Making Memories: Summer Bucket List

How short the days are long
How fast the days of slow go away
So I'm wading right in, playing your games,
And I'm running the full length of summer...
By your side

I love that song by Christine Dente. For the past few years, I've really tried to make our summertimes full of interesting outings and activities, while preserving the carefree, lazy feel of summer. Sound contradictory? I think it is. On the one hand, I want my kids to relax, to have fun, to enjoy their childhood, and I don't want to over schedule their days. On the other hand, I want them to explore, to grow, to create, and to engage with life....and I don't want them to play video games or watch t.v. all day. So, how to find a healthy, fun balance?

We kick off our summers by making a "summer bucket list". Here's how it works. Everyone sits around the kitchen table, and I have a notepad. We take turns going around the table, and everyone names one thing that they'd like to do that summer. It doesn't matter how silly, extreme, or extravagant the item is...I faithfully write it down. (I also get to put my own ideas on the list on my turns.)

When we have a nice list, and everyone has had three to five turns, we hang our list on the refridgerator. We begin brainstorming on ways to make the list a reality. For example, "Go to acorn land," was suggested by my little boy. We decided a nature walk through the woods to look for acorns would be a good interpretation of this desire.

Through the summer, at the end of each week, we look over our list. We try to schedule at least one item from the list on the calendar for next week. We put a check mark by anything on the list we did during that current week. We also jot down "extras"....things that we did during the week that weren't on the list, but that we got to experience and everyone thought was really cool. Thus "pet an alligator" and "discovered pig island" got added to the list over the course of the summer.

I must also add that we are very blessed to live in an area with an outstanding public library system and an outstanding county park board. Our public libraries and the parks offer free programs throughout the summer. We always look over their programs, and the children pick out things like guided creek explorations that they'd like to participate in.

This is how I keep track of our schedule over the summer. This is a paragraph taken from my blog during August of 2008, at the end of the first summer I put this system into place.

... my plan at the beginning of the summer to do a “space camp” theme. We absolutely did that, and it went *great*. The kids really got into decorating the fridge to be our mission control center. I cut sections out of colored paper and taped them together to make on sheet of paper with five colored sections in yellow, orange, red, purple, blue. At the top of each section I wrote a day of the week, then I laminated the paper. That was our dry erase board for our “shuttle flights”. Since Little Guy is working on learning to tell time, I also printed some blank clock faces, cut them out, and laminated them as well. For each “shuttle flight” I used sticky tack to put a clock face on that day, and drew clock hands to show what time we were leaving the house for that outing. We also each had a “pre-flight routine” and a “landing procedure”…which were our checklists for our morning and afternoon tasks. I got foil star stickers and kept a sheet of them on the fridge. Each day, when the kids finished the items on their lists, they put a star next to that item. At the end of the week, whoever had the most stars, got to pick a special activity that we all did together (like family game night, bike riding, pick a movie from blockbusters, make cookies, etc). And if they tied in their number of star points, or came close to tying, they each got to pick an activity. The whole system worked so well, and was enjoyed so much, we going to continue it through the school year.

This summer, I'm doubly challenged, because this summer, for the first time, we have a Wii and each child has their own Nintendo DS games. I have some thoughts on what I might do to balance active play and enriching activites (like reading and art) with their video game time. But, I'll save that for another post.

In the meantime, here is our "bucket list" for this summer:

--go to China (this is from the same child who said "go to acorn land" last year)
--go to COSI
--visit Serpentine Mound
--go to the Children's Museum
--meet an alien
--see some buffalo
--see Pig Island
--go miniture golfing
--go bowling
--Acorn Land again!!!
--make chocolate
--learn orienteering and go Letterboxing
--go on the slip and slide
--make apple pie
--set up a sundial
--go to a mall
--go to a waterpark
--visit a historic village
--go to the movies
--climb a tree
--make homemade ice cream

Have fun making your own "summer bucket list"!

For the Making Memories introduction and guidelines, please click here.

Making Memories: Web Meme Launch

Tell me about the time when.....

Growing up, I always loved hearing my mother tell stories of her adventures, and misadventures, when she was younger. She could tell stories about her brother, or stories that her mother told her as well. I loved hearing them and would ask for my favorites over and over. What a rich treasure these stories were.

Recently, I've noticed that my own children have been asking for stories of things I did when I was a girl, and, more encouragingly, stories of things they remember, or barely remember, from their own childhood.

