Summer Learning Topics

It was only a few days into summer break when I noticed that my boys were squabbling a lot more than usual. My boys didn't really fight that often before then, and I thought it was just because Zach was too little and they weren't old enough to fight yet ... ha! It didn't take long for this naive/slow mama to realize that they needed some activities and structure to keep them occupied so they wouldn't kill each other! Necessity is honestly what generated the idea that ended up making our summer a really fun success! I decided to map out week-long learning topics and accompanying activities -- everything from water safety to dinosaurs to camping/mountains. Some went along with holidays and events, others were based on things I thought the boys would enjoy. Some weeks I was more ambitious than others; in fact, I started off with a bang and then kind of fizzled for a few weeks (and then the fighting began and I started back up again! :)). This post is a sampling of some of the highlights. I wish I had been better at taking pictures and documenting all we did, but I guess it's okay to just be in the moment and not worry about capturing it all in photos.

Here's what we did:

Week 1: End of School Celebration/Beginning of Summer/Weather. This week we mostly just rang in summer with biking to our favorite parks, playing in the sandbox/back yard, having play dates and eating popsicles, but I also taught Eliot about weather reports and what different weather symbols mean. I was surprised by how much he loved it! We made a little "Today's Weather Is ..." sign for the fridge, and Eliot enjoyed switching out the pictures to match each day's weather. We also re-learned the Primary song, "Oh, What do You do in the Summertime?"

Week 2: Garden/Plants. This was my super ambitious week. We made hand-made labels/stakes for the garden, painted flower pots, made muffin cup/straw flowers, made banana muffins in flower-shaped muffin cups, learned "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary," made an awesome visual aid for "The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden" to use in FHE, sample different fruits and vegetables and compared their seeds, took a walk to our stake gardens and tried to guess what kinds of vegetables would grow from the plants we saw, had a guessing game with fruits and veggies in a bag and the boys had to guess what each was blindfolded, and made fruit pizza.  No wonder I fizzled after that week! :)

Week 3: Zoo Animals/Families/Fathers. This was Zach's birthday week, and we planned to go to the zoo on his birthday, so we spent the days leading up to that learning about zoo animals. We made a list of one animal for each letter of the alphabet. Smarty pants Eliot came up with one for almost every letter all by himself! We introduced the boys to Madagascar, which none of us had seen before, and they LOVED it! I think I heard the song, "I Like to Move it, Move it!" twenty times that week. And Eliot did the funniest dance to go along with it. The obvious highlight of the week was the zoo trip. The boys also did a great job preparing fun surprises for Grant for Father's Day. We practiced "I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home" so they could sing it to him on Father's Day. Here are my handsomes that day:

Week 4: Birthdays/"I Am Special" We listened to the story "You Are Special" by Max Lucado and re-learned the song "I'm a V.I.P." that Eliot had learned in his first year of preschool. One of Eliot's favorite activities was looking through picture books and seeing how much he has grown. He wanted to do that every day for a week or two. I let the boys pick some of their favorite activities, which included making cookies, swinging, going to the park, inviting Grandma and Grandpa to our house, and playing in the water in the back yard. Things I wish I had done this week but didn't get to included doing a silly photo shoot of the boys, making "all about me" posters/scrapbook pages, and asking family members to share their favorite things about each of the boys ... next year! I did get a few fun pictures randomly one night, and I love how happy and sweet the boys look together ... yay for brothers!

Week 5: Farm Animals. This was the week leading up to the Lehi Roundup Rodeo, so this topic was perfect! We live close enough to open fields and horse property that all we have to do is walk around the block to see horses and cows and hear roosters and chickens! We sang and looked at books of Old MacDonald, watched the Lehi Stock Parade and of course went to the Rodeo, we learned the names of baby farm animals and made farm animals out of play dough (well, that was the idea, but it mostly evolved into making Angry Birds out of play dough ... which actually turned out amazing!). We didn't make it to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point or read/watch Charlotte's Web or feed the ducks at Grandma's work, but again, there's always next year!

