Snozzcumbers, Frobscottle, Whizzpoppers, oh my!

We have been reading some Roald Dahl books aloud in the evenings together.

Our first book, The Twits, is now one of Olivia's favorites. She loved hearing of the tricks and pranks that were being played. When she stands on her head she says she is Mugglewump...and I tell her she better be careful she doesn't get the shrinks!!

The book we are reading now is The BFG. We've read past the Whizpzoppers chapter...boy, the girls loved that one!!!

Creative Summer

The girls have been going to the drama workshop each week. They have a lot of fun at them and it really is a great program to help kids build confidence and break out of their shell. I managed to take a couple pictures just before the class was ending. Coincidently it was when they were playing a game called family photo. The kids were to pretend they were getting their picture taken and had to act out what emotion or action was suggested. The first photo was when the kids were to make a funny face photo. The second picture shows the kids pretending to sneeze for the picture. Other ones I heard them do were angry and bored.

The girls also went to the last Creative Kids Club meeting at the library. They made guitars out of shoe boxes, paint stirrers, popscicle sticks, glue, tape, and buttons. Oh yeah...rubber bands, too. After they made their's, the girls got up on the stage and put on a concert for the rest of the kids and their parents. They're not shy. There was singing involved, too!

Olivia went to the Build & Grow workshop at Lowe's while Georgia was at a nature class about creek studies. Unfortunately for Georgia, it rained most of the time and her class was only able to be outside for a short while. No wading in the creek that class...they learned about creek life from inside the nature center.

The Build & Grow project that week was building a treasure chest. It has a lock on the outside and a false bottom in the inside, too. Olivia made hers at Lowe's and we were able to bring a kit home for Georgia to do after her class. It was the hardest one we had to do so far. A lot of the kids were putting the wrong parts on, even with adult helpers. Georgia did not want any help...she wanted to figure it out herself. And she did great!

Yesterday we went to another Build & Grow but they did not have the kits for the kids! They passed out a seed planting kit instead. Instead of just leaving, the girls and I decided to walk around the store a while. We had fun looking at everything.

They have had the clay out a few times. Georgia has been making a bunch of animals. I only have a picture of her penguin. I'll have to take some pictures of the other ones she's made.

Creative Kids Club

Today the girls went to another Creative Kids Club meeting at the library. This time they made some sculptures using plastic wrap and clear packing tape. They both decided to use a decorative pumpkin as a model. They wrapped it with plastic wrap, covered it with the tape, and carefully removed the shell they made.

Yesterday they both attended a drama workshop. They had a blast. They'll have it once a week for the month of July. In August, Georgia wants to try out for a play at the local art center.

In the Backyard

The girls have been caring for the tomatoes...

and snacking on ones that are ready.

They've been having fun with water guns, cooling each other down or shooting at targets they drew with chalk.

They played soccer with some neighborhood kids, baseball, lacrosse, and tossed a boomerang.

They've watched the daring jumping spider they caught a couple weeks ago make a nest. And we saw lots of little spider babies emerge. They caught another of the same spider type of spider and put the two together to see what would happen. They second spider made a nest on the opposite side of the jar...which makes it tricky to open and feed. The two grown spiders have pretty much left each other alone except for a few sparring matches we witnessed when we put some food in for them.

You can see the nest on the left. The adult spider will hide in there occasionally. You can also see the little spider babies...the little black dots. The second adult spider is under the lid. It has been very fascinating.

Another creature they caught is the black field cricket. We are thinking he may be too big for our spider friends to eat.

Other things this month...

Uploading pictures off my camera for the month and have some more I'll share...

Earlier this month the girls took out the shells they collected from the creek in May, as well as shells they collected from Virginia Beach, VA and York Beach and Wells Beach in Maine. They were grouping them, touching them, drawing them, smelling them, listening to them, learning about them.

Georgia, feeling inspired by the movie Imagine That, wanted to know what scones were. We looked up some recipes and realized we had ingredients to make cranberry scones.

Olivia wanted to know who the Queen of England was...also inspired by Imagine That. (same scene as scones...the girls love that scene!)

Georgia went to the Creative Kids Club at the library where they made a tambourine out of paper, paper clips, and bottle caps.

Olivia had her first visit with the dentist.

And added some pictures to her alphabet book. She loves cutting out pictures, words, and letters from magazines and uses them in her alphabet book, or in collages.

Pan starts with a P.

The girls are also participating in the summer reading program at the library, have played soccer, captured bugs, fed the daring jumping spider they captured, watched it make a nest and later found lots of itty bitty spider babies.

Bee Feeding

The girls noticed a bee collecting nectar in a clover patch in the backyard. They really enjoyed watching her...and even held out some clover for her to sip.

Girls talked about how cool bees are...how they make honey, how they pollinate flowers and help in growing food, how our bee was a worker bee which meant she was female, and how they can travel a few miles in search of good nectar...and how they are declining in number.

Our bee was a bumblebee, a gentle kind of bee. The girls were very calm and moved slowly around her. We visit the honeybees at the nature center and have practiced walking calmly and slowly by them, so they knew how they should act. We talked about how it would sting if it felt threatened, and unlike a honeybee, the bumblebee's stinger was not barbed so it did not die after stinging.

They were so fascinated...I loved watching their excitement and wonder.