Smart Summer Challenge - Week 1

It was decided months before I even heard of the Smart Summer Challenge that I decided that I needed to keep Maddox engaged in school activities through out the summer. I have been having him do at home worksheets and units during the school year to try to get him involved in something besides TV and Video games while is was too cold to spend most of our time outside (and he was in half day Kindergarten).

So now to encourage me to do more during the summer (and just for fun), we joined the Smart Summer Challenge. We're not following the Calendar made by these wonderful Ladies, but I definitely printed it out and noted some ideas that I liked!

One thing we will be doing every week is creating Art on Monday's. We borrowed The Usborne Art Treasury from the library and are going to keep it for as long as we can (hopefully we'll have all the projects done by the time it goes back!) This Monday, we did watercolor sky, snowy ground, and winter tree's. The inspiration for the painting style was Hendrick Avercamp's A Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle, painted in 1608-1609. We used extra watery watercolors, splats of water in the sky, and used a blob of watery watercolor paint and blew it into a tree using a straw.

From Summer Challenge

From Summer Challenge

We also started a little science experiment. We have a fun little log from the Dr. Seuss website and we are testing how Lima Beans grow. Here are our dried beans soaking over night.

From Summer Challenge

And our beans on Wednesday in their separate cups. One cup dry, one cup wet, one cup covered in water.

From Summer Challenge

Maddox did a minimum of 15 minutes of reading (Monday, I think it was closer to 35!) and did the front and back of one page in the Summer Bridge activity book. Plus T-Ball in the evening!

Tuesday's homework - We have a "Creatures of the sea Flying Fish" book that Maddox picked out from the library. I went through it and read it and then wrote down questions for him to answer. We did Chapter 1 on Tuesday, Chapter 2 on Wednesday, and Chapter 3 this evening. It was late today, so he only finished two of the questions and will have to finish up the rest tomorrow.

From Summer Challenge

Again, he did a minimum of 15 minutes reading and another page in his Summer Bridge book. And had Swimming Lessons in the evening.

Tuesday we were going to go to the Library, but Maddox woke up with a sore knee and pain shooting down his leg every time he walked, so we didn't end up going. We went on Wednesday instead. He finished the last page of his first 20 days in his Summer Bridge activity book, then we walked just under a mile to the bus stop. Rode the city bus down to the library and somehow managed to get there in time for Story Book Theater (or something along those lines). I didn't even know there was an event going on! First, Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock was read (and acted out!) and then Little Miss Giggles. Both stories were read and acted out by a group of elderly men and women. It was a lot of fun! Then we went and looked for some books. We returned a few, still had at least 5 at home still, and come home with this stack...

From Summer Challenge

He did a minimum of 15 minutes reading (I think he did bare minimum this day, lol) and another page in his book (which I already mentioned somewhere). Madd and Dad went to T-Ball pictures. No practice because of pictures. Faye and I went to open swim for the first time since.. maybe December!

Today we were pretty lazy this morning. We waited until afternoon to start talking about Independence Day, The Revolutionary War, and all that jazz. We went to the outdoor pool with our friends (from Maddox's preschool years) and spent a good 2 hours there. Maddox and I worked on some more July 4th stuff, including starting a Lapbook and then we realized we were 15 minutes late for swim class! Fortunately his class is about half a mile from home, so he made it for most of his class. We came home and read Chapter 3 of the Flying Fish book and did two questions before he was beat. No reading today (oops!) and since he did his last page for June in his Summer Bridge book, I gave him a break today!

Tomorrow we are going to try to go somewhere to pick Strawberries. Then we are going to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary (hopefully, assuming that if our State shuts down, this is not one of the parks that will be closed! I don't think so though, since it's a city park. I do not believe it is a state park.) We also need to work on our Lapbook, Flying Fish questions, and start the new month in the Summer Bridge book, plus those 15 minutes of reading!