Love/Hate the End of the Year

I see the end! The light at the end of the tunnel! I have decided that no matter what, our last day of school is next Friday. Now I'm just trying to cram what we need into that time.

I'm coming to grips with the fact that some stuff just won't get done.

Deep breath. It's OKAY!

But the looming end of the year stresses me out some too. The girls are desperately wanting to be off. I'm wanting to be done. I feel the change of schedule coming and that stresses me out a little. After 10 months of the same thing every day--a new schedule is an adjustment.

Plus I always feel a twinge of guilt because my husband still has to get up and go to work just like always. I feel like the house should be extra clean when he gets home in the summers. I feel a little bad that I can go swim with the girls in the middle of the day.

I know being a mom is work and all but....really, its SUCH a blessing! I am so grateful to be home with them.  I don't know why God chose to bless me in this way. But Praise His Name, I'm glad He did!

One thing I'm looking forward to is being home a bit more. Bee is taking one nap a day now (usually) at a half-way predictable time. We need to run our errands early in the morning (to avoid all the people and for her and because of the heat) and then hang out at home! The girls did want to continue piano but I convinced them to take July off. On the day we go to piano, we'll also swing by the library like usual.

The girls and I last summer. I'm large, Sweetheart was 12, Bee was 1 month old, and Little Bit was 8.

I don't even have plans for the house this year like usual. Normally I attack a closet, or do some sewing, or paint something but I just don't have any plans yet this year. Perhaps my impending freedom has not fully hit me yet?

Today is Wednesday. The one day I can say "no" to swimming or bike riding. We have church tonight. We don't need to have to all take showers right before church. Wednesdays Mama gets to relax.

I'd like to start thinking about summer fun though. The girls are so much older than I'm used to planning for. Don't get me wrong, Sweetheart does still play with Little Bit. I love that they still play together some. But she's not going to be on board with any of my themes like she used to be. Still, art, sewing, projects....those kinds of things they would both enjoy.

What are your summer ideas? What do you do with older kids in the summer?

Oh my precious girl. I loved this age but I'm looking forward to a more active summer!

It's Summer School Jack!

OK. We don't have TV. But we have watched several episodes of Duck Dynasty and Sweetheart just loves that show. We watch it online after it has already aired. We have a lot of respect for the folks on the show and she likes it a lot so I thought, "Why not have a Duck Dynasty birthday party this year?"

She said no thank you.

Humph. And there was a lot of cute stuff on Pinterest too.

Double humph.

So.....I already had a pin board called "Language Arts Boot Camp." That's what I was calling what we were going to do this summer. We pretty much ignored language arts this year in school because we had a newborn and were doing good to get everything else done. Therefore, we are spending our summer break cramming some major language arts down little throats. Er...filling their little heads full of knowledge I mean.

Why not combine the two ideas? Yes sir. We are going to have camo pencils and use some camo duct tape on our binders and we are going to have us a fun theme for summer school!

SUMMER BOOT CAMP.

I'm the drill sergeant.

I might wear a whistle.

So last night I was trying to really start thinking about how this will all look. S was in the Navy (no camo there, but boot camp nonetheless) and what they did a lot of was drill.

This week we are taking the IOWA test with our homeschool group. I am already seeing what gaps my girls have in their education thanks to this test. So I know for a fact they need drills on grammar and punctuation and capitalization and all that jazz.

In the 90s when I was a public school teacher, we used to do DOL or Daily Oral Language. You would have a few sentences on the board when the kids got there and they would copy them down in their journals, making corrections of the on-purpose mistakes. THIS is what my girls need. Not every day...but some.

So I know we will be drilling rules. And I'm going to be doing writing instruction with each of them separately. The other girl will be in charge of playing with the baby. She's such a sponge right now. Little Bit sat down and played play food with her last night. In just a few minutes she had learned to shake the pepper on her food, squirt the ketchup bottle, and pretend to eat it all. They are so proud to teach her things. So they will enjoy that job.

Spelling will also be taking place. And reading practice. And math will continue 3x a week. Oh there is a lot to be done this summer. I sure wish we could just take off, but no. We have much to do.

