Skyscape was the theme of the third day of the public library’s summer children’s program. Today was all about things you see in the sky.
They had set up a fun game on the sidewalk that connected the different planets. Between each planet they did a different movement like jump on one leg or twirl around.
I’m so glad and I’m sure Sister is so glad that Nanny is able to take her to this each week. Sister loves all things outer space right now. I know she is just loving all of these hands on activities.
We created a Space Journal for Sister to keep all of her space themed crafts in. She is loving getting to add new papers to it each week.
A trip to St. Louis, Missouri is not complete without a stop at the Gateway Arch National Park (formally the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial).
Gateway Arch National Park
The last time we were here they were still working on the museum under the Gateway Arch. We were so excited it was finally open! They did a great job combining the location history and the history of the Gateway Arch.
Some more exciting news for this location is the just OFFICIALLY became the 60th National Park!!! The Indiana Dunes National Park by us just became the 61st National Park!
We also love to get the stamps in our Passport books. If you aren’t familiar with the Passport to Your National Parks program, you can check it out here. The national park properties have stamps at their locations that state the park name and date you were there. You can stamp these in your National Park Passport book. The Gateway Arch National Park just got a new name, it also got a new stamp.
Gateway Arch National Park
We have a book for each of us. So we all got a new stamp in our Passport books.
We were supposed to go camping this weekend, but the weather had other things in mind. We decided to spend the weekend in St. Louis, Missouri instead. We had a lot of people recommend the City Museum.
City museum was fantastic. ” Expect the unexpected. City Museum is a hundred-year-old warehouse in downtown St. Louis in which artists have repurposed the pieces of old cities to build miles of tunnels, slides, climbers, bridges, and castles. There are secret passages and grand galleries. Playgrounds and ball pits. A circus and a train. A rooftop school bus and a Ferris wheel.” Check out their website here.
City Museum, St. Louis, MO
Just driving up to the building was fascinating to see. The exterior had tracks, ladders, ball pits, random pieces of buildings, huge chains, stair cases and even a Saber liner and Bus.
There were multiple floors in which some exhibits crossed in to two or three floors and others that had it’s area. The first floor had the start of the “caves” but those “caves” crossed into three different floors. Definitely have a plan in place for when you get separated. You are definitely going to get separated will all the tunnels and splits.
There is so much to see and do here that it took up the whole day. It left us just enough time to hit the pool at the hotel.
Gravity Falls was the theme of the second day of the public libraries summer children’s program. They activities of the day were designed to show how gravity works.
One of the activities was to put a pom-pom ball in paint and drop it on a long sheet. They would see it drops and leaves a fun paint splat.
They also got to drop balls in a pool, throw bags through hula-hoops, and race cars on a track.
It’s great that our local library has put so much thought and effort into making education fun. My daughter had such a great time. She couldn’t wait to tall me all about it when I got home from work.
Our public library is doing a space themed children’s summer program because of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Sister, Brother and I all signed up for the summer reading program. For the little children, they are given a Bingo Card. When they fill out all four corners, they get a gift card to a local restaurant and a space sticker scene. When they fill the whole sheet, they get a free book and entered in a drawing. For adults, they have weekly drawings. You turn in a slip for each book you read during the reading program.
Space Explorers was the theme for Day 1. To start their training to be an astronaut, they had all kinds of hands on activities and crafts. Some of the activities included learning what it’s like to walk on the moon, pretend like you work at mission control, learn about handling moon rocks, pretend to be an astronaut and use finger paint to paint the earth.
Sister had a great time with everything. When she was done she got her Junior Astronaut certificate. This was added to her Space Notebook we created for the summer for all of her space activities.
It’s time to work on the garden! This year we had a late start because of all the rain! We have vegetable garden, herb garden and fruit trees in the yard!
Usborne Books and More
In preparation of us putting in the garden, we have been reading a few of our books! Our favorites are Usborne Books and More It All Starts With a Seed, Secrets of the Vegetable Garden and Look Inside Nature. I’m excited that we will also have these books to read during the V – Vegetables week during God’s Creation A to Z.
Sister has has her own set of gardening tools. It came with a bag, gloves, hat, apron, pointed shovel, flat shovel and rake. She loves that she has her own tools to work along side my and my tools.
At the garden center she helped me pick out plants and seeds. The plants we purchased were Better Boy tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, acorn squash, basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme, oregeno, Rosemary and a strawberries. The plants we have that come back each year are the rhubarb, chives, lemon balm, sage and lavender. Plus we have an apple tree and peach tree. The plants that were purchased, were planted that day.
The seeds are going to wait a few days because we ran out of time. The plants from seeds are zucchini, garden beans and pickling cucumbers. She even got to pick out some flowers for her to plant and take care of herself.
The My Father’s World Voyage of Discovery has ten days suggested for learning the Ten Commandments. Because of when we started this, the Ten Commandments would have fallen around Christmas. We decided to move these two units to the end of the year instead.
