A Little Summer Fun

Earlier this summer, Josh made a request.  He asked to visit the beach that is the farthest South on Lake Michigan.  If I remember correctly, this request came after swimming in Lake Michigan further North where it was 42 degrees.  There are many things that we couldn't do this summer but visiting Lake Michigan is always a for sure thing! 

My mom joined us on our adventure and I think we all had a great time!  Our adventure started with a fun lunch at a long standing tradition of a burger place just outside of New Buffalo. 

Darryl and I have eaten at Redamak's one time years ago so we thought it would be fun adventure to take the whole family.  Due to Covid, they have an outside ordering window and we were fortunate enough to end up with one of their two picnic tables to enjoy our meal.  The burgers were big and messy and the onion rings were super tasty.  We were ALL very full when we were done!

From there, we drove through New Buffalo to head to the city beach.  New Buffalo is a beautiful town with a marina that houses some incredible yachts. The city beach was huge with plenty of space to spread out. 

 My mom and the boys were having a blast in the waves! 

Lake Michigan is always beautiful. 

It was a "red flag warning" day due to the huge waves and strong under current so we stayed close to shore - we still got soaked due to the high waves!  

After spending a few hours at the beach, we headed back to the car to continue on our trek along the lake shore.  We started out going South so the Josh and Nate could step foot in another state! 

 They first stood right on the state line with one foot in Michigan and one foot in Indiana. 

 Next, they stood in Indiana. 

And the "Michigan" sign on the other side of the road. 

We explored alone the lake shore and saw some amazing homes and great views.  We also stopped at Warren Dunes State Park. 

 This state park as huge dunes that you can actually climb (if you feel so led HA!)  They are just amazing. 

 One of the reasons we love exploring is you find neat stuff - Josh and Nate had fun with this huge log.  

 And we found this amazing tree with a huge above ground root system. 

From the park, we continued on our trek and found a great park for a picnic dinner. 

We stopped at one more park before hitting the highway. 

At this park, there is a plaque that commemorates homes that fell off of the dune/cliff that we were standing on.  There was an earth slide that caused the homes to become unstable, then another one not long after.  Several homes were lost while several more were able to be moved.  There are still a couple of houses left on the cliff but are close to falling into the lake as well.  Nate, my history buff, loved this information 

It was truly a great adventure - we all came home sandy, tired, and sun kissed.  

Week 5 - Looks and Links

Wow.  We are on week 5 of our summer plans.  I actually thought I'd be ready for a Vacation week after week 2 HA!  Instead I've enjoyed planning our activities and seeing what the kids can do.

So, why is this week a vacation week?  Very simply because it's a short week.  We have family in town this week so we are doing a few things with them on Monday.  My extra kids are also taking Tuesday off.

That brings us back together for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  I know we will be busy with our family in the evenings so I wanted to keep the day time a little more relaxed for us.

I had planned to use the week as a "project week" but that did not happen either.  We were busy, stayed up late, and I wasn't super motivated.  On Friday I finally did some cleaning and picking up around the house.

I had also hoped to have some photos of those projects that didn't get done . . .but I don't HA!  Oh well.

So, instead, I'll leave you with this cute photo.

Summertime Week 4 - Links and Looks

This week was a little different.  I decided that instead of doing individual time in the morning, we would take a break this week.  This is not a true "vacation" week (that's next week!) but just a little more fun!  I decided to make this week "water week".  I'll admit freely that the train kind of fell of the tracks this week HA!

Monday - The kids played with Water Guns I picked up in the Aldi "aisle of shame" a few weeks ago.  We kept the hose filling the bucket so they could refill the guns and then they played.

Tuesday - I bought a new sprinkler.  The kids liked it at first but then complained that the water was cold and they couldn't get used to it because it just "sprinkled" them HA!  Oh well, they can't all be winners!

Wednesday - So, I picked up a "splash pad" for the kids to play in . . .. but it didn't do anything.  The outside ring filled up but no water came spraying out of the holes!!  Instead, we went to the beach!  The kids were very excited!  When we arrived, there was only one other family; when we left, the beach was full.  Next time we go, we will aim to leave home about an hour earlier so that we have more time without anyone there.  I only got a couple of cell phone photos and they aren't great (plus I shared them on Saturday!)

Thursday - This was a free day because I had a meeting in the morning followed by grocery shopping.

Friday - It was a rainy day plus Friday Free Day so everyone hung out inside.

We still had a theme this week which was "Animals".  The great thing about this theme is it was super broad so I could pick any activities relating to any animals.  Since the afternoons are out of control hot this week, we kept our group time in the afternoon in one of the coolest rooms of the house - the dining room (right next to the AC unit!)

Monday - First, we worked on this really awesome Food Chain Petal.  This is one of these activities that I would have used in my class room year after year!  We followed that with a great game of Bingo - Animal Track Bingo.  Some of the animal tracks are pretty cool - we liked the Zebra track the best.  Finally, we started an Endangered Animal Lapbook.  I heard Nate call this group time our "Arts and Crafts" time today and that made me smile.  He is really enjoyed making Lap books and doing the various activities.