And don't think there won't be push ups involved.

By the way, the drill sergeant doesn't have to do push ups.

Just wanted to clear that up.

Here's my Pinterest board for boot camp.

My Big Summer Idea

So I think we've been doing pretty well in school this year considering our added distraction blessing this year.

We started out the school year with a 3 month old laying on the couch beside me or nursing all the way through school and now we've graduated to a card table set up in the middle of the living room every morning. She's crawling, she's pulling up, she's cruising, she's grabbing, and she's not conducive to peaceful learning.

But oh my word we love her.

Anyway, I think we've been getting a lot done in spite of it all. However, there are several subjects that have been neglected. All I can think to do is hit them in the summer, because our days are maxed out.

One of those subjects is language arts. Now that's a pretty big term. That can include handwriting, reading, spelling, grammar, English, literature, writing, etc. Of course we are hitting some of that each day, but not all.

So I'm thinking of having a little "Language Arts Boot Camp" this summer. What that would look like is 30-45 minutes a day (four days a week) of instruction (each girl on her level) with a little practice thrown in in several ways.

I'm still thinking through it all.

But I think that a small amount each day of focused instruction, rather than squeezed in hurried bits and pieces each week, may be more effective.

Now to just think of fun ways to do it all. And what curriculum I may want to use. And what my goals are.

Hmm.

Good thing I love planning!

The Plan for Summer Fun

So. I was looking on Pinterest at all the summer fun ideas I pinned weeks ago. There are tons of lists like "100 Free Things to Do This Summer", etc. When I actually started reading the lists, it made me sad. There were SO many things on there that Sweetheart has just flat outgrown. Gone are the fun days we had several years ago with our Summer Theme-A-Weeks.

Pirate Little Bit, age 4. Sniff. 

Sweetheart, age 8, after our Pirate treasure hunt. Sniff. 

The girls with their cousins acting out Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. Sniff. Sniff. 

Oh it makes me sad. No more playing dress up, or blowing bubbles, or wading pools or sidewalk chalk being enough to keep them happy and entertained. And I also had a memory. When the girls were little and we had our very first ever costume day, I remember standing there watching the girls doing an impromptu rain dance...

 and I vividly remember saying to Sister, "You know, when the little girls are the age of the big girls (8), the big girls will be 12 and they won't want to do stuff like this anymore."

We're there. 

But instead of sitting around being very sad, I thought and thought about how to redeem the summer. There MUST be something fun that a 12 year old and an 8 year old can do together. I mean, the 8 year old deserves to have fun. It's not her fault she has a fuddy-duddy older sister! (Just kidding. Sweetheart actually still plays a lot. But she isn't "little" anymore and I have to respect that too.) And it's not their fault there is a newborn in the house keeping us from doing a lot of running around town.

My answer?

ART!

I knew they would both enjoy art projects and I even thought of a way to make it a "theme" for Little Bit. Who is, after all, only 8. Let's say I chose "ballerinas" as the theme. Well, we do ballerina art projects (which Sweetheart could also do), check out some books about ballerinas, an Angelina Ballerina video, and make a tutu for her dolls. There. A theme for the 8 year old. And the 12 year old could participate in the art and anything else she felt like participating in.

I know I have a newborn in the house so I'm not sure how much of the theme business will happen, but what I'm saying is...it's doable.

So in my research on Pinterest, I stumbled on a great art site. From there, I began to learn about something called "art journals." Honestly, I had never heard of these. Hmm. A way to do art projects AND keep them contained within a journal instead of littering my fridge, spilling off the kitchen counters, or stacking up on the girls' dressers? Sounds like a winner to me!

The site kept referring to "Strathmore Art Journals." I didn't know what that meant exactly but then at Hobby Lobby, I figured it out.

Oh! It's a brand name for these art books! This is the one I chose. They are pretty big.

So yesterday I had the girls take inventory of the art cabinet. We have enough stuff to get started. The only initial investment was these journals, which were $13 each (with my 40% off coupon!).

First I had them decorate inside the front cover.

Then we started our first project. Directions are here.

Concentrating means the tongue goes out. :)

Cutting out the sunglasses (from images on the computer).