She loved the egg carton, cotton ball and tweezer game that was suggested. We made a few modifications to it. We used a whole egg carton and played the freeze game. Nanny came up with the idea to put numbers 1- 12 at the bottom, not in order. She would then tell Sister which number to put the cotton ball in.
So you have purchased the My Father’s World God’s Creation A to Z, now what? You organize it! This just makes it so much easier to use throughout the school year. Here is how I organized everything:
Plastic file bin with hanging folders.
First, I started with a plastic file bin. I added hanging folders with labeled tabs for each week. Each hanging folder contains that weeks worksheets, craft ideas, and the book that came with the deluxe curriculum. I can also then add additional items that I come across that will be used for that week.
The file bin currently also contains the teacher manual, God’s Amazing World, Cuisenaire Rods, and textured letters. Those will eventually make it into the daily bins.
Bins for each day
Second, to make each day easier for Nanny and myself, I separate the items needed into daily plastic bins. These are Sterilite brand 14″ X 11″ boxes. They are the perfect size for each day. (We used these same bins for MFW Voyage of Discovery, but will be used for this too). The teachers manual breaks down what is needed for each day. I then take the books, worksheets, crafts supplies, hands on toys and another other item needed and put them into the daily bin designated for that week.
Teachers Manual, Student worksheets, and Cruisenaire Rods book.
Third, I needed to make the Teachers Manual, Student Book and cards, and Cruisenaire Rods easier to manage. I put tabs with the letter, on each week of the teachers manual. It makes it much easier to go directly to the week you need. The Cruisenaire Rod book, I tore out each sheet and put them in sheet protectors in a 3-Ring binder. The individual pages can be taken out of the book for each week. The rods can then be put on top and a dry erase marker used for the answers. This makes it so the sheets can be used inside the protectors over and over, in case she needs more practice. I also put together a 3-Ring Binder for my daughter to have her 100 days of school sheet, vowel ladder and her completed worksheets.
There were a few things I took to get laminated. They were the alphabet sheet, number sheet, verse, alphabet cards, bingo and letter cards (blue), and little sayings for each week. I then put them in clear pouches that fit in a 3-Ring binder.
School supplies
Fourth was the school supplies. I have a box for craft supplies and a smaller box for pens, pencils and markers. Some supplies are left over from MFW Voyage of Discovery, which saved on buying some supplies. The canvas bag and fabric markers are for the weekly badges. (I saw this on a message board as an idea for what to do with the badges they make each week. I thought it was a fantastic idea).
Fifth, billboard for the school year. This seemed like the best way to be able to see everything for the week. The curriculum comes with calendar sheets but we already had these monthly sheets. I also made Spanish flash cards to correlate with each week.
I hope this helps give you ideas on how to organize your curriculum. If you have additional ideas I would love to hear them.
We loved My Father’s World Voyage of Discovery so the next move was to purchase God’s Creation A to Z!! I am so excited about all of the classic literature the deluxe kit comes with! Plus the added extra’s of the ant mountain and butterfly garden!
She did great with Voyage of Discovery and now she is super excited to start God’s Creation A to Z. We did get the kit in, but we still have three more weeks of Voyage of Discovery and we are going to wait a few more weeks to jump into this. This will give us a little time to enjoy the outdoors, but still keep doing some review and of course keep reading books during that time.
They also added a new book to the God’s Creation A to Z this year. It is God’s Amazing World from apples to zebras. It has pages to match each week of the curriculum. The illustrations are fantastic!
My Father’s World God’s Amazing World
I love that with the Deluxe Kit there is a book for each week. We will still add science books and fun books from our home library and the local library as is suggested. It’s just nice the Deluxe Kit comes with a book to fit the theme each week and builds our home library with more classic literature.
For the Children’s Sake
For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay comes with the Deluxe Kit. This is a book suggested for the educator. I also strongly suggest you read this book even if you don’t purchase the Deluxe kit. The teachers manual does give you “homework” in this book. I was excited to read it so I read it before we even started God’s Creation A to Z. It gave me so many ideas on how to handle the education of my children.
The next step is to organize everything. Be sure to check out my post on how I organized it for us to use.
I can’t believe we are at the end! I am happy to report that My Father’s World Voyage of Discovery was the right fit for us! The teacher’s manual broke it down so I knew exactly what I needed to prep for the week. Going to the library every week was perfect for adding books that fit the theme each week. Organizing each day in bins make it easy to grab and go when the time was right for schooling (Brother was sleeping).
Since I didn’t think about writing all of this down until the end, I’ll show some of the add on’s that we did starting with Z.
Z books from our library collection and the local library.
Z books from the library
Worksheet for coloring, writing and math
Letter craft
Science project from the teachers manual for this week is putting dirty pennies in vinegar. She got to see what the vinegar did to the pennies.
Hoover Academy 