Reading, Dinosaur George, Chalk The Lot, New Splash Pad, Family Science Night, Peach Picking, and Puppy Pool Time

We won't have many weeks without a library run this summer.

Lorelei is devouring her chapter books. I'm still partly in shock at how much that girl loves reading, even though she is following in her mom's footsteps. On a typical day she might read 1-2 hours, sometimes more. I'm absolutely loving it. My heart feels so full of how proud and excited I am for her. Right now Lorelei is into: Dog Diaries (I'm pretty sure she has read them all.) Horse Diaries, Nancy Clancy, Magic Tree House Fact Trackers, American Girl (so far she is starting with the "oldies" Kirsten, Felicity and Samantha), Little House On The Prairie and Trixie Belden.

Makin is doing amazing on his reading as well, but not to the point of wanting to sit and read for hours. :) The summer reading program kicked off early June, which was ideal motivation for him. He is definitely an incentives kid (especially at this level of reading) so it pushed him to read more than the 15-30 minutes I ask of them. He got frustrated he couldn't keep up with his sister, but we just tried to encourage him that he will likely be at that point next summer! He was SO certain that if he did not get the prize pack of coupons the same day as his sister his would not be as good as hers. So, he got a fresh batch of determination and reached his goal. This included me consenting to letting him read silently (for this goal) as I had been making him read all of his aloud at this age. He also got extremely excited when I suggested he could read the Magic Tree House series. These are great first chapter books, and he knows them fairly well from listening to the audio books, so I knew that could help him fill in the missing words without having to ask me every time he didn't know one. Books Makin is into: Gerald and Piggie, National Geographic Kids (Anything on topics he is interested in, Dinosaurs, Storms and Rocks and Minerals to name a few. He is a fact kid.), He loves Nexo Knights and Lego books but there aren't a lot of them! Of course, Magic Tree House!

At this point you might be thinking...these kids have got to be the most photographed readers I have ever seen... ;)
Probably...

Finished his first official chapter book!

I'm not sure you all know the gushing going on in my heart with these kids taking off with reading this summer. Its just so awesome.

For the summer reading program each child had to log 600 minutes. They loved their batch of coupons which included some free meals/treats/smoothies as well as some entries in to an Aquatic Center, Museum, bowling and Basketball games. They used up their Cane's coupon for lunch right after getting these. :)

Dinosaur George - As you may remember we have an awesome summer program at the library. Mondays they have a guest speaker. Dinosaur George not only taught us some interesting dinosaur facts (eh hem...many more like theories) but he made the kids laugh SO hard. It was great. He is very talented at what he does!

Stegosaurus Plate

Chalk The Lot
Back when Lorelei was about 1 1/2 we went to The Crayola Experience in Pennsylvania. I have had this love of crayons ever since my favorite Mr. Rogers episode where they showed how crayons were made! (Most of you may remember this.) Well, The Crayola Experience is coming to this area this coming spring! It looks like it will be a fun place to visit when it opens. They had a free event to kick off the store coming and we just had to check it out.

There was plenty of space to draw with chalk. The kids saved this for the end and Lorelei had to do her "signature" artwork.
They also got frisbees and beach balls that could be colored (but didn't work great with washable markers), jumped on a spring free trampoline, played parachute and watched some chalk artists at work.

New Splash Pad
Sonya told me about a fun splash pad with slides. The kids absolutely loved it. They enjoy splash pads much more with friends! We may be going back since I forgot to bring boats!

Family Science Night
Our library program also included Family Science Night this year. We ran into Nayeli which made the girls so happy! Makin found a Little Bits kit you can check out from the library that he is totally enamored with. He spent around 45 minutes at this station.

Peach Picking
We headed out to the orchard near home and enjoyed trying to find some ripe peaches. We may need to make another trip as they were not quite ready yet. Still a fun memory and we will see if the kids want to go back again soon. :)

We also checked out the peach orchard's bee hive, climbed a few trees and hunted for ripe blackberries.

Puppy Pool Time
The Armstrongs invited us over for a swim. They also got a new puppy. Yes, can you imagine how much I'm hearing about the fact that they have TWO dogs and we have NONE. Anyway, a puppy and pool combo made this girl's day!