Beating the Heat... Our summer Fun with Growing Gummy Bears

My goal this summer is to take a break from our more formal homeschool learning, filling our summer with fun experiments and crafts instead.  Our latest experiment was called Growing Gummy Bears and we found it here.  The kids had a lot of fun!  Here are a few pictures of the process...

 We made journals to draw what the gummy bears looked like each day and also to write our hypothesis and conclusion in.

 

 

We put the gummy bears in water (one cup for each child), a cup of sparkling flavored water, juice, and oil.  They kids hypothesized that the gummy bear would grow in each liquid except for the oil.

 

We also used our five senses to describe our gummy bears and made a chart to show our findings.

 

Day 1

 

Day 4...  The 3 in water grew, the one in sparkling water was just a bunch of random floating pieces, the one in juice was also just random floating pieces, and the one in oil was the same size as when it went in. 

 

 

The kids loved it!  

 

Beating the Heat, Our Summer Fun.... Green Kid Craft Box

My kiddos loved their Kiwi Crate craft boxes that we got in the past.  We stopped for a bit and did the Magic School Bus kits instead, but they were missing their Kiwi Crate.  I decided to try something new, and signed up for a Green Kid Craft box instead.  We have only done one box so far, but my kids really liked it!

At first, I thought it was called the "green" kid craft box because everything in it was earth friendly and non-toxic.  Though I think that's part of it, the activities are also very "green", meaning a lot of them teach about nature (or at least they have so far... I just got our next box in and it also seems to be nature-ish). 

Our first month's box taught about botany and had lots of activities to teach the kiddos about plants.  There was leaf collecting, pressing, and rubbing, as well as some extension activities to teach about the parts of plants, etc...  Oh, and little boxes to decorate and keep plants in.  It also came with the books for leaf rubbings, crayons, and scissors, so no extra supplies were needed.  They really loved it!  We had a few extra kiddos too, and they loved it as well!

 

 

 

 

I think we will try it a few more months at least.  I'm glad the kids are loving it!  If you want to check out the Green Kid Craft Box, click here , and for $5 off a discovery box, science kit, or creativity kit, use code TAKE5SP .

 

$15 off Your First Order at True & Co... Lingerie with free home try-on

My friend Carena shared her experience with True & Co, an online Lingerie store where you can get free at-home try on of bras.  You pick a box of 5 (you can pick the 5 that go in the box), then ship them to you free, you keep what you want, and you ship the rest back. It was super easy!  So far I'm very happy with what they sent (they ask you lots of questions to try and send ones that will be a good fit) and feel like they are a good quality.  Shopping for bras is just something I never get out to do, and when I try, I hate it.  I love how easy this was!  Here's a link for $15 off your first order if you would like to give them a try...

http://my.trueandco.com/x/vLKbtt

 

 

Happy Shopping!

 



Swimming With Spina Bifida... Our Floating Leg Solution

Madi had a big desire to swim by herself, but had a problem with her legs.  With her floaties on, her legs would also float up, but unevenly.  This caused her to have poor balance in the pool and struggle to not flip over.  Because of that, we always held her and/or supported her body for her when we went swimming.  I looked online and found some little wrist weights that are used for water aerobics.  I got them for her ankles, and they work perfectly!  They are one pound each (if you buy them, they were the 2 pound set, because they tell you total weight, not the weight of the weights individually), so just heavy enough to keep her legs down a little, but also still light enough to let her put them up when she wants to kick them. 

This is how we use them on her (That's Tami, our amazing PT, in the water with her)...

The same day we put them on her, she took off swimming!  She was SO proud of herself and so excited.  She did not want to get out of the pool!  Ramya had to keep up, so she started swimming (with her floaties on) by herself too.  She is very proud as well!  It's so fun watching them gain some independence.  It really is huge for them!  Conner has also really loved being able to "help" them swim now.  He's so proud too!  Here are some vidoes and photos of the kiddos swimming...

 

(we made up some silly songs to help us remember how to move our body and swim :))

 

 

 

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

 

 

Our Latest Family Pictures

We got new family photos, and I love them!  We used Michelle Praskins Photography, and were really happy with our photos and how much time Michelle spent with us. 

Last year when Ramya came home we got family pictures, but she has changed so much since then that she almost looks years younger.  Considering I love getting family pictures taken (not usually yearly, but every so often) it was a great excuse to get them again :).  Here are a few photos from last March for comparison...

 

 

Here are our photos from this year...

 



 

 



I love them!