We just used pencil, Sharpie, and crayons. Nothing fancy.

Adding details...

The caption says, "I love summer." I had just finished telling them "you can't mess up on art journals" so I let the lowercase "i" go. 

Love these self-portraits. Can't wait to do more projects!

The site we got this idea from has tons of art journal ideas, but there are others online too. That site is just very kid-friendly. Once you really start looking at all of them, you will come up with ideas of your own. The fun part is using all kinds of media. Apparently your art journal will be very thick at the end and may not close well. Not every project will be flat.

So that's my plan. Lots and lots of art! I know there will be days when we are busy running errands, and swimming, and cleaning house. But there are plenty of other days when there is nothing on Netflix to watch, and it's raining or terribly hot, and our art journals will be just the ticket to fun!

Summer Reading

One thing we always do with our summers is read. We have participated in the summer reading program at our library every year since Sweetheart was 3. Our goal is always for each girl to read/listen to 100 books. At the end of the summer they get a certificate, an ice cream and a free book. It's one of their favorite things.

Last summer a librarian had told us that the "teen" program began at age 12 so we assumed Sweetheart would have to do the teen program this year. But...I noticed that the children's program runs from 0-12 years. So, it looks like she can pick. Honestly, the children's program is way cooler and I'm going to encourage her to take advantage of it one last year. We'll see.

Choosing books for Sweetheart has been a struggle. Since we were using Sonlight this year, we didn't have to worry about it too much. She had plenty to read during the school year! But the juvenile section is so different. On the one hand, she has outgrown a lot of books. The ones she used to love: the Hank the Cowdog series, Cam Jansen, the American Girl books....they are all too easy for her and she's read them all. Others are too weird and inappropriate. I can't possibly pre-read everything.

So she ends up reading things that don't challenge her at all. She reads from our shelves--like Magic Tree House books that she's read 100 times each. No challenge at all. At the library she gets things like BabyMouse books. Now BabyMouse is funny. I know because she pestered me until I read them with her. But she can tear through 2 BabyMouse books on the way home from the library!

The answer for this summer came in the form of an e-mail from Sonlight. They had put together "Summer Reading Packages" for elementary, middle, and high school--separated by boys and girls. You can buy the packages, but we need to save our money for next year's curriculum. So, I'm hitting up the library for these titles.

I trust Sonlight, but I still wanted to pre-read these titles. I just don't fully trust "big kid" books. They delve into bigger problems than say, the Berenstain Bears do. You know? The first title I read was Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters. I LOVED it. Sweetheart is reading it now. She found out over the weekend that her cousin is reading the same book and her good friend just finished it. Extra motivation!

So then something happened that really, really encouraged me and made me realize that my child is truly  becoming LITERATE. I don't mean "literate" as in "can read", but "literate" as in "well read." I'm pre-reading the next title, Penny From Heaven. The book was lying next to where I was sitting. As usual, the annoying library bar code covers up important information on the front of the book. This time, the author's first name. But Sweetheart noticed the author's middle initial and last name: L. Holm.

Sweetheart: Is that Jennifer L. Holm?

Me: I have no idea.

Sweetheart: (flipping to inside the book) Because if it is, she's the one who writes BabyMouse.

Me: *thinking: really? Wow. Those two books are really different from each other!* Well, go look inside the BabyMouse book and see if it lists this one.

It did. My child recognizes authors! That is so cool!! And now she's excited to read the next book because it's by an author she likes. The other day she asked me who my favorite authors were and I was all...Duuuuhhhh. Then she proceeded to list her favorite three.

Very cool.

So that is our plan for summer reading. And Little Bit will be reading to me this year! (And I'll be reading to her as well.) Tomorrow I'll share my other plans for our summer. I think I've found a unifying way for a 12 year old and an 8 year old to do some fun things together.

Looking Ahead..WAY Ahead

Happens every year. Most of us homeschool Moms start planning and looking ahead to next year before THIS year is quite over. It's perfectly normal. And WAY more fun than finishing THIS year!

I've been on Pinterest lately pinning summer activities for the girls. I imagine we won't be going a lot of places for a while, and I still want them to have some fun. Working on that.

