Summer... "Planes, Trains and Cars" Week

Movies:

-Disney's Cars

Outings:

-The airport  Our airport has an observation deck where you can watch the commercial planes land.  There is also a private jet terminal that is open to the public.  Do some research to see if something like that is available in your area.  We were surprised to find out that the private jet terminal is actually paid for with tax payers' dollars so anyone can come and go.  My boys love watching the jets land!
-Train station

Books:

Activities:

-Marble Run- To learn about highways and roads we made a marble run two different ways:
Out of paper plates... (Idea came from Frugal Fun For Boys)

...and out of a pool noodle.  The pool noodle race track ended up being our favorite.  To make sure you cut the noodle evenly I'd recommend putting one of the ends on the floor and use a serrated knife to slice away from you and towards the floor while looking down the middle of the noodle.

-Kids Drivers License Test- The House of Hendrix has a great post and some free printables that we used for this activity.  We talked about the importance of a drivers license and the fact that mommy and daddy had to pass a two part test to get ours.  We did a driving test outside with an obstacle course.

Daddy taught the boys about red and green lights.

Then Owen took the written portion of his driving test.  It included questions about safety and making good choices.

In the end we had two new licensed drivers on the road!  (Check out The House of Hendricks blog for the written driver's test and a license that you can personalize for your kids!)

Snacks:

-Trader Joe's Cheddar Rockets or fruit gummies in the shape of cars
-Make "roads" out of pretzel rods or fruit roll ups.

You can find links to more ideas and coloring pages on my "Smart Summer" Pinterest board.

Smart Summer: Rainbows/ Colors Week

It's week five of our Super Smart Summer Plan!  If you're wondering what I'm talking about, start here to read about our laid back summer learning plan and to find links to all of our past weeks so far.

This was a COLORFUL week!  We talked about the color wheel, mixing colors and a little about artists.  (My favorite definition of an artist can be found here.)  

Super Smart Summer... "Rainbow/ Colors" Week

Movies:

-Video clip about how crayons are made from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Outings:

-Art Museum
-Color Treasure Hunt in the backyard

Books:

Activities:

-Painting- Yes, this may seem like a simple activity, but I'd challenge you to make high quality materials available to your kids, turn on some music and let them get messy without any time constraints and without the fear of messing up... it's amazing what they can come up with!

-Color Mixing Activity- I posted all about this activity here.  Basically I filled three zip lock bags with water and drops of food coloring to make the three primary colors.  The kids layered one bag on top of the other (on a white surface) to make different colors.  Another version of this activity is to fill a large freezer bag with white shaving cream and disperse drops of food coloring in different areas of the bag.  Let the kids mix them around without any mess!

-Marble Painting- Tape a piece of white paper to the inside bottom of a cookie sheet with a rim on it.  Put globs of paint around the paper and put marbles in the cookie sheet.  Have the kids roll the pan around and let the marbles "paint" by dragging the paint over the white paper and leaving trails behind.

-LEGO Color Sort- Place pieces of construction paper around the room.  Dump a large box of assorted LEGOs in the middle of the room and have the kids race to sort the LEGOs on to their proper piece of color coordinating construction paper.

Snacks:

-Skittle Color Wheel- This activity was a little more suited to my almost three year old, although the older one didn't complain about eating Skittles.  If I did this activity again though I'd recommend choosing a candy that has even more colors... M&Ms or maybe Fruit Loops?

You can find links to more ideas and coloring pages on my "Smart Summer" Pinterest board.

Smart Summer: Little Scientists

It's week four of our Super Smart Summer Plan!  If you're wondering what I'm talking about, start here to learn about the laid back learning plan I created for my little guys.

This was a very relaxed week because we were out of town.  I really wanted the boys to capture one main idea: the scientific method.  

Scientists observe, question, form hypotheses and conduct experiments to learn about the world around them.  I made a point to ask the boys to guess what would happen before we did a little experiment and we carefully observed things on a nature walk.  It was a fun, super chill week!

Super Smart Summer... "Little Scientists" Week

Movies:

-Scientific Method Rap

Outings:

-Nature walk in the woods around the neighborhood (practice observation)

Books:

Activities:

-Make rock candy (this takes a few weeks to "grow")

-Leaf rubbings to learn about collecting data

-Hand washing experiment- I asked the boys if they thought their hands were clean then had them rub their hands on a piece of bread.  We put a few drops of water on the bread and put it in a ziplock bag.  I kept the bread in a warm place away from them for a little while and we watched as the mold grew!  It was a great teachable activity... you only thought your hands were clean!

