Celebrate the 4th of July

We started this week with some time outside and playing with playdough.  She's getting really good with her molds.  She likes to line up her creations in a "train" as she finishes.  We read a new favorite, The Cat with Seven Names, and an old favorite Little Goblins Ten.  We talked about community, as the cat brings together a whole neighborhood and since the 4th of July can bring together communities.

After visiting the park Monday morning, we continued talking about neighborhoods and friendship.  We read Ribbit!, a nice book about listening to others and making new friends.  Then we read some books in celebration of American history for the 4th of July.  She really enjoyed Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Fredrick Douglass which is a fictional tale of a real friendship between two people fighting for rights and overcoming prejudice.  We read two biographies of Thomas Jefferson written for kids and talked about the Declaration of Independence.  I told my traditional tale in thanks of horseflies, the only time I'm thankful for them.  The story goes that the Declaration of Independence was approved quickly by all the men of the Continental Congress because they met in the heat of July before air conditioning was invented.  They had met to debate and edit the document, but opened the windows to help with the heat.  The horseflies came in at that point, and they decided that it was fine as is and signed it.  Whether it is true or not, I like to think of today's politicians stuck somewhere without air conditioning until they got their work done and wonder if maybe more work would be accomplished.



Anyway, while I was reading, Genevieve was creating art.  We had looked at some pictures of fireworks.  I set her up with some glitter glue and black paper and she created some of her own fireworks.  She also used some scratch boards to create fireworks.  She won't be able to stay up and see them tonight, but she can see the images and learn a bit about them.



We played outside and used powder paint to make more firework paintings.  We used a spray bottle and water to set the powder paint to the paper.  Grandma took her on a sound tour of the yard.  They were using a tool to hit various objects and noticed how the sounds were different.  We compared sounds to each other and to the sounds the fireworks had made.

Genevieve loves Daniel Tiger, and the new episode of Daniel Tiger this week had fireworks, so she enjoyed that.  We read We Came to America which was a perfect compliment to our history and community books we have been reading.  It's another excellent book by Faith Ringgold, this one exploring various reasons people have come to America and some of what they brought to their new home.

We finished the week using collage boards and colored sand to make some images with more of the brilliant colors of fireworks.  Then we started some chemistry experiments, since fireworks are made by chemistry.  We created some red cabbage indicator by pouring boiling over red cabbage and letting it sit for at least 10 minutes.  We had Mentos, soda, the indicator, vinegar, baking soda and baking powder as well as a test tube and a bowl for overflow.  We held the test tube over the overflow bowl and noted the various reactions as she instructed me to add the items.  We noted change in color or bubbles and their frequency as we tried different combinations.  Finally, we read Brother Eagle, Sister Sky which was a great end to the week, with it's beautiful art and its reminder to protect the land.

Off topic, we found another owl pellet to explore and a dead bird we observed.  We talked about the importance of bugs as nature's cleaning crew as we watched the insects come and go.  We also remembered that we don't touch these finds, only look.  She also found some public art at our favorite train station, a piano, which she did an excellent job playing gently.

Tobias has also found a new favorite book, The Daddy Book, which doesn't fit in our topic but it is adorable to see how much he pays attention to it.  He also started sign class this week.  The first topic was mealtime, and he was so attentive and interested in everything.  We are doing our best to raise a nerd/geek as well, as he loves Grog on Critical Role.