We strive to do so many things as parents. We want to raise, to nurture, to love, to teach, to cherish our children. Yet I also want my children to grow up with stories, good stories, of their own. I want their childhood to be a rich tapestry of memories. Life can get so busy, so overscheduled and so hectic. I don't want their childhood to be completely lost in regimen and routine.

So last summer, and the summer before that one, we started a tradition of making a "summer bucket list". And since then, I've been mindful of trying to create memorable experiences in the midst of our ordinary, everyday lives. I've written about a few of them, like building fairy houses, before.

This summer, I want to invite others along the journey with me. I love reading the ideas and adventures other families have. Bloggers are such a creative and interesting group of people, and I would love to read some of unique ways other are Making Memories with their children.

Please consider being a blessing to myself and others by sharing some of your own stories. Be blessed by reading suggestions and activities that others share. Please join us in a twice monthly blog meme designed to share the many ways in which we are all Making Memories.

Making Memories Meme Guidelines

Why: Because the times we have to spend with the children we love goes by all too quickly. The days are fleeting, the hours are few, and too soon they are grown.

Who: Parents, grandparents, caregivers, aunts and uncles. Anyone who desires to spend some quality time with the special child(ren) in their lives.

What: An opportunity to get and share ideas for child-friendly fun, activities, projects, and adventures. What you share can be a quick project, tips for a vacation or a road-trip, or a way of making an ordinary outing fun and memorable. What you share can be just for fun or it can have some educational or other value. As long as it's something you think the kids you know will look back on and treasure. Please share your ideas with the purpose of enabling another family to repeat your success.

When: Twice a month in the summer. I'll launch the web meme on the 1st and 15th of June, July, and August. Through the school year, this will likely drop down to once a month.

How: On the first and fifteenth of the summer months, I'll post my own Making Memories idea. At the bottom of my post, I'll have a linky tool. If you have an idea to share, please post a link to your own blog. Please make sure the link goes directly to the relevent blog post, and not just to your blog in general, so that readers can easily find what you'd like to share. Also, in your own post, please include a link back to my making memories post, so that your readers can enjoy others' ideas as well.

What about you? For this first round of sharing, please tell us about how you are planning on spending some of the summer. Do you have a typical summer kick off? Or do you have special routines or a system to balance "screen time" with more enriching activites? Do you have any insights concerning how to balance keeping your children active with preserving the spirit of the vacation days of summer?

Coming Soon....

These are the things I'm thinking about blogging about. Yes, that's how lame this post is. It isn't about anything in and of itself, its just about something that might be about something at some point in the future.

First of all though, a little girl whom has been on the hearts of my family and in our prayers just received a new heart last night. They did the transplant overnight. I can't imagine what a long night that must have been for the mother. The little girl went through the proceedure well, and is now in recovery. I can't write about anything else without getting that news out first. It will still be several weeks before they are sure that her body will accept the new heart.

With that said, I shall move on to far less critical issues.

Here are somethings I'd like to blog about. I'm just listing them out here, and organizing my thoughts

--I'd like to start a Making Memories blog meme for the summer. If I get my act in gear, I can launch it in the upcoming Homeschool Showcase over on Wierd, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. The deadline is May 30. (Hear that, self? Deadline.)

--I have a bunch of pictures of a pinata in various stages of completion awaiting a "how to make a pinata" post.

--I am perhaps crazy for the amount of work I put into the birthday parties for my kids, especially since I have two birthdays back to back. Further thoughts may or may not be forthcoming.

--I have an idea for how to regulate the amount of video games and screentime my kids engage in over the summer. Will it work? Who knows. Its another one of my brilliant ideas. Either it'll be a smashing success or a crash and burn failure. I never seem to have mediocre ideas.

--I have my own take on the Proverbs 31 woman, specially rewritten for a homeschooling mom. Or at least or me.

That's just five things. Not bad. Typity type. Typity type.

Ah, look, here's a Linky test. Could some kind soul help me test by posting a link to any family friendly blog post?

Ooooo....I'm surfin my life away....

I am ONE load of laundry away from being done with laundry for the week. The load is done and sitting in the dryer....but here I am blog surfing.

I am rationalizing this little slothliness by trying to pass this off as "teacher planning time."

See, I even found some math games to check out later.

I'm a regular workhorse I am.

Paddle-to-the-Sea, lessons 6-11

You can find our first 5 lessons here.