Tuesday - Today's plans changed because Nate's mattress came in and we wanted to pick it up.  That didn't change our plans . .. but when we put it on his bottom bunk bed we discovered that his mattress was REALLY tall and he couldn't really lay under the top bunk bed anymore HA!  So, our afternoon was taken over by cleaning, organizing the bedroom and taking apart the bunk beds!

Wednesday - Well, by the time we got home from the beach, had lunch, and everyone took a "clean the lake off" shower, it was 3:30 so there was no group time!  At this point, I'm going to save the rest of our "Animal" them for our next regular week.

Thursday - Today was a free day!

Friday - Friday Free day!  I have a graduation album to work on and finish so that was my goal for the day!

Summertime Week 3- Links and Looks

I count week 3 as successful!  As always, we did not get through nearly what I had planned!  The main reason is because things took the kids longer then I thought they would!  It's fine though, I'd rather over plan then not have enough to keep them busy.

We continued with the morning individual time scheduled for Tuesday-Thursday.  Since this is the least favorite thing the kids do, they are glad that it is down to just three days instead of five.  Sometimes it's less than that due to our schedule for the week!

Our theme this week was "4th of July"!  I really had fun pulling together ideas for this holiday week.  I also had a little more success finding free things compared to last week.

Monday - We started out our group time with a 4th of July word search that you can find HERE.  They kids worked on it for about 20 minutes but no one finished it.  We moved on to our next activity which was a  trivia scavenger hunt.  The kids had a sheet with questions on it; I had taped the answers around the house.  They just had to find them and write them down under the correct question. You can find it HERE.  After that we played some simple BINGO games. The down side to this BINGO game is that there were only 3 cards so the kids all played the same card and won all at the same time.  They loved it.  Finally, we worked on a 4th of July Lapbook. 

Tuesday - Today they focused on the Lapbook.   We also made Pinwheels.

Wednesday - Our first activity was a Mystery Graph Photo which is found HERE.  This is all we did because it took the kids a full hour to work on this and only Nate finished.  I totally expected this to take about 20 minutes!

Thursday - The main goal today was finishing some things.  We worked on finishing up the Lapbooks, finishing their mystery pictures and finishing their word searches. 

All in all, this was a good week.  I enjoyed the kids projects and I "think" they did also. 

Summertime Week 1 -- Looks and Links

This summer has required some planning.  For the past 4 years, use of the campground pool has kept us busy every afternoon so I never felt like I needed to limit use of electronics.  Not to mention we had other activities that took us out of the house various days of the week.  This year, though, I knew that I would need to do some intentional things or there would be a lot of TV and X box going on!  I'm not opposed to either - it's summer time after all  -- but I'd like the kids to step away for a bit each day.  There is a theme each week that pertains to what we do in group time in the afternoon.  The morning has some review/individual time. 

This weeks theme is: Oceans

I introduced the schedule to the kids as follows:

-- 10:45-11:45 - Individual Time
-- 1:30-3:30 - Group time (This time varies depending on our activities)

Here's week 1:

Individual Time:

I purchased packets for review for each of the kids.  Each day there is a work page that covers math and language art skills that they have to complete.
First Grade
Fourth Grade
Fifth Grade

These packs are awesome because I don't have to do the work.  It's just a matter of printing off the work pages and putting them into a notebook.  It also includes the teacher pages for easy correction.

Besides the review page, the three oldest have to practice Multiplication facts and take timed tests each day.  The first grader is practicing adding and subtracting.

All the kids are also supposed to read for 15 minutes each morning.

Josh and Nate are supposed to practice piano and complete a handwriting page in their book until the book is complete.

Keeping it real:  The review page took each of the kids between 25-35 minutes to complete on Day 1.  Since individual time is only hour it is a tight fit to get everything done in that time frame.  I'm hopeful that as the weeks progress they will get faster :-)
2. By the second day they were MUCH faster and were able to finish everything in the hour plus even have a few minutes left to find something else to do.

Group Time:

Monday - Our friends were gone today so the boys got a free day.

Tuesday: We started our fun about Oceans - this is not in depth teaching by any means but rather just some fun info and activities.

I found some great "theme packs" at Education.com so I purchased a one month membership so I could download everything.

From the packet we completed a Ocean Salt Evaporation experiment, an Ocean Animal crossword puzzle and they started coloring book marks. (For the record, we worked on the bookmarks for three days and Josh and Nate are STILL not done HA!  They are going for perfection!!)

Wednesday:

We completed the Ocean Zones work sheet found at Simple Everyday Mom.  She has several great ideas for ocean studies included on this page.

We also did a color by number worksheet about Ocean Zones but I can't locate the link for that at the moment.  Here's a photo:

Finally, we completed a craft from our theme pack - a port hole.  It was a super simple but fun craft and they look really cool.

Thursday:

First we did an ABC order page about Hammerhead Sharks which can be found HERE.

Then we did this really cool Ocean Math Activity.  The kids had to roll dice to build their ocean scene and then do some math problems using their scene.

Friday - Our Friday schedule only includes the individual time in the morning (just enough to pull them off electronics for a bit) but the bonus this week was that our two friends were gone so the boys got a free day :-)

I think week one went well.  They don't love the individual time because my boys feel like it is "School" no matter how many times I say it is review HA!  But, they have told me they really enjoy the group time activities.  On average, we are spending about an hour in group time