Summer Book Camp

What to do when school is over but you have the whole summer ahead of you?  I was looking for an simple way to incorporate learning into our day without it feeling like "school." I had checked the internet for ideas of "summer camp" with a different theme each week. Too complicated that required lots of planning.

I wanted something simple and easy to do. No planning, no scheduling, nothing. I plan for school. I did not want to plan for summer. Easy - that was my key word. So I came up with an idea..... an hour each day, was all that I asked.

We went to the library to pick out some books. They chose any books that interested them. I did not interfere. We came home with about 20 books - 10 for J and 10 for Kaleb. The next day, I had J pick one book for our story time. (The kids will take turns picking one book for the day.) Then, based on the book we read, we would do a craft or two, maybe play a game, or even do some cooking.

There was no plan. I had no idea what book they would choose for the day. One child would choose the book before breakfast which gave me time to see about a cute craft or game. I had to have the stuff on-hand - no planning. If I didn't have it, I substituted or found something else. No stress, no plans, just fun. One hour - that's it. If we don't have time to do it one day, we skip it. No worries. We pick it up the next day.

This way I didn't feel like all they were doing was playing on the iPad, watching T.V., or fighting. We were learning, reading, doing something fun. And each book that we read went towards J's reading goal of 100 books for the summer - which certainly made her happy (one less book).

So, here is our first book on the fly...... (not every book will have so many crafts but they were so cute, we couldn't stop ourselves)

J borrowed Madeline's Tea Party from our local library. Just the title calls for a tea party! It was a cute book about Madeline hosting a tea party and how Pepito isn't very pleasant during the whole event. We talked about how rude Pepito was being and how kind and forgiving Madeline had been in the end. We also touched on manners - how Pepito was lacking in them! He came an hour late, spit out his tea at the table, and even tried to remove the tablecloth like a magician. 

So, with little time to plan, this is what I came up with. 

We began our Book Camp by making a cute pocket card from Messy Little Monster (link  below). It was a free printable teapot with a cute pocket for a tea bag.

We added an apple tea which is very popular in the other country and seems to be a hit with our elderly neighbor.

J will deliver the cards to our neighbors for a little treat. They turned out cute.

Then, we made mini tea cups from tp tubes. These were super simple to put together and I already had a tube on hand. This idea came from KroKotak (link below).

We made mini tea cups from some left-over plastic Easter eggs. This cute idea came from Multi Crafting Mummy (link below).

I didn't have the large buttons on had to add to the bottom of the cups so we used water bottle lids and a ton of glue. We added marbles for some weight while they dried. Make sure you use eggs that don't have a really pointy end or it could be a problem. 

I had some mini popsicle sticks so they made a mini spoon for their new tea cups.

They made the tea bag catch game as well from All Kids Network. This craft uses a water bottle, pipe cleaner, and a marble. We used a soda bottle for a larger cup to make it easier for catching the tea bag.

They made the tipping tea pot craft from Danya Banya's free printable (link below). We used these for decorations for our own tea party.

J had a plastic tea party set that I placed on a towel complete with water. They played tea party for a good hour, taking turns serving each other as drinking the "tea."

Here are the crafts we did minus the plastic egg cups because they were still drying. Not bad for an hour of fun.

Then, we had our own tea party. The kids didn't want hot tea so we used iced tea. But we still used the tea cups. I used whatever treats we had on hand - a few muffins and some cookies. No massive prep.

Daddy even joined in the fun! Not bad for the beginning of our Summer Book Camp. Kaleb"s book is tomorrow, I wonder what he will pick:) Hope you join us for our Summer Book Camp! 

I didn't read the book prior to finding all the tea party crafts. After reading, there are a few more ideas that came to me...

(1) time - practice time, they leave the house at half past nine, the tea party was at half past three but Pepito arrived at half past four, make paper clocks and practice half hour time

(2) manners - work on table manners, who doesn't need a brush-up on manners?

(3) geography - the story take place in Paris, take a picture look around Paris, talk about the Eiffel Tower, make one from spaghetti noodles and marshmallows or legos

(4) measurement - in the first few pages, Madeline is being measured with a tape measure, have some fun measuring items around the house

(5) baking - make a cake, if you are adventurous make a three tiered cake, or make a cake from play dough

(6) writing - make invitations for your own tea party, decorate with whatever!

(7) bible - forgiveness, Madeline forgives Pepito in the end, talk about forgiveness

Lastly, you could watch the movie Madeline or even the cartoons. It used to be on Netflix but it has been removed. We were planning on watching it as a treat for lunch but we had to find a different movie! 

Links

All Kids Network - has the cute catch the tea bag in the cup craft idea. 

KroKotak - has the idea for the tp tube tea cups with saucers. 

Creativity in Progress - has the idea for turning plastic eggs into little tea cups.

Messy Little Monster - has the free printable teapot card complete with pocket for a tea bag.

Multi Crafting Mummy - has the idea for using a plastic tea set for water play. She even added dice to use as sugar cubes!

Danya Banya - has the free printable tea pot paper plate craft - to make a tipping tea pot.

Red Ted Art - has a cute tea cup printable. You have to subscribe to the newsletter and it takes about an hour to receive but they are super cute. We hadn't received the file so we didn't do this. She also has a few game ideas to play with the tea cups.