6. Paddle Meets a Sawmill

We briefly discussed diameter and what it meant that the log Paddle was stuck to was 4' thick. (In retrospect, I should have had the kids make a circle with a 4' diameter on the floor with yarn. Hindsight.) We talked about the spikes on the loggers boots and how the bull chain worked. We thought of other examples of a chain and gears or other examples of conveyer belts. We didn't have anything to build a bull chain or a conveyer belt with, but we did get out the K-Nex set and build some gear assemblies.

7. Paddle Meets a Friend

We studied the diagram of the sawmill in the book and talked about what happened at each part of the process. We talked about why the Frenchman dropped Paddle back into the river and why he added something to the message carved in Paddle's canoe. Then the kids each drew a detailed diagram of a factory from their imaginations.

8. The Largest Lake in the World

During the reading we discussed migration a little as we talked about the bird that landed on Paddle to rest. After the reading we did a lot of mapping. We had already traced the outlines of the five Great Lakes and the St Lawrence River during our activites for lesson 2. Now, I got their maps back out and they labeled Lake Nipigon, Lake Superior, and the Provence of Ontario. We reviewed some of the facts about Lake Superior. Then we marked Paddle's starting point, and used a pencil to draw in Paddle's route so far. "That's it?" asked Toa. "That's all he's gone? He has a long way to go!"

9. Paddle Crosses Two Borders

We discussed what driftwood was and the different types of grain. We talked about all the foods that can be made from various grains. We used a red colored pencil to trace the U.S/Canada border on our maps. We colored a dark green area around Lake Nipigon to show the tall pine forests. We colored a light green area in central Canada to show the grain fields. We drew a tiny railroad from the grain fields to Thunder Bay. We traced more of Paddles short route so far.  I was going to do a cooking project with them, finding and using a recipe that called for many different kinds of grains....but the house was overflowing with muffins, cookies, cake, and brownies, so we skipped the cooking project.

10. Life in a Northern Marsh

After the reading, we made a list of all the plants and animals that Paddle encountered in the marsh. We looked through magazines (a friend had given us a number of National Park and National Wildlife magazines) and we cut out pictures of those plants and animals. The kids each made a collage of the plants and animals of a northern wetland.

11. Paddle Finds One End of Lake Superior

Back to the map to label Minnesota and Wisconsin and to draw more of Paddles route. We put red dots on the map for the cities of Duluth and Superior. We started a rust science experiment in four clear plastic cups. We labeled the cups "control", "air and water", "no air, no water," and "water, no air". Then I cut four sections of steel wool approxiamately equal sizes. (Plain steel wool, not S.O.S pads coated in cleanser). We placed the control in its cup without doing anything to it. We soaked the two 'water' sections with 5 mL of water each, and then wrapped the "water, no air" tightly in plastic wrap before putting it in its cup. Likewise, we wrapped the "no air, no water" in plastic wrap and put it in its cup. The "air and water" section, nicely soaked, went into its cup as well. We set all four cups on the kitchen window sill, since we do most of our projects in the kitchen. It might have been interesting to do another set of four cups to place someplace dark. So far, we've had to pour a little more water in the "air and water" sample because it keeps drying out. Yeah, yeah, sue me for sloppy science. Before we put the steel wool away, we snipped off a tiny bit of it and the kids grabbed some magnets. We talked about how the steel wool was made from iron and was, therefore magnetic. Finally, we headed downstairs and listened to a cd called Listening to the Loons, part of a series called Solitudes. (Before reaching the western end of Lake Superior, Paddle drifted past a mostly wilderness border and encountered some loons. I think the loon has such an interesting sound, I wanted the kids to hear it.)

Weekly Wrap-Up: Paddling Away

First I need to sing a little freedom song. I'm so happy to no longer feel constrained to our old curriculum. We're still using it for Sweetling's history, literature, and vocabulary, but we've come out from under what had gotten to be a burden.

So last week and this week and the week before that, since I haven't updated in a while, we started reading Paddle-to-the-Sea together. I'm really pleased with the lessons and activities we're doing with it. Here is what we've done so far. I especially like the hands-on activities, that's been really good for Toa of Boy, and the family involvement has started to engage Sweetling again too :)

Last Thursday (remember, haven't updated for a while) was the end-of-the-year picnic for our co-op. My sister came along and helped me run an egg drop, which was a big success. Here are the rules I wrote for the contest. I think it went really smoothly, organizationally, but it did take a little longer than anticipated. We started inside-- after the kids had signed up by grade level, I had all the participants sit at one long table in the cafeteria with their projects. Smurf and I went through and checked each project. We had a few that didn't quite fall in the guidelines, so we agreed that those projects could participate, but would receive a slightly lowered prize category. So after we checked in projects, we headed outside for the drop.