-Create a pretend science lab- I collected a bunch of syringes (you can ask for these at your pharmacy) and small containers (old contact cases, medicine cups, etc) and created a pretend science lab for the boys.  It was fun to expose them to real lab paraphernalia.  I encouraged them to make "science experiments" by crushing up leaves and mixing it with water or flower petals.  They loved measuring lake water for a little while, then we ended up getting in a water fight!

Here are my two sillies wearing their most serious scientist faces!  

-Nature journaling (Living Creatively has a beautiful post about ten ways to vary your nature journal.  I would love to dive in to this more with the kids.)

Snacks:

-Rock candy

You can find links to more ideas and coloring pages on my "Smart Summer" Pinterest board.

Smart Summer: Little Critters/ Bugs

It's week three of our Super Smart Summer Plan!  If you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about, start here to read about our laid back summer learning plan.  This week my boys and I took on the creepy crawlies.

Super Smart Summer... "Little Critters/ Bugs" Week

Movies:

-Disney's A Bug's Life

-City of Bees: A Children's Guide to Bees Video

Outings:

-Bug catching in the woods

Books:

-Check out past issues of the Ranger Rick magazine from the library

The Backyard Detective book was really a lot of fun for the kids.  They used their magnifying glasses to find bugs in the book then we read more about them on the subsequent pages.

Activities:

-Weave spider webs with a cardboard circle and string

-Bug Bingo 

-Make play dough bugs with googly eyes and pipe cleaner legs

I have a love/hate relationship with PlayDough... what a mess!

-Adopt a bug for the week- Owen chose the spider and Trey chose the grasshopper.  As we were reading our books it was more engaging for them when I said "Oh look, there's a picture of Owen eating Trey!" and they learned more about their adopted bug by reading library books.

-Go on a bug catching mission (please note the intensity of this mission... they even dressed the part and brought along their pop guns!  Don't mess.)

-Bug Chart- I created a chart with a couple of different bugs along the left hand side (ant, grasshopper, ladybug, wasp, fly, dragonfly, spider) and different characteristics along the top (wings, 6 legs, antennae, stinger) Owen and I went through our library books to find out if each characteristic applied to that bug.  He loved filling in the chart!

Snack:

-Bug Pizzas on english muffins

-Talk about bees and eat honeycomb, inspect it with a magnifying glass (here's a great post about this)

You can find links to more ideas and coloring pages on my "Smart Summer" Pinterest board.

What makes an artist?

We recently visited a new restaurant (5Church Restaurant in Charlotte, NC) that inspired me in every way.  Visually this place was beautiful.  It was packed with lots of local art and the entire ceiling was painstakingly painted with the book Art of War.  My taste buds were wowed by a steak cooked in the most unique way.

We listened to John Meyer (which is never a bad thing), but my favorite part of the night was finding this little gem painted just outside the bathrooms.  It has always been hard to define what makes an artist, but this is the best description I've ever read and I wanted to share it with you.

"A man who works with his hands is a laborer.  

A man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman, 

but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist."

Thanks for the inspiration, 5Church, I will be back for seconds.

Smart Summer: Outer Space

It's week two of our Super Smart Summer Plan!  If you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about, start here.

This week we focused on what it would be like to live and work in space.  Outer Space is a pretty big theme and I didn't want to overwhelm the kids (5 1/2 and almost 3 years old) with too much.  We just had fun with it, that's what summer is all about anyway, right!?!

Super Smart Summer... "Outer Space" Week

"The Heavens declare the glory of God," Psalm 19:1

Movies:

-NASA has a ton of really great short video clips for kids.  This one was our favorite: Our World: Sleeping on board the International Space Station 

-Oh, and this short clip is mind boggling!  Ask the kids first "What do you think would happen if you wring a wet washcloth in space?" Then watch this!!

Outings:

-Science Museum

-"Astronaut Training" at a playground

Books:

Activities:

-Make your own space station

I spy planet Earth!

-A couple of days later act like evil aliens attacking the space station... (Check out the intensity of the Owen Alien!)

-Astronaut training- create an obstacle course, mom has a whistle and a clipboard then wear those little ones out as they train for space!  When they are physically fit enough according to the "astronaut training manual" treat them to something sweet... Mars bar?  Milky Way?
-Create a planet mobile
-Glow sticks in the bath tub (this was a favorite activity of my boys, sorry there aren't any pictures)
-Name rocket- write their name on pieces of the ship and put them in order all while screaming "10, 9, 8, 7....1 blast off!" Then decorate with glitter glue stars or stickers.

Snack:
-Astronaut Ice Cream (I'll bet you could order this ahead of time from some online store somewhere.)
-Freeze Dried Fruit

You can find links to more ideas and coloring pages on my "Smart Summer" Pinterest board.