Beating the Heat... Our Summer Fun With Making Vases

When I was teaching I would help my kiddos make vases or candle holders using little glass containers, colored tissue paper, and modge podge.  It was so easy and fun!!  I decided it would be fun to do with the kiddos as well, and they really enjoyed it!  We slightly watered down the modge podge to make it easier to spread, and you have to make sure to get modge podge both under and on top of the tissue paper, but you also have to be careful not use too much or the tissue paper will tear.

After we were finished I took the kids to the store to pick out flowers for their vases.  They really loved cutting the stems and arranging their flowers in their vases.  Conner decided to put his vase in his room on his desk, Ramya decided to put hers in the girl's bathroom, and Madi decided to put hers in her room on her nightstand.  It really brightened up their rooms!

 

Madi's....

 

 

Conner's....

 

Ramya's....

 

 

Beathing the Heat, Our Summer Fun.... Butterflies

As part of our My Father's World curriculum we got a butterfly kit.  It comes with the habitat and a coupon for mail-order caterpillars through Insect Lore.  We have done this in the past, but the kids loved it and Ramya wasn't home with us yet, so we decided to do it again!  The kids really loved naming the caterpillars and then watching them form a chrysalis and eventually emerge as (Painted Lady) butterflies.  They were sad when the time came to release them, but had fun watching them fly away.

 

They wanted to show they were sad we had to let them go....

The kiddos loved watching this one curl and un-curl his proboscis

 

Empty chrysalises

 

Beating the Heat, Our Summer Fun... Tye Dye!

I've been trying to pick a few fun things a week to do with the kiddos to help beat the summer heat.  Our most recent adventure was tie dye.  We bought a kit for $15 at Hobby Bench that had everything we needed except for the shirts.  The kids had a BLAST and are loving wearing their shirts.  I think they did a great job for their first time!!

A few tips if you are going to tie dye with kiddos....

1) Put down a tarp or tablecloth (ours was one from the dollar store) that you can gather up and throw away.

2) Don't wear clothes you care about... I know this seems obvious, but I didn't think about my clothes, just the kids.

3) Talk about gentle touch first.  We went over how to squeeze the bottles, and the kiddos did great with that.  Unfortunately I forgot to talk to Ramya about gentle touch and putting the bottle down gently.  This led to her slamming down the bottle (she has a hard time with doing things softly), and covering my shorts and legs in red dye.  Lesson learned.

4) Get extra gloves.  One pair won't cut it.  Thankfully we have medical gloves galore over here.


Here are a few pictures of our fun and our shirts.

 

 

 

From left to right... Conner's 1st shirt, Conner's 2nd shirt, Madi's shirt, Ramya's shirt