Also, it's fun to look ahead to next year. It's time we are writing off those things that did not go so well this year and looking for how we can improve in those areas. Pinterest is good for that too!

We won't actually finish the year up before baby comes, so I can't start packing away this year's materials just yet. Well, actually I don't pack them away, but rather organize them and put them neatly out of sight in the cabinet. We'll have some finishing to do over the summer.

So here's some things I'm doing (or will do) to get ready for summer and next school year:

1. Straighten up the homeschool cabinet. Sigh. It doesn't look like that ^ anymore!

2. Go through our library shelves and pull books that I think Little Bit can read to me over the summer. I'm delighted to find a lot of books I choose too easy for her! Oh, it's still good for her to read them but she just flies through them with little to no help so I know they aren't at her instructional level.

3. Make sure the girls' rooms are clean and organized. Messy rooms are no fun to play in and when you can't find all your toys that go together, you won't play with them. Also, doing one last sweep through their rooms will ensure they are easier for the girls to keep up with on their own.

4. Get things a little more organized in the laundry room. We all know that laundry can de-rail anything...the summer, next year, everyday life. If the laundry is out of control, life is out of control too!

5. Get a chore system figured out for the summer. I know I will need extra help for a while with a newborn in the house and the girls are very capable of helping, but I'd like to not have to think about it so much later on. Better to have some sort of a plan now. I'd like it to almost be a schedule thing--like we do this certain thing on Mondays, etc.

6. Most importantly, plan for fun! There are tons of ideas online for free things to do in the summer with your kiddos. I want fun, learning, and most of all, for them to NOT just wander around being bored while I'm taking care of the new baby. Best to have some ideas in place beforehand, right?

What are you doing to get ready for summer and next year? 

Our Routine (And the Good 'Ol Summertime)

Today I'm linking up with the Tri-Moms and they are discussing routines. You know....how does your routine change from the school year to the summer?

This year was the first time we used a schedule that differed greatly from the public school calendar. We were steeped in the public school calendar before. I mean, husband and I both attended 13 years of public school. Then I taught 11 years in public school. Then our older daughter went to public/private school for 3 years. It was our life.

But last year I got brave and tried something different and we really liked it! It was called "a Sabbath schedule" and I talked about it here. And all the reasons why it rocks here. (That link is full of good reasons!)

It was very difficult for me in May, however. That was the time when all around me people were counting down the days until they were out of school and we still had WEEKS. Oh I was irritated. But it all worked out really well and I lived. And we still have SEVEN weeks of a summer break!

Now that I've seen the schedule through one whole cycle...I'm going to stick with it. It really worked well for us.

So how does life change in our seven week summer? Well..for one thing, we can run our errands in the mornings when it is not 100+ degrees yet and also all the late sleepers are not at the store. We love getting the errands out of the way while everyone is fresh and not cranky and stores are not crowded.

Also, I get big projects done in the summers. This is my time to sew and organize things around the house and switch rooms around at will. (Don't think I'm switching any rooms this summer! OR painting anything!  I know!!!)

The big break gives my kids time to get bored, wander around, and find things to do. They get to use their imagination. Now that we don't have TV (1 1/2 years baby!), they have to work a bit harder to find things to do. TV was ALWAYS Sweetheart's default. Summer gives more time for art, playing, chores, and swimming.

And on weekends we go to the beach a lot with Daddy.

We also go to the library every week. Our library has a lot of activities in the summer and we try to take advantage of  that. We also have a goal every summer of reading 100 books each. I think we've met that goal every year since Little Bit was 3. If you read 100 books, you get a certificate, an ice cream, and a free book at the end of the summer. I feel like I have so much more time to read to them in the summer.

We also used to do summer themes every week. I loved those. Trying to get organized to do some of those this year too. After all, Little Bit is only 7--she will still love them.

And here was our daily routine during the school year.

Go check out the other mom's routines: Suzanne, Kristen, and Kathi. (The link up is at Kristen's place--go join us and tell us your summer routine!)

The Great Summer Plan....

...is actually working! I think I need to finish telling you about it.

