Music, Dance, Drama and More

Tambourine

Basket Toss

Items Needed:
Wiffle balls or Wiffle golf balls, bean bags, playground ball (We chose Wiffle balls)
Bowl
Laundry basket


Place Wiffle balls in a bowl and place the basket on the side propped up with a pillow or books to tilt it a little. Give a quick demonstration. I chose to do the basket toss. You could also have your child roll them in the basket like soccer and a goal, or you could bounce a play ground ball into the basket. Many options to choose from!

This kept my oldest son entertained but my little one could care less after 5 min. He'd throw them all in the gather them all up again. Super handy to have the bowl (a colander from their kitchen tools) near.

Source: Unplugged Play

Library

I have a confession. I'm addicted to children's books. Whenever we go to the library which has been every two weeks I always pick out more books then my boys. I love reading to my boys, it's such a great way to bond with them and it builds their imaginations. I swear their imaginations have growth exponentially just by simply reading to them. Not only that but it builds their vocabularies. You want to have a child that enjoys reading when they grow up? READ TO THEM. I can't stress that enough.

Here's some statistics about reading:

Parents are key reading role models. High frequency reading parents are six times more likely to have high frequency reading kids.  (2008 Kids & Family Reading Report)

Every school day in America, 3,000 students drop out -- the majority of them are poor readers. Students with below grade level reading skills are twice as likely to drop out of school as those who can read on or above grade level. (Adolescent Literacy: A National Reading Crisis)

The performance advantage among students whose parents read to them in their early school years is evident regardless of the family's socio-economic background. 
( Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) )

Children who grow up in homes where books are plentiful go further in school than those who don't. Children with low-education families can do as well as children with high-education families if they have access to books at home. (Family scholarly culture and educational success: Books and schooling in 27 nations 2010 )

When children are provided with 10 to 20 self-selected children's books at the end of the regular school year, as many as 50 percent not only maintain their skills, but actually make reading gains. (Bridging the Summer Reading Gap, by Anne McGill-Franzen and Richard Allington)

Students who read widely and frequently are higher achievers than students who read rarely and narrowly. (Scholastic: Classroom Libraries Work!)

Children learn an average of 4,000 to 12,000 new words each year as a result of book reading. (Scholastic: Classroom Libraries Work!)

Children in classrooms without literature collections read 50% less than children in classrooms with such collections. (International Reading Association)



Source: Scholastic Website

Visit at Bampa's and Yia Yia's

My in-laws moved so we decided to go see their new home up in Hooper while we were in UT visiting. They have a huge yard (an acre), chickens, two dogs, two bunnies, and will be getting two alpacas. 

Bampa giving them a ride on his new Father's Day gift! They loved it!

Forth of July 2013

We had fireworks at my sister's house with Bampa and Gma. T isn't afraid of anything and he loved the sparklers...

D didn't want anything to do with them at first but eventually he liked them too.

Watching the street ones go off. The neighbors also had the aerial ones so that was fun to look all about the neighborhood and see different shows going off.