Week 6: Freedom/America. For the week of July 4th, we worked on U.S.A. puzzles, practiced the Pledge of Allegiance, talked about respect for the flag, went on walks and spotted the flag in people's yards, made Our Best Bites-inspired red, white, and blue treats for our family BBQ on the 4th and for our ward's "Walkabout" for which we were a host family. We played "I Spy" and looked for red, white, and blue objects, read our Fact Tracker Magic Tree House book about the Revolutionary War, and learned things I never knew before about the Statue of Liberty from this great book we checked out from the library:

Week 7: Water Safety & Water Fun. I found some kid-friendly packets online to teach the boys about water safety. The packets included coloring pages, crossword puzzles, science experiments about why things sink and float, and that guided our activities for the week. Since we have a canal that cuts through our neighborhood, I took the boys on a walk and told Eliot about the dangers of canals. He took it really seriously, which I think is a good thing because he's become a little over-confident in the water this summer. On the lighter side, we went to Seven Peaks as a family that week, played in the water table, met friends at the Riverwoods Splash Pad, picked out new bath toys at the store, and made predictions about whether several household objects would sink or float. Grant even pulled up some YouTube videos of old David Letterman segments (pre-screened!) of "Will it Float?", which Eliot was fascinated by!

Week 8: Beach/Ocean. This was my favorite week! I love the ocean and going to the beach, so my enthusiasm shone through all the activities we did, which rubbed off on the boys. We looked through one of my favorite picture books, "Hello, Ocean" by Pam Munoz Ryan. 

I asked Eliot questions to see if he remembered going to the beach in Oregon, but he didn't. :( We will have to remedy that with a return trip! Other favorite activities of the week included making sand castles, making homemade "sand dollar" cookies (snickerdoodles with sliced almonds, inspired by this post by my super-talented friend, Laura), made sand art, and visited The Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy (more photos of that in post to come). It was my first visit there, and while it's no Oregon Coast Aquarium, they do a good job with what they've got. We're really excited for the new facility opening later this year! There was a lot more we could have done with that week, so it's a topic we'll definitely revisit!

Week 9: Pioneers/Heritage. We had a special FHE about Pioneers and learned the song "To Be a Pioneer" and talked about what it means to be a pioneer. I realized Eliot didn't know much about pioneers or even covered wagons and handcarts, because when I showed him pictures and told him about them, he didn't know what they were. I found a book from my childhood, "Betsy Buttons," online and read it to Eliot. And, despite it being about a doll belonging to a little pioneer girl, he loved it (thanks to the exciting parts about Indians and buffalo, I think!). We went on a walk to our stake center, where there's a monument celebrating the Sesquicentennial of the pioneers arriving in Utah. I had had big ambitions to visit the This is the Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake and/or Temple Square, but a last-minute decision to go to Lagoon on Pioneer Day made for a busier week than planned. Lots more ideas we could have done for this week ...

Week 10: Dinosaurs. Also a very fun week. This one stretched out over a week and a half because there was so much we wanted to do! We made dino matching games and learned the names of several dinosaurs, we watched "The Land Before Time," had a dino egg hunt, "dug" for dinosaurs in the sand, played on the dino bone play equipment at the mall, re-learned the darling preschool song "Digga Digga Dinosaur," visited the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, made dinosaur sticker pictures, painted terra cotta pot volcanoes and made them explode, and made a special snack fit for our little paleontologists -- oreo-covered chocolate pudding with "dino bones" (graham cracker Scooby snacks) buried in it. This was a fun week! 

 

  

 

Week 11: Dentists/Dental Health & Mountains/Camping. Eliot and I had dentist appointments this week, so to gear up, we watched a couple videos on YouTube and talked through what might happen at the appointment. Eliot did great, and neither of us had cavities! To prep for our trip to Jackson Hole, we read lots of books from the library about camping and mountain animals. Eliot's favorite one was all about animal tracks. The best part about this week was experiencing the real deal and having the beautiful Teton Mountains as our backdrop. And Eliot could not have been prouder to have seen three moose up close and personal!

 

 

Week 12: Sports/Baseball. The idea with this one was to finish the week by going to a local baseball game, but monsoon season struck, and we got rained out! We still had hot dogs and Cracker Jacks, checked out books from the library about baseball and sports, and played ball outside (and inside, too), but unfortunately, a lot of our plans resulted in moments like this: 

At least they were getting along, right?!

Week 13: End of Summer & Beginning of School Celebration. Before summer was over, we crammed in as much as we could, including one last trip to the lake ...

T

We also hit the snow cone shack a few last times,

played at our favorite parks,

enjoyed lazy mornings and relaxed schedules,

made cookies and visited Daddy at work,

went swimming at the Rec Center,

had our last Seven Peaks outing,

had family barbecues,

and had late nights with movies and Eliot's favorite summer show, "Wipeout."

With school now in session and having to come to terms with Eliot gone every day, I'm already missing summer. There was so much more I wish we could have done, and it all went by so fast! Good thing summer keeps coming around and I'll have lots more to enjoy with my kiddos!