So I got the workboxes all fixed up and each day (except Tuesdays, that's cousin day. Except today because Little Bit has fever so I've got to rearrange everything!) the girls do 3-5 boxes. I don't have a set time for them to start on them, I just expect them to have at least 2 done by lunch time.

Here is what you might see in their workboxes this summer:

• They each are doing Handwriting Without Tears this summer as handwriting simply does not get done during the school year. This only takes 10 minutes or so.
• Sweetheart is alternating between the Math U See online drill (15 minutes) and Math U See worksheets. We've GOT to keep up with her facts. She needs to have this daily practice.
• They each get a book or books in their boxes. I read with them. This week's theme is First Aid so Sweetheart is reading an easy biography on Clara Barton. She really got into it! I was very surprised.
• They each get a theme-based activity in their box each day. Today's activity is playing "pharmacy." I'll credit sister for the beginning of this idea and then we got to talking and added to it a bit. They are going to fill orders by counting pony beads into old medicine bottles and applying labels to the bottles. The "prescriptions" will say something like, "10 Blue Pills". It's mainly an activity for Little Bit, but I know it will launch pharmacy play with both of them.

Those workboxes have done wonders to stave off any thoughts of "I'm bored." Sweetheart told me she was bored yesterday afternoon and I reminded her she had workboxes to complete. She brightened right up--especially when she saw that one of them was her first piano lesson!

The other part of the summer plan is the chores. Their "morning chores" that they do every morning have been put on wooden door hangers. I got the idea from this site. Aren't they cute? So that allowed me to be very specific about their morning and bedtime routines. (I skipped the clip art for Sweetheart's sign.)

Then, each day they have a specific area of their shared bedroom to concentrate on. This is hanging on the wall and has pictures as well as words.

Monday--clean off headboards (My word, they collect crap there!)

Tuesday--clean off top of dressers (includes dusting)

Wednesday--straighten bookshelves

Thursday--straighten closet

Friday--clean doll area

They are always expected to pick up their things in the bedroom and pick up everything from the floor, but this way specific attention is given to areas that get to looking really bad otherwise.

AND...(I'm not through yet!) they have chore cards. These are just google images I grabbed off of the computer, printed onto card stock and cut up. I was planning on picking three chores a day for them, but I think I'll leave that more flexible. We were busy yesterday, so I just had them pick one. These chore cards are all things that would serve the whole family--not just chores about my kids taking care of themselves. I didn't want all of their chores to be about them. I did the "pick a card, any card" routine yesterday and they kind of liked the excitement about what they might get! Sweetheart had to straighten the blankets in the blanket box and Little Bit had to clean off the lamp table in the living room. No big deal. Also, these chores are age-appropriate for each girl.

I have all of these documents and if you are interested in seeing any of them, just give me a holla. I'll be happy to share.

Summer Theme-a-Week: Watermelons

Since our digital camera bit the dust a few weeks ago, I won't have an opportunity to share many pictures this week. My dad let me borrow his camera yesterday, but he's going out of town tomorrow and he's taking his camera with him. So.....I'll share what I have.

This is our first theme of summer 2009. Sister and I thought "Watermelons" was a good way to kick off summer! Plus it's a pretty easy theme and we knew we wouldn't be at the top of our game this week. I was right--I'm not. I've been in a mad scramble to get organized for this week, but it looks like it might be next week before I truly get it together like I want to.

Anyway.

We read several cute books this week. There are a lot of watermelon books out there, but our library didn't have that many. We have two favorites this week:

Peter Spit a Seed at Sue

Very cute!

And also Watermelon Day, which made me really hungry for watermelon!

We had such big plans, but we are scattered and brain-dead from the school year and just flat forgot to do some of this. Plus the kids were busy playing and we were busy visiting and we weren't too worried about it. But just in case YOU want to have a watermelon theme at your house, here they are:

Estimate the circumference of a watermelon, then measure.

Estimate the weight....

Estimate the number of seeds....

Float or sink experiment. We truly intended to toss that watermelon into the pool, but we forgot. Oh well, we may have to just get another watermelon!

Make play dough with watermelon flavored Kool-Aid or Jello.

Chew watermelon gum. (We did this one!) Also, watermelon Jolly Ranchers are to die for!