The kids loved it. We did the first drop at about four feet or so. We used the top of a chain link fence as our height marker. The kids all lined up, everyone held their project at the same height as the fence, and took a step or two back. We all dropped together on the count of three. Then each project had to be opened, and the egg checked, its status marked, and the egg replaced (substituting any cracked eggs for new eggs.) This part of the drop took a little longer than I anticipated (and the start of the drop didn't happen as early as I was hoping, since we didn't get started on cleaning the rooms right at ten either.) Still, it went pretty smoothly, since I had already arranged the sign up by grades and had columns for each drop category and symbols for the condition of the egg.

(I have to add, at the bottom of each page I had Legend: 0=intact; /=cracked; X=broken. Underneath my word "Legend", Sweetling came along and wrote "of Zelda" in pencil.)

We then went on to drop from the first set of windows, which are about 1 1/2 stories high, and then, after eggs had been checked, from the second set of windows, about 2 1/2 stories high. We had 5 out of 14 projects that had followed all the guidelines and survived the highest drop.

Sadly, since Smurf and I were running the event, I didn't get any pictures. I should have given my camera to another mom to snap photos for me, but I didn't think of it. Boo hoo :(

Also last Friday, we found a new park not too far from us with a really cool nature trail. Pinkie joined us for a nature walk there. She showed Sweetling how to pull apart a honeysuckle blossom for a tiny taste of its nectar. Since either side of the nature trail was heavily lined with honeysuckle bushes, this was an activity often repeated on our excursion. We found two snake skins and glimpsed two frogs (well, the kids glimpsed one frog, and Pinkie nearly stepped on a second frog). We also saw an interesting, as yet unidentified bird that had the strangest call. It sounded like the chirping of a car being remotely locked or unlocked. And no, I didn't have the presence of mind to photograph it so we could figure out what it was. I didn't have my camera. I took photos of the kids on my cell phone though :)

This Monday, check it out, I'm in the current week now! This Monday I went to my first ever used curriculum sale. I showed great restraint in my purchases, only spending $20 dollars...and $10 of that was even something that was on my list! Be amazed with me. I found Sweetling's science textbook with a test and solutions guide for ten dollars, as opposed to the $65 its listed for on amazon. Toa of Boy went with me, and at his request, we got several books for him....cause anytime Toa gets excited over a book, I'm excited too! For himself and by himself, he found A Treasury of Beatrix Potter, The Adventures of Frog and Toad, My Nature Journal, and Reading to Learn about Animals...which I can't find a link for. It's a workbook from Bryan House Publishers of basic reading comprehension and some phonics exercises themed around animals and animal facts. Toa picked it out and said he wanted to do it. So, we have it.

But his favorite find of all was this amazing building set. I've never seen them before. They are like a cross between legos and erector sets called Universal by FischerTechnic. These things are incredible. If you don't follow any of the other book links, follow this simple amazon link to check these out. Or read this review I just found. Here is Toa with his first construction. It's a large fan turned by a crank attached to several gears and gear shaft assembly. (Toa has also attached a blue chair to the top of the fan's tower. I don't know why or who is going to sit near the spinning blades of death, but there you go.)

This Thursday, see I'm already on yesterdays stuff! This Thursday was our first week without co-op for the summer. I declared it a "get ready for birthday parties day", since both Toa and Sweetling have their parties next weekend. We started building Toa's pinata yesterday morning. Which means that for the next several days, the only dining table we have is covered with pinata in progress. I'll post directions on how to build your own pinata after the parties, in about two weeks. In the meantime, this is the state of my kitchen table.

Don't these photos want to make you just jump right in on making your own pinata?


Check out what others have been up to in more Weekly Wrap-Ups.

Paddle-to-the-Sea, lessons 1-5

We're reading Paddle-to-the-Sea as our Geography/Science study. I know there are a lot of other lesson plans already out on the internet, but I couldn't find the "perfect" one for us....so I'm making my own.

I'm sharing what we're doing here, in case its a help to anyone else.

