Beach Reliefs

Last week we met up with some homeschooling friends and enjoyed a wonderful morning at the beach. We have not been to this beach in about a year, but it is such a lovely little beach. When we head to Anderson Island I think we will take more time to stop here and play.

The day we visited it was a pretty good low tide... which made for some fun finds. A very different experience than Titlow Beach or Penrose Point as this beach is a very sandy beach with little rock. Creatures are harder to locate but you have fun getting in and out of the waves to collect them. As well, the kids simply had fun playing on a sandy beach.

After doing some low tide exploration the kids collected various bits of shell, rock, little bits of drift wood, and some other little finds. We gathered up in the loose sandy section of the beach and created beach reliefs with plaster of paris. This is such a simple activity that creates such wonderful results that kids and adults love!! A favorite activity of ours for sure!

The kids all created some wonderful masterpieces, were very creative and simply had a great time!

End Of Year Celebration

To end our school year I organized an End of Year Celebration with some fellow homeschooling families. This is only the second year doing this and it grew a lot this year, I am hoping that by the end of next year it will be even larger.... as we all (children & adults) loved it. It was a wonderful way to put a close to the year or simply award your child some recognition on accomplishments they worked hard on throughout the past year. This was a a nice approach for homeschoolers who followed various calendars - it was not assumed each family was 'ending' the school year as some were awarding reading awards, special class awards, workshops certificates, art awards, musical talents, etc. A wonderful mix!!

We invited all the students to bring along some of their work from the year to share.  There was such a variety of work displayed, everything from display boards of art work to Lego creations, photo montages to portfolios of work, sewing samples and penmanship work, live music and singing. The variety of work was wonderful and really offered a great show to enjoy for both the kids and the adults.

After we all enjoyed time viewing the kids work we viewed a slide show of the year as a group and kids were then invited to share their work. This offered them a chance to do some public speaking (which was so much fun!) and some did musical pieces... so much talent! To finish out the evening each family then brought up their students to recognize their year.

I did Holly's award, recognizing her First Grade year. She had an amazing year filled with so many activities and field trips, classes and group experiences, math and art, science and nature club, reading to many books to count, spelling and writing, projects and cooking... the list is endless! Holly has grown as a student and we are so very proud of her. She is now heading to second grade this coming fall -- another wonderful year ahead I am sure!

It was a wonderful evening and I am looking forward to watching these kiddos grow through the years and see their wonderful accomplishments!

Imaginets

I am starting to put together ideas for my youngest one during next years school season. Right now I set our table up with mini-stations for him to work through while I do lessons with my daughter. He has enjoyed these stations but as we re-use the same materials over and over his attention span is slowly dwindling. He is getting a bit older to where I will put our a bit more art, basic science exploration and letter work this year -- he is ready for it.

One new learning activity I recently picked up is called Imaginets. It is a wooden case with a magnetic white board and colorful wooden shapes that are magnets. He can free play with it or use the cards included to create shapes, things or animals. There are very easy cards that we will use to start and much more challenging cards he can work up to. I have let him try this out a couple of times now and he loves it! I love that it is very well made, thin for storage, age appropriate but will grow with him and can even work for travel in our trailer. It should make for a great addition to our home and learning table!