Summer Adventure 2016

It’s the beautiful time of the year when students stay home and parents have their turn.  Well, I’m a parent and I had an idea wiggle into my brain that I would have my daughter and her friends read, do a bit of math, and art projects.  Well, today was day one.  I think I already need a nap.

The day started off early when my daughter’s friends showed up an hour early.  Yep and hour early.  Ok, so we were still in our jammies and needed to get dressed and eat breakfast.

The first thing I had the girls do was to put their names on their workbooks.  We also went over the calendar. There will be three months of dedicated sleepovers, movie nights, reading, math, practicing of band instruments (I should probably apologize to the neighbors in advance), science experiments, gardening, theater/zoo/museum visits, and lots of art projects.

Summer Reading

So today was actually the first day of sign up at the library for their reading program.  It’s free; so that is what we did.  We signed up in our respected grade levels.  My daughter is going for 20 books in six weeks, and the other three will have 100.  Granted that means I’m reading 100 children’s books.  We will be busy.

Afterwards, we headed home and had lunch and read a bit.  After the little ones went down for a nap we headed outside and started to tie-dye shirts.  The girls had a blast.

Tie-Dye Mania

Tye-Dye Shirts

Basic Steps for unpredictable results

1. Get a t-shirt in your size and tie-dye kit
2. Fold, wrinkle, ball up your shirt (we just go for it)
3. Put rubber bands around the shirt to hold your folds
4. Put gloves on (use the rubber bands in the kits like a bracelet to hold the gloves on so it doesn’t slip-make sure it’s not too tight)
5. Sometimes it helps to have ones for the feet too-it takes about a week to come off skin
6. Add water to the dye bottle and shake
7. Apply dye to shirt
8. Wrap in Saran-wrap and let it sit for 6-8 hours
9. Spay with garden hose to get extra dye off
10. Rinse in large bucket to get extra dye off
11. Unwrap rubber bands
12. Rinse again to get more extra dye off
13. Wash separate from other clothing to get extra dye off
14. Dry
15. Finally wear your amazing shirt

We have done tie-dye shirts at the beginning of summer so we can wear them all summer long.  This year they are doing them so I can keep track of them when we go somewhere.

Artfully,

Mrs. Berry

A Fairy Tale of Personal Reading Interests

A Fairy Tale of Personal Reading Interests

by Mrs. Berry

Once upon a time there was a little girl who liked to read.  This is where our story takes a nasty turn. When she was older she didn’t like to read so much in high school.  They told her what to read and analyzed the joy out of reading.  Don’t despair for our story has hope. When in college, the girl took a Japanese literature class where she discovered a new style where there were not always happy endings or even endings.  This intrigued the girl and she started to read some more.  She met a boy who also loved to read and soon they were married.  They filled their bookshelves with many books.  They had a baby girl and they read to her every day.  One day they went to the local library during the summer and discovered their summer reading program.  The girl was excited because they had an adult version.  She read so many books that summer for herself.  She loved how the words escaped their pages and played in her imagination.  The family read happily ever after to this day.

The End …. or is it the beginning?

-Mrs. Berry