Message in a Bottle

Summer is a great time to teach your child how to properly write a letter.

Teach them the fundamentals and help them write a letter to a friend or a relative. Stuff the rolled notes and letters into an empty plastic bottle, along with shells, flowers, or other tiny treasures.

Then you can teach your child how to make an address label. Seal the bottle tightly and stick on the address label, then you can go on a field trip to the local post office to mail it (ours cost $1.17 to mail).

Independence Day

Today is a great time to talk about the flag of our country.

You can count the stripes, count the stars, talk about rectangles and squares. Use the flag for a fun lesson in math by adding red stripes with blue stripes, or white stripes with red stripes.

Find a patriotic story about the flag and read it together.

Talk about the meaning of the flag.
50 stars represent the 50 states
13 stripes represent the original 13 colonies
Red stands for courage and valor
White stands for innocence and purity
Blue stands for vigilance, perseverance, and justice

Learn the pledge of allegiance.

How to treat the American Flag.

The flag should be displayed from sunrise to sunset.

If the flag is displayed at night it should be illuminated.

Never allow the flag to touch the ground.

The flag should be raised quickly.

To store the flag it should be folded neatly.

The flag should be cleaned and mended when necessary.

When the flag is worn it and can no longer be used to represent
our country it will need to be destroyed by burning in a
dignified manner.

The flag is sometimes flown at half-staff to show respect for
someone who has died.

July 4th Fun

Dramatic Play: Fireworks

Children love to play. Let them pretend to set off fireworks
and make all the explosion noises that go
along with them. They can pretend to set off giant or
tiny ones, whatever they want, and everyone
can get into the spirit and
wave imaginary sparklers around.

Pretzel Sparklers

Give children long pretzel rods.

Have them dip the top section in melted
white chocolate or white frosting.

Then, have them dip them into red
sugar crystals or sprinkles or other
candies on top.

They can wait until the chocolate is dry to eat
or they can eat them right away.

4th of July Strawberries!

Ingredients:

Fresh Strawberries, large and with stems
White Frosting or white chocolate
Blue Sprinkles or colored sugar

Take a large washed and dried strawberry
and hold it by the stem.

Dip the strawberry half way in melted
white chocolate.(If you don't have strawberries
with stems, use a fork to dip them into the
chocolate.)

Then quickly dip in blue sprinkles for a delicious
patriotic treat!!

Cute Craft

Paper Plate Porthole

Supplies:
2 paper plates
Silver craft paint
8 pieces of cereal (cheerios or fruit loops)
Fish crackers
Silk plant leaves
Sea shells
Sand
White craft glue
Blue cellophane
Wax paper
Scissors

Take both paper plates and set them on the table. One should be right side up and the other should be upside down.
On the plate that is right side up, draw your sea floor about 1/3 up the center of the plate.
Line the floor area with white glue, use an old paintbrush or your finger to spread the glue out evenly.
Cover the wet glue with sand and set aside to dry.
On the upside down plate, draw a circle where you will cut out your porthole in the center of the plate.
Glue the cereal pieces around the circle; these are the bolts on the porthole. Let dry.
Paint the cereal pieces and the paper plate from the outer edge to your penciled lines. Don’t worry about painting over the lines a little, as you will be cutting it out. Set aside to dry.
Take the paper plate with the sand on it and hold it over a sheet of wax paper. Turn the plate sideways and gently tap it to loosen any excess sand. The sand should end up on the wax paper and you can save that for another project.
Glue sea life onto the plate with the sand floor. Glue on shells, silk leaves, and fish crackers. Let dry.
Take the silver painted plate and cut out the center circle to create your porthole window. Place it gently over the top of the other plate to see if you are happy with its size and viewing area. Increase size of the hole if you like.
Turn silver plate upside down.
Cut a piece of blue cellophane large enough to cover the hole on the plate and glue in place. Let dry.
Place porthole plate over the top of the sea life plate and glue together. Let dry.
You can add a hanger to the project if you like, simply glue some string or yarn between the two plates at the top during step 13.

5 Tips to have the best summer ever:

1. Set aside some time every day to have fun with your children. Whether it's running through the sprinkler together on a hot afternoon or counting the stars on a blanket in the backyard before bedtime, do one thing a day to connect and have fun.

2. Institute daily reading time and biweekly library visits. Read to your kids, and have them read on their own.

3. Help your kids develop a healthy relationship with time , one that is without technology. Time is, after all, what life is made of. To help kids learn to structure their time, set up a Boredom Buster Jar. I found some great ideas at www.sugardoodle.net

4. Strictly limit technology to certain times of the day. When kids are bored and it's hot outside, screentime has a way of swallowing up all their time. It may be a good babysitter, but we all know that's not what kids need. The more you limit screen time, the better kids get at finding creative things to do with their time -- and the less they bug you to watch TV or play computer games.

5. Plan some fantastic family memories, even if you don’t have the money or time to head off on vacation. Don’t wait. The key is to get out a calendar and schedule the things you really want to do.

Pass the Ice Cube

This is fun game for a hot day. We put water in a cupcake pan and froze it to make big pieces of ice. We played "Hot Potato" with ice cubes. It was really fun to see how long it took for the ice cube to melt. We did have to set up a "no throwing the ice" rule.

Father's Day Gift Idea

The Dad at our house loves snacks. One idea that we are going to do is to give him a six pack of IBC Rootbeer (his favorite) and a container of nuts with a card that says, "We are nuts about you, Pop!".