Summer vacation has just begun, and we are already on a crazy non-schedule and in the thick of our activities. Summertime is actually when my teacher-brain activates, now that I'm not teaching in a classroom anymore and I have lots of time with my kids at home. So in order to defeat the doldrums of summer, I keep us busy with different theme weeks, filled with crafts, games, sensory activities, and field trips. Last summer was a great success, so we're doing it again, with some new themes.
This week was Winter Week, mainly because Ellie had "Snow Princess" dance camp in the mornings. When planning the week, I intended for it to be a "mini-theme," with fewer than usual activities, but as we get busy, the girls keep wanting more, so I added more to do, and many of our activities often morph and extend into something else... Which I love, because they are learning and growing and just enjoying the time. The week was a combination of "Frozen", snow/ice, and science activities that turned out to be a lot of fun!
On Monday, I gave the girls Elsa and Anna hair.
After dance camp, we microwaved Ivory soap to make "snow," then played with it in the water table.
After that, we made an "icy palace" fort out of the couch cushions, and we made "icy power" hands with ribbons tied to hair bands that the girls wore on their wrists and went all around, "freezing" things and singing "Let it Go."
Even Anthony got in on the freezing.
The girls also helped me prep the next day's main activity, and for dinner, they had meatloaf and snowman mashed potatoes.
Not my best plate art, but they loved it anyway.
On Tuesday, we built structures out of the colorful ice we froze in different shaped molds, then we poured salt on the ice and then food coloring to see the trails and crevasses made by the salt... Both really cool and beautiful!
The best part was that the salt and food coloring part wasn't even part of the original plan, but the girls loved it!
One thing they didn't love so much was my attempt at getting them to "ice skate" on carpet with wax paper on their feet. They thought I was crazy and wouldn't even try. For the record, it does work. I slid around for a bit until they rolled their eyes at me. Fortunately, I had happened to pick up some glitter putty randomly at Kroger (to resemble snow, maybe?), so they played with that and made beards and jewelry and kept busy while I made dinner.
On Wednesday they painted Anna and Elsa with watercolors and glitter glue, then we built sugar cube igloos, which also turned into more food coloring science.
They ended up learning about color mixing and dissolving sugar thanks to some droppers, water, and food coloring.
I'm hoping there's enough sugar in those solutions to make rock candy. Yay science!
At the end of the day, we went out for frozen yogurt for dessert.
On Thursday, we had an ice excavation for the toys and jewelry we froze the day before. The girls had fun using different methods to melt and chip away at the ice, including my brulee torch, forks, knives, warm water, and rock salt.
We also played with shaving cream "snow". First, I mixed it with glue. The girls painted with it, though it wasn't easy to spread with their paintbrushes. Their paintings looked like clouds. Then we glittered them.
Next, I mixed the shaving cream with cornstarch. I had seen this on Pinterest, but it was much messier than it looked and not worth the trouble. Instead, we ended up just playing with shaving cream.
Anthony woke from his nap just in time to join the fun.
All three kids loved getting covered in shaving cream.
Lastly, we finished up the Frozen characters from the day before.
On Friday, the last day, we made snowflake suncatchers with tissue paper. I cut out the snowflake design, and then we glued tissue paper in the gaps to make it colorful.
Then we made snowmen. Ice men really. I had frozen some filled water balloons, and we used rock salt to stick the ice balls together. Ellie added paper buttons and a "carrot" nose.
The younger two weren't all that interested in making an ice man... But all three kids did like throwing the ice balls in the pool and splashing in it for an hour or two (this has pretty much been a daily activity).
Lastly, for dessert, I made them ice cream/marshmallow build-your-own "snowmen." Ellie built hers, but it was slippery. Building an ice cream man is harder than I thought it'd be!
Fortunately, it was still delicious.
And that was Winter Week! If the rest of our summer goes as well as this week, it's going to be a great one! I love being able to do fun activities with my kids, and even when days are tough or things don't go exactly as planned, I'm still thankful that I get these moments with my munchkins... And that they still want to do this stuff with me.
The key to having successful theme weeks is to keep planning simple and go with the flow. I try to plan one or two main activities for each day, then we just go where our playing takes us. It really doesn't involve much work, especially if the kids get involved. Often Ellie keeps asking for more activities, so I just use one planned for later in the week and end up adding others at the last minute, and it works out fine. I have a science week planned for July, but Ellie requested "Wizard Week," so I'm thinking of turning science week into that. Sounds more fun anyway. Stay tuned!