There are TONS of watermelon recipes online.

We did watch this little informative video. We also sang and listened to several watermelon songs we found. It was a fun day, and there are still a few days left. I intend to cut paper plates in half, let the girls paint them like watermelons and glue watermelon seeds on. And maybe some other things if I can pull myself together. I mean, look at my coffee table!

I'm sure you can imagine the rest of the room....or house.

But we did have fun yesterday. The girls finally talked Grandpa into swimming with them and then we all had a seed spitting contest. Here are some pictures from our fun:

Hope you are having a great week too!

Tomorrow I'll share my summer plan with you. Stay tuned!

School's Out!!! (Well, Kind Of)

Sweetheart officially completed 3rd grade yesterday!!! Yeah!!!

Here's the strange thing about homeschooling---you decide when they are done. Some moms set a date and wherever they are in the curriculum by that date, that's it. You know, in public school we never once finished a text book so it's kind of like that.

Other parents live in states where they have to count the days so when they reach their allotted number---done! I decided we would be done when we finished math and history. We finished math last week and history yesterday. Yesterday was also the last day for a lot of kids around here so it worked out well.

Since we sort of just fizzed out, finishing one subject at at time, there is no dramatic feeling of "wow! we're done!!!!" So I decided to have a special dinner to celebrate the end of 3rd. I found this free certificate and printed it on nice paper. We are having Sweetheart's favorite meal. I'll also give her the certificate that comes in the back of her Math U See book. And THEN, she will officially be a 4th grader.

Sniff. My baby will be 10 soon!

We are planning to have a great, fun summer. I am going to start using my workboxes in a modified way as I try to figure out how I'm going to use them next year. We will have a theme each week, just like last year.

This year we have chosen:

watermelons--to kick off the summer

First Aid--we wanted to do some biographies and Clara Barton and the Red Cross came to mind. Probably because I did book report on her several different years when I was in school. Why read a new book if you have a new teacher, you know? Plus it's a good thing to study First Aid at the beginning of the summer.

butterflies--there are so many art projects to go with this, we couldn't resist! We will be attending a butterfly display at the museum too.

dolls--this one evolved from a lot of ideas and we mushed 'em all together. The girls love their dolls, there are dolls in every country of the world and throughout history little girls have played with dolls....this is coming up around the week of Independence day.....we have American Girl dolls....why not dress the dolls up in 4th of July costumes and celebrate with them? Whew!

dogs--My niece Gnat loves dogs right now but sister and I didn't really want to focus on "dogs as pets" as Sweetheart wants one really badly but is not getting one anytime soon and neither are her girls for that matter, so we decided to focus on working dogs and famous dogs.

artists--art as a career, famous artists...plus we will try out every kind of art we can think of. Sculpting, painting, etc.

imaginary creatures--My other niece Moose is still on her mermaid kick and the older girls wanted to study horses--again. We said no more! So we decided to study unicorns (our horse alternative), mermaids, fairies, etc. We will be focusing on the imaginary part as some of these things are presented to children as being real.

So every day a theme activity will go into one of the workboxes. In the other boxes will be math practice, handwriting, astronomy (not quite through with that one yet), and fun stuff.

So, what are you doing for "summer school"?

We Took a Snow Day

No, not from school...just over the holidays. Usually, sister and I get the girls together to make and decorate Christmas cookies. This year the schedules didn't work out the way we wanted so we waited until after Christmas and had "snow day" instead.

It was after Christmas, remember? We weren't on our best game.

(This may remind you of our summer theme-a-weeks. It's just how we do things.)

First, gather your supplies. We spend no money on these fun days. Just dig around the house and library for stuff.

Don your snowman clothes, if you have any. Since Little Bit receives 100% hand-me-down benefits in our family, she did happen to have just the right shirt.

You might want to decorate a cake to look somewhat...just a smidgen....resembling...a snowman. You might want to dig in the stocking stuff and find decorations because remember....no money, after Christmas, not on our best game.

OK, moving on.

The little girls, ages 4 and 5, did a fun craft first. I got this idea from Allie at No Time for Flashcards. She used cotton balls, we used poly fiber fill.

