4th of July Themed Fun

Today was the perfect afternoon to do some of the 4th of July activities I have been dog earring this past month and a few I have saved from years past. I love how I have a plan written out for the afternoon and we always created more. Love my little creative girls.

Tracing stars for a fun banner for the room.

This was a great activity for tracing, cutting and coloring.

Sorting M&Ms. Blue in one bowl and Red in the other. This activity was great for Dragonfly. I loved that she was crossing the midline without even being asked.

Firework Pencils and covers for July writing journals.

PF's creative juices were flowing.

Making spinners. This activity I found on familyfun.com. The round piece of paper they are decorating gets glued to a cd. Add a water bottle cap to the top and a marble to the bottom and spin away.

Journal covers.

4th of July bracelets. Practicing patterns.

Rockets. These can be used for party favors. We are just making them to give to friends. These rockets were in the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living. The pattern is on her website. We filled the rockets with mints.

Snack time! White chocolate covered strawberries with blue sprinkles.

Remember the M&Ms Dragonfly was sorting, well we used them for our red, white and blue popcorn. YUMMY!

My personal craft fun was making 4th of July bows. Can't wait to dress the girls up over the long weekend and use the bows I have made for this year.

I made a whole box full to sell. Comment if you are interested.

Science: Astronomy

Today, we opened our science book for the first time for this year. We are starting with apologia astronomy. So many people raved about apologia and after looking through my sister-in-law's books, I knew this was the right program for us. I absolutely love science so most curriculums work just fine for me but this curriculum will work so much better for my girls. I love the notebooks and how easy it is for them to follow along and everything we need is right there. We completed the written and reading work for lesson one today. The project will have to wait for later or it might get done tonight after dinner. I am surprised how much I learned this afternoon or relearned. Another great part about teaching my kids is that I am learning too. I have wondered what the purpose of the other planets are and I don't remember learning much about astronomy in school. Well today I learned that the purpose is to keep the earth from rocking back and forth as it travels around the sun. The planet have a certain amount of gravitational pull on the earth which balances out the suns pull. Just thought that was pretty cool. Another bit of evidence (not that I needed anything more) that this universe was created and didn't explode into existence or happen by chance.

The girls created Mnemonic phrases to remember the planets. Here's what they came up with:

1. Molly Victoria Emerson Made Jelly Saturday Under Nutty Popcorn

2. Miss Valley's Early Mornings Joyfully Start Under Neat Pillows.

Drawing Camp

PF just finished a week of drawing camp. She learned so much and has several great sketches from the week. These are my favorite.

Swim Lessons

 Tonight the girls finished up their second session of swim lessons and I have decided that will be all for this summer. They made huge progress this session and their comfort level with the water increased as well.

 Dragonfly is still a little nervous about jumping in and wants to hold your hand.

 But she is now jumping and loves to bob under the water. She is also kicking harder now which keeps her head above water.

 Ladybug is now a fish. She has made the most drastic improvements this summer. Her freestyle is becoming more fine tuned. She learned the other strokes this session as well as how to dive. I think I might have a pretty awesome little swimmer in the making.

 Butterfly is still pretty timid but at least she has conquered her fear of jumping in.

Germany

Germany was the country of the day. The girls decorated cow bells and cute green hats.

Sweden

The craft store Michael's is offer a fun summer program every other day from June 21-July 30. The program is called Passport to the World. Each day they have crafts to represent a different country. Today was Sweden and the girls made a Swedish paper doll girl and a flag pen for Sweden. The girls got pretty carried away with extra decorations on their dolls but they turned out cute. I love that their program goes with our history curriculum this year which is world history and cultures.

Bodie Island Lighthouse

On our last day visiting the Outer Banks, we decided to check out a light house. Bodie Island was the closest to our location. It was a beautiful lighthouse but unfortunately it wasn't open to climbing to the top. I really wanted the girls to have a good view of the area and see how far the light from the lighthouse reached. It wasn't a total loss because the girls were given packets to fill out to be junior rangers. These packets provided entertainment for the drive back home.
the area was beautiful and there was a path that led to an observation area.
This is the view from the observation area.

The Science and History of Flight

We started our day at Jockey's Ridge State Park.

This park has the highest sand dune on the east coast. I believe I read it was 100 ft above sea level at the highest point. This view gives you a glimpse of the path we took. The short hill between the trees was very steep!

We went to these dunes, one to see them and two it is the best spot to fly kites! The wind on top of this dune was almost constant and little effort had to be made to get the kite up in the air. Butterfly went on and on about the fact that this was the best day because she has never flown a kite before.

PF worked hard to figure out how to get this kite to fly. She finally successfully got the kite up after playing around with it for awhile.

Everyone took a turn with the kite that Grammy brought.

After flying kites, we got in some P.E. by running up and down the dunes. I joined in on this! So much harder then it looked.

We got back to the car and took a quick snack break.

Then we headed over to the Wright Brothers Museum. So sad that hubby couldn't be with us.

The Wright brother's memorial on Kill Devil Hill.

The view from the hill. This is where the first flight took place. In the Museum, there was a full life model of what the brothers flew on Dec 17, 1903. Their 4 successful flights are marked out on this lawn. The museum guide gave a great recount of the events leading up to the first flight.