Summer Highlights Week 3-Another Busy Week

Monday-

We woke up in an experimenting mood and decided to work with the printing painting technique using stamp letters, a toothbrush, broccoli, stencils, bubble wrap, shells, toy wheels, bolts, and sponges.

Tuesday-

In the morning I found Hannah and Jamilah hard at work making sock puppets.  They entertained the little ones with a short puppet show before we headed off to the library for a scrapbooking class.  As usual I was really impressed with the quality of materials and  instruction considering it was a free program.  Even though this particular class was one we had to sign up for ahead of time, I still don’t understand why more people don’t take advantage of these free programs.  There were only about 6 children in the class and I think the limit was 15. Also, it turned out that the instructor was a fellow homeschooling mother whom I have known for several years now so that was another positive aspect of the class for the girls.

Hannah and Jamilah caught on pretty quickly and learned some fun scrapbooking techniques.   Hannah chose a botanical gardens theme and Jamilah chose an arts/crafts theme.

Wednesday- 

Wednesday was a stay at home cleaning/laundry day.  We did manage to listen to a short audio book while we folded laundry together called Stone Fox.  The story was about an 10-year-old boy who lives with his sick Grandfather and enters a dogsled race in hopes of winning the money needed to pay the back taxes on the grandfather’s potato farm so they could keep the farm. The boy had some fierce competition during the race from a Native American who races each year and is always the winner.  The result of the race surprised us a bit, but I won’t spoil the ending for those interested in the book. 

Another surprise we had this week which was a very pleasant surprise for the girls was that there is actually another addition to the classic Little House series  called  Old Town in the Green Groves. This novel written by Cynthis Rylant fills in two years of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life that she didn’t write a novel about but were based on Mrs. Wilder’s memoirs.

Thursday-

We headed out to the park early in order to try to beat the heat which was almost impossible.  Some fellow Muslim homeschoolers met us there, so the children and I enjoyed ourselves tremendously. 

In the afternoon we baked a couple batches of fudge brownies which didn’t last long over here.

Friday-

There was a free Stories with Art session at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts that we attempted to attend but we ended up at the educational resource library instead of the library inside the main museum where the class was being held.  Even though we missed the class, the visit wasn’t a total loss as we did get to tour the Pre-Columbian Americas exhibit for the first time.  It was something that was on my list of things to do with the children, maashaa Allah.  The picture quality isn’t as good as it could be due to the fact that flash isn’t allowed inside the museum.

Finally, when we went back to the resource room there were cutouts of birch bark canoes and dugout canoes available, so the girls ended up with a museum tour and a hands-on activity of our own after all despite missing the scheduled class, maashaa Allah.

I hope everyone enjoyed their week as well. What did you do this week?

 Have a wonderful weekend!