Picnic at Park

After a quick trip to the library, the DH suggests we have dinner at the park. What a great idea. It might have been hot as all get out but it was still a simple, fun idea. After I packed the meal, the kids grabbed their bikes and rode to the park. I was proud of Kaleb. He rode all the way to and back from the park by himself on his bike.

Dad and Riley relaxing on the lawn. A new experience - grass.

J munching down a muffin!

Kaleb stuffing his face! The hairdresser decided to cut his bangs way to short! Oh well, it's just hair and I guess it will grow back. It was an impromptu dinner, no planning, just fun. Hope you are enjoying your summer too. Take some time to enjoy it:)

My Name is....

He's been Batman!

He's been big brother!

He's been little brother!

He's even been a ham! But now....we have been informed that Kaleb has officially changed his name. He tells everyone that his name is NOT Kaleb but.....

AWESOME! His name is Awesome. Don't call him Kaleb anymore. His new name is Awesome (shirt included in the name change). I won't disagree. He's pretty Awesome, if I say so myself. Love that guy!

Tot Tuesday

This was too adorable not to share......

flying.....

with J!

How he loves his big sister!

Human Body - Bones, Muscles, Lungs & Senses

We have finally picked up with our Human Body Unit after a long break at Grandma and Grandpa's. This week, we learned about bones and muscles.

We read about bones in a book from the library. Kaleb decided to join us that day.

J made her own personal skeleton and label each of the bones .

She wanted a colorful skeleton which I think she achieved. We call him Mr. Skinless.

J worked on adding her bones to her body outline. She was somewhat disappointed because the bones were too short for her body outline. So, it looks little funny with her leg outline and a short leg bone.

She made a model of a growing bone and tried it out on her leg.

A spine model that she made and wore.

J researched muscles and bones on a few child friendly websites. She added some notes to her notebook.

She made a working model of the muscles of an arm. Pretty cool.

We played the game Some Body that I found at a Homeschool Book Sale. It was so cheap that I couldn't say no. It was a great review game.

The last week of school, we had to double up to finish our body unit. So J is finishing her work on her notebook pages about the lungs and liver.

A great body app finally came up on sale. I was waiting for it. J was checking it out and you can see by her face, she is somewhat grossed out.

She worked on the model of the lungs for her body outline.

We read about the human eye and made a simple model of one. Again, the grossed out look. Wait until she dissects a cow eyeball! I can't wait for that! (That will a few years off though.)

Here is the finished eye model.

She is adding skin to her body. She thought it looked bare. It was a good Science unit and I  am please with the way it turned out. I love the body project. I tried to get her to add hair but she was done with school. Oh, well - maybe when I use this unit with Kaleb:)

Final Day of School - last thoughts

We have reached the end of the school year. A few thoughts on how our year went. It started rocky with all of the changes and the moving around we did. We were unsure of where we were going to be but we ended up back in our hometown. With all of this traveling and moving, I was struggling to stay on track with our Sonlight program. And then, I had a new baby in the house. I just kept getting farther behind with our Sonlight science and chapter book reading. It frustrated me. I didn't like being behind schedule. I started to stress over it and that's not good.

So, I did what every new mother should do - I let the schedule go. It didn't matter that I was behind. I worked with J on her core subjects (Math, Language Arts, Bible) and then we decided to do our own Science units. We ended up doing a unit on the Solar System which J loved and learned so much. I didn't over plan. We read from thousand books from the library and worked on a notebook. She had a ball!

We did a unit on Geography. Again, not super planned. We worked through a core book that I found at a Goodwill and I added a large inflatable globe, a wall map, and the World Landmark Toobs. We created another notebook and J learned a lot. We read about each different Landmark and wrote about them for the notebook. She even created some with clay. Can learning get any better?

We learned about several composers and artists. We read books about their lives and listened to their music. We added them to our timeline and created a music/art notebook for them.

We worked through a unit on the body. We read a ton of books. I love living by the library! J worked on a model of her body as well as another notebook. She was grossed out at first but she came around - the body is amazing!

What I am saying is that you don't need a schedule to learn. Sure, we had a ton of books left (okay, not a ton but enough) for our Sonlight B + C Core but I had to let it go. I was tired of trying to finish on a schedule, jam packing everything in to get it done. I wanted to do the fun stuff. J did too. She said she missed the fun stuff. To tell the truth, so did I.

So, I brought back the fun stuff and if you ask her what was her favorite subject? She would say Science! Way to go! I love Sonlight. I do. I love the books that we receive each year but sometimes, I feel like I can become a slave to the schedule. I feel like I have to get it all done. But I don't. You don't either.

J learned without it. She probably learned more without the schedule. More that I expected. I love that. We read more books, even though they weren't the ones that came with the core. We had FUN! and we LEARNED!

I struggled when I was deciding what to do next year. I struggled because I love Sonlight but I wanted to do the fun things of learning. So, that's what we are going to do. We will be working on Core D but I will not be following the schedule like before. We will be reading about American History and doing fun things along the way.

And what about the rest of the chapter books and easy readers from Core B+C? Well, we are slowly reading through them this summer. Everyday, J picks an easy reader to read to me for practice and I read a chapter or two from our chapter books. So, we will be reading them -  just on our schedule:)

Tot Tuesday

Riley is trying new foods and I love to see his expressions when he does. One of his favorites is organic vanilla yogurt and some homemade pureed fruit. That is his go-to-breakfast.

He loves his yogurt! And he is fighting me for the spoon. What a sweetie!