Monday Meanderings - Martin Luther King Jr

Happy Martin Luther King Day! Here are some activities to do to celebrate the life and legacy of the great Dr. King!

First is First Grade in One Year with an activity showing a child's dream on the inside of the booklet and their hand print art on the outside to signify diversity.

Next we have Learning & Laughing in First Grade with a great experiment between brown eggs and white eggs. The children graphed what is different and what is the same with the eggs and then wrote out what they learned.

This is not a project that I think you can do at your home, but this is a mosaic created in 2010 by artist Pete Fecteau and is entitled "Dream Big". Can you guess what it is made of? It is 4,242 Rubik's Cubes. It took over a year of planning and weighed in at about 1,000 pounds at completion. It is amazing!

I will leave you with two of my favorite quotes:

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Darkness can not drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate can not drive out hate; only love can do that. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Monday Meanderings - Mom, I'm Bored!

Well summer vacation is here for most kids. About right now, the kids are excited about no school and the parents are trying to figure out what the kids are going to do all summer long! We know it is inevitable, we are going to here the three most dreaded words: "Mom, I'm bored!" I am hoping that these links will give you some good ideas of things to tell the kids to do and if all else fails, tell them to clean their room.

Time Wasters from About.com

This list is great for sitting in the car, waiting at appointments and waiting on a meal to be served. Most activities do not require any materials or if they do, you probably carry those materials on you everyday.

Summer Boredom Busters from Texas Home Educators

This is a thorough list and a great idea of how to select an activity. You can customize your list any way needed to satisfy your families interests.

 Paula's Boredom Busters

This another great list but my favorite part is the last section that is labeled "Dana's Wise Mother". I really like the ideas of having kids "lease" the TV, the dialogue journals and the summer writing projects. Hand written letters are being replaced by texting and e-mailing. Kids will  not know the excitement we all felt when we used to get fun mail. Nowadays, we mostly get bills since becoming "adults" but do you remember how excited you got when you were a kid and got a real letter or card in the mail?

Well, I hope this gives you a little ammunition for the inevitable "I'm bored" statements. Make it a great summer!