Just look at the concentration here.

Moose is telling us something about hers in the background there.

Here's the finished deal! They loved playing with these. And we'll come back to this facial expression in a minute

They painted 3 sections of egg cartons white. We turned those into snowmen but I didn't get a final picture because remember? After Christmas...not on our best....OK, I'll shut up now.

Then we had them make Rice Krispy treat snowmen.

Sweetheart, my natural over-achieving mess-maker, was actually the only one who could do this. The other kids ended up gluing their hands together with marshmallow mush.

See?

But it all came out good in the end. (Yellow eyes do not = hepatitis in snowmen. Besides, one eye already fell off.)

What is this dead look in my kids' eyes when they pose for me? We gotta work on the natural look. (Less robot!)

Then we set the big girls loose with supplies to make a snowman out of a CD (head) and paper plate (body). They wanted to make girl snowmen so my sister gave them cotton balls for boobs.

After much screaming, they opted to leave those off.

And again, no final picture.

I'm a little better at summer themes.

Summer Theme-A-Week: Pirates

OK all you mothers with boys--here is a TAW you can sink your teeth into! This week's theme was chose by Sweetheart, age 8. Are you ready to set sail?

First, we scoured the house looking for anything to do with Pirates. This made our pirate collection, which we keep on the fireplace all week. They have played with these toys every single day. I couldn't help but notice how, um, commercial our collection is. I also realized I bought very little of it--thanks to grandparents and aunts. I would have told you we really didn't own that much pirate stuff, but I would have been wrong! I'm sure boy houses might have more.

I was excited about this theme because it was a bit "older" giving the big girls a chance to learn something as well. We checked out two kinds of books from the library this week: fiction...

and non-fiction. I think that's the biggest thing Sweetheart learned this week: that pirates were real and not nice. But fictional pirates can be fun!

First, we made pirate hats. I learned how to fold them here. Sweetheart went with the bone stencil idea from the website, but Little Bit chose a smiley face just like Pirate Pig in this Dora book. So, I made the stencils. Then the girls painted their hats because they will paint anything.
Here are the finished products, along with eye patches and earrings from the party store. AARRGHH!

It has rained here everyday, so we got pretty crafty. I realize in a boy house where there are swords, pirate week might look a bit different. We made anchors (can't remember where I found the pattern, sorry!) with paper chains attached. Here is Little Bit working on the ABC pattern I started on her chain.

All done!

We also made telescopes, or rather spy glasses. You could make them from a paper towel tube, but I had a sturdier carboard tube. We almost never got it cut though. We put plastic wrap over one end and colored the tube with crayons. Sweetheart didn't want to wait for paint to dry! We covered the plastic wrap end with colored paper and they were done. Don't you just love these natural poses? It's like I caught the action while it was happening, isn't it? Or not.

One other project we did this week was to make treasure maps. I found the maps online and the kids colored them with colored pencils. It's important not to use markers for this project. Then we cut them out, crumpled up a piece of brown paper sack and also crumpled up the map then glued it on the brown paper. Then I rubbed a used tea bag (wrung out) over the map to make it look old.

You have to be careful or the tea bag will bust. Wanna know how I know?

Which I wouldn't recommend as far as clean-up goes, but it did make good maps! I just kept rubbing the tea all over the map anyway. I think they came out great.

All this pirate work inspired lots of play in the girls this week. The couch became a ship, a flag was fashioned using a stick, fabric and pony tail holders, and a fan was used to make the storm. It was fun to see them use their imaginations.

At my sister's house they made pirate skeletons this week. She asked them "How do you think he died?" They made up some story about how he was a nice pirate so he got kicked off the ship for being too nice. I told her we even managed to "girl up" a pirate theme! We watched Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, a Pippi Longstocking pirate movie which was rated G but very, very weird, and my sister's kids enjoyed the Muppet's Treasure Island. Like I said, it rained all week.

The big finale was our treasure hunt. First, they had to dress up in the appropriate attire. They followed clues all over the house until they found their treasure. Little Bit followed picture clues, while Sweetheart read her clues.

We're rich!

Have a great weekend, mateys!