We're reading one chapter, which is just one page, together a day, then doing a short activity that relates to the chapter. I'm not going to include a chapter summary with each lesson. Here's what we've done so far:

1. How Paddle Came to Be
During the reading, we talked about what a rudder was and what a ballast was an how metals had differing melting points. After reading, I gave each child a bar of Ivory Soap and got out the vegetable peeler, a grater, a pumpkin carving knife, and some other misc kitchen tools. We had a quick safety lesson about how to carve away from our hands, and then they carved some rough canoes out of their bars of soap.

2. Long River Reaching to the Sea
I printed an unlabeled map of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. After reading, the kids traced the shoreline of each of the Great Lakes with a blue colored pencil. As Paddle goes along his journey, we'll use these to map his progress and label each lake he passes through.

3. Paddle Starts on His Journey
After reading, we looked up animal tracks in the Jedi's old Boy Scout Manuel. The kids hand drew the different types of tracks the boy found in the snow around Paddle.

4. Brook and Beaver Pond
After reading, we watched two BBC videos I had found on you tube.
This one on beavers building a dam and pond.
And then this one, about their lodge.
I was going to have Sweetling transfer the metric measurements given in the videos into standard for us, and have Toa of Boy draw a beaver lodge or a map of a beaver pond, but by the time we had read, watched the videos, and discussed them, it was time to move on.

5. Breakup of the River
For this lesson, we talked about how and why ice floats and how because ice floats, fish and other water animals can survive the winter underneath an insulating ice sheet. We talked about the composition of the water molecule and built little models with toothpicks and styrofoam pieces. First we put individual "molecules in a bowl to see how much space they would take up. Then, we took those same molecules out and started putting them together into a rough lattice work to compare how much space it now took up. (Yeah, the science isn't perfect.) Then, we filled up some plastic bathroom cups with varying levels of water. We marked the water level of each cup with a permanent marker on the outside of the cup. We put the cups in the freezer, so we could compare how much space the water will take up when it is frozen versus when it was a liquid.  

Paddle lessons continue here.

Pokemon Party

Toa of Boy wants a Pokemon Party for his birthday this year.

Ok, so I can make a 3D cake shaped and decorated like a pokeball and I can send out invitations that say "[Friend's name]....I choose you!!!!! To come to my birthday!" And I can make a pickachu pinata.

But other than that, I was rather stumped for Pokeman birthday party ideas. Pin the Tail on the Pickachu occurred to me, but I'm not sure how popular that will be with boys at the party.

Google. Google has the answer to every question. Forty-two isn't really the Answer, Google is.

From a google search then:
*PokéRinger Toss: For this Pokemon birthday party game, you'll need 2 stakes or sturdy sticks, large tossing rings or rope, masking tape or string.

Before the party, hammer 2 stakes into the ground a good distance apart. (Keep in mind the age of kids and their skill level when determining the distance.) If you find that the tossing rings are too heavy for your guests, you can make rings out of rope. Form rings that are about 10" in diameter, so they'll easily slip over the stakes.

Have the kids stand behind a masking tape or string, and invite the players to take turns tossing their rings around the stakes.

*Pikachu Stomp: It's best to play this Pokemon birthday party game outside. You'll need about 50-60 balloons and Pikachu sticker (or a small theme item). Before blowing up balloons, put a Pikachu sticker in one of them. During the game, the kids have to pop the balloons by stepping on them. A person who finds the sticker wins a prize!

Gotta Catch Them All:
Hide 32 Poke balls in the grass and have an Easter-egg hunt style game. Use permament markers to color styrofoam ball to look like poke balls.

And I really liked this one, but neither Toa nor Sweetling knew what a Baltoy was. We don't watch the Pokemon cartoon. In fact, I'm not sure Toa knows there even is a Pokemon cartoon. (Shhhhh....don't tell him!) So, I can't use the tag game below, but I think I'll come up with a more generic Pokemon version:

*Baltoy Bust: Pick one or more players to be Robots and everyone else is a Baltoy. When Robots hear the command "Get 'em", they must try to catch the Baltoy. If players get caught, they must go to a designated area called "the crying pen," where they must stand still, on one foot, until more than one Baltoy is in the pen. (Baltoy sleeps while standing on one foot, but it can't be rescued while sleeping.)

When several Baltoy are caught in the pen, they must stand with their legs spread out and pretend to cry until rescued. (Baltoy always cries in unison with others of its kind.) To be rescued, one of the free Baltoy-friends has to crawl through the captured player's legs. Keep playing the game until everyone has been caught, or it's time to move to the next game.