Summer Week 5 - Freedom & Bravery

One of my favorite things about teaching was the that I always learned so much more about what I was teaching in preparing my lessons, explaining the content in various ways, and answering questions.  I've found the same thing to be true this summer!  I mean, I had NO idea how clouds were formed and what caused the sound of lightning until Sophia and learned about it last week!

This week, which teaching and learning with the girls, I discovered a completely new appreciation for the 4th of July.

I started the week by asking them about their favorite parts of the 4th.  Naturally, they both said fireworks.  When I asked them if they knew why we set off fireworks, they were pretty clueless of course.  As we drove home from swim school on Monday, I told them the story of Independence Day with a fairytale tone.  "Once a upon a time, in a kingdom far away..."  After that 15 minute long drive and many questions about the king, about freedom and what it means to have your freedoms taken away, and about the whether or not people today still have their freedoms taken, I felt a sense of patriotism and pride that I hadn't felt before.  This holiday is truly remarkable.

A few weeks ago, Sophia was running the track.  She totally loves to run and she's pretty fast.  She can run a mile in less than 9 minutes!  After that run, she told us that while she was running, there were times she wanted to give up but she kept telling herself "Keep on going, no matter what."  I was so proud to hear her say those words.  In a world where most people think that when the going gets tough, it's time to quit, it's refreshing to hear that some people still have the innate desire to persevere, work hard, and never give up.  Since that day, we've referenced those words so many times.  For example, while we were in Albuquerque last month, we saw a few homeless men on a corner asking for donations.  She asked us what they were doing.  After we explained it to her, she asked us why they didn't have any money or a home.  Of course there are countless reasons why someone ends up in that position but we told her that sometimes people make mistakes or have some bad luck and life doesn't go their way.  We also told her that everyone encounters bad things from time to time and if/when those things happen to her, she has to remember her own words "Keep on going, no matter what."  This week when we got to the part of the story where the people in the colonies had to be brave and fight for their freedom, I explained to her that they knew how important their decision to fight was.  They knew that by being brave and strong, they could change their lives and lives of their future generations forever.  They knew that they had to keep on going, no matter what.

We also spent a lot of time talking about some of the meanings of Freedom.  Between Sophia and I, we use the term "bossy" a LOT.  I'm bossy and so is she! So used that lightened version of what it sometimes means to loose your freedom - that someone else is bossing you around for your whole life, making decisions for you, telling you what you can and cannot do, and making choices and decisions for you.  I wanted to let her know that even though that story happened a long time ago, there are still people all around the world that are fighting for their freedom and for the freedom of other people. She seemed a little concerned about that part and asked me if we still have to fight for our freedom.  I told her that there will always be people that want to "rule the world" as we talked about in the story, and that it's so important that she is brave and stands up for what she believes is right.

We continued our talk about all of this throughout the week but we also did some fun with 4th of July traditions.  We used these 4th of July themed printables to practice our addition and subtraction skills.  Color by number math is awesome!  Although, we decided that we didn't really like the colors they chose for some of the sections so we did a little improve there ;)  For Ellie, there was a version that just had the numbers, no math.  I explained it to her and we went section by section letting her determine what color that part should be.  She got them all, the understood what she was supposed to do, then decided to color the whole thing red. Aye, Ellie.  We're going to keep working on that one.  Mostly because she's so super stubborn and thinks the rules don't apply to her.  Yep, total threenager.

 We found some more activities on Teachers Pay Teachers.  There are are a bunch of free downloads for every holiday.

 This one stumped us in a few spots!  Something you wear that starts with an "A".  We couldn't think of anything until Ken got home and said "ascot". Ok sure that works.  

 Sophia LOVES wordsearches!  

Thursday we started working on our big projects.  We decided to create a book about the 4th of July story.  I told her that we would start out with the illustrations and we'll go back and add the words in later.  So we broke up the story into 9 sections and she drew/colored a picture to represent each section.

Those glasses? Yeah, those were her 3D glasses from Finding Dory.  She wanted to keep them and I really don't know if the lenses were bad for her eyes so we popped them out and she's been having fun with her "glasses" ever since.

We did a few crafts too!

 I gave Ellie the paper and a flag and asked her to recreate it.  She did an awesome job!  Let me tell you, there is like half a glue stick on each piece of paper! Ha!

For Fun Friday, I knew I had a bunch of work to get done in the next few days and I REALLY wanted to be able to take of the weekend so I sucked it up and got everything done in the morning.  Phone calls, deliveries, post office, finishing up a party box for my BFF's daughter's 4th birthday party, etc.

Once I was done, we all went to a late lunch.  Ken has a 5 day weekend and we are super excited to have Daddy home with us!  We went to lunch at Outback then came home to wrap up our activities.

These two are so in love.  They hardly leave each other's side.

Over the holiday weekend, we have a few more things to do for our theme.  We've got plans to play 4th of July Bingo (they even made prizes) and we're ready to go on the hunt with this 4th of July Scavenger Hunt

I don't know if it's just the time we live in where everything is recorded through photos and videos or if Sophia really just loves the camera, but she asked me if I could record her telling the story and using her book.  Of course I agreed and the next thing I know she's got her "glasses" on and she's ready to go!

We finished the day with ice cream sundaes on the porch while the rain fell on the yard.  Perfection.

We would like to say that we are eternally grateful for all of the men and women in the past, present, and future for having the bravery to fight for our freedom.  Thank you!