Summer Reading program continued

Maya got a fancy pop up book called Fairies and Magical Creatures from the library and also recently finished reading one of the books in this fairy series (I can't ever keep them straight....) and she decided to build a new fairy house for the back yard.  She's built them before but added more decorative duct tape this time.

For their Artists category both kids checked out some how to draw books.  Maya chose "Draw 50 Dogs".  She drew me a picture of a chihuahua.

Alex chose "Draw Medieval Fantasies".  As far as step by step drawing instruction go this book is pretty hilarious.  Each drawing as 3-5 steps.  It follows a simple logical progression in the first few steps.  Then the leap in detail from the second to the last step to the last step is really comical.  Alex did a great job drawing a knight.

Charlevoix adventure

Today we headed into town for an appt, but left with a picnic packed, our just in case beach towels and a plan to spend the day in Charlevoix.
As one of Alex's summer reading program activities we went to Castle Farms for his Fantasy category.  I'd heard of it before but we'd never gone there.  After looking more at their website it seemed like there were a lot of things the kids would enjoy.
We ended up spending almost 3 hours there and they would have stayed longer and played an entire game of giant chess if we hadn't been so hungry.
The trout pond was a big favorite, followed closely by the hedge maze with the elevated trains.  They had fun following the scavenger hunt map we were given at the welcome center.

After Castle Farms we stopped at Fisherman's Island State park to have lunch and walk on the beach.  The picnic area and day use beach is 2 miles back on a dirt road that due to the recent heavy rain was in less than ideal condition...but hey, we had set out on an adventure right?  The picnic area was heavily wooded and sheltered from the wind.  Which usually would be great but with this year's bumper crop of mosquitoes it didn't work in our favor.  So we ended up eating in the car and then heading out to the beach.

Summer reading #2

For the next category we have Fitness Guru:
Maya picked out a healthy food cook book for kids.  She made one of the "recipes" out of it for lunch yesterday.  Alex joined in for fun.  She has a number of other recipes bookmarked but we need to get a few ingredients before she can experiment more.
So here are their "salad people" from the book titled "Salad People"

Summer reading program

Our area libraries totally changed up the way they are doing the summer reading program this year and Alex and Maya are so excited about it.  This year they have check lists with 12 different categories or genres.  The kids are to read a book that falls into that category and then do some sort of activity or experience that relates to it.  Each category they complete (we just have to check in at a library branch and tell them about what they read and did -I'm taking pictures for fun but it's not required) they get a colored wristband.  If they complete 6/12 they get a prize and if they complete 12/12 they get entered for a grand prize drawing.  There are some bonus things you can get entered for if you visit all 6 different library branches.

So our 12 categories are:

Adventurer (science, hobby, or something new)
Star (biography or play)
Sports Fan
Animal Lover
Fitness Guru (fitness, health or cooking)
Traveler
Artists (book about an artist or how to draw/paint)
Multicultural Explorer
Music Lover (check out a music cd)
Dreamer (Fantasy or Sci-Fi)
Book Lover (a book recommended by a friend)
Library Expedition (book recommended by librarian and visit all 6 branches)

So far we've already covered a few categories and done some activities.
Maya read a book about caring for a new puppy and Alex is reading books from the Warriors series, which are about cats.  When we went grocery shopping yesterday Maya bought dog supplies and Alex bought cat supplies and we donated them all the the local humane society.

Summer vacation kick off!!

Monday June 16th marked our first official day of summer vacation.  We got up and headed out of the house with the mantra "ready for anything" and our swimsuits under our clothes, towels in the trunk and a big bag full of snacks.
Alex had an appt downtown so ran a few errands and then headed over the Clinch Park.  We usually avoid this area in the height of summer because it tends to be very crowded and you have to park a long way from the beach.  But it's early enough to be pretty empty right now and we had never tried out the new splash pad they put in at the park.
Maya loved the splash pad.  Alex doesn't even really like running in the sprinkler so it wasn't his thing but he did like the rope bridges to climb on.
Then we spent some time playing on the beach.  The bay is still really, really cold (surface temp barely 50 I think) so they didn't go far into the water.

Then we went to Alex's appt and on the way home we hit the downtown library and signed up for the summer reading program (more on that later!).