Creating a comfortable life one moment at a time
The Fourth of July is a special holiday in and of itself, but it’s also meaningful to me because I met Tim 19 years ago today. It’s nice to have fireworks every year to mark the occasion.
Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom’s song;
Let mortal tongues awake,
let all that breathe partake
let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.
{Directions for making the Star-Spangled Wreath here.}
Lily is working really hard on learning to read. Because she’s a game-loving kind of girl, I made these bingo cards using an idea from Family Fun to help her with word recognition. I kept all the little decodable reading booklets that came home throughout the school year, so I went through them looking for words she should know. After making a list, I made some bingo cards out of card stock and wrote the words in the squares (using some of the words on more than one card). Lily gathered some pennies for markers and we were good to go.
Instead of just reading the words off of the list, I’m making the game a little more challenging by saying the definition of a word so Lily has to think a little harder. So I say “the opposite of mean” for nice and “the kind of animal Gunther is” for dog. Once she’s mastered all of the words from the booklets, I’ll make some more cards using words from some of her favorite books. Can’t wait to get to all those splendiferous words in Fancy Nancy.
How about you? Have you had a struggling reader? What methods or ideas worked for you?
Are you feeling inspired? One of the nicest things about the Fourth of July is that it comes with built-in entertainment. If you have fireworks, sunshine, and maybe some water to splash around in, you’re all set. Anything else is gravy. Between you and me, I’m happy with some potato salad and a sparkler on the Fourth. But it’s nice to know that, if the mood strikes, we can print out some ice cream cone wrappers and dress up our dessert a little bit.
Patriotic Ice Cream Cone Wrappers from Martha Stewart / Fruit Pops from Bakers Royale / Ice Cream Sandwich Pops from Living Locurto / Patriotic Cake from i am baker / Easy Sand Candles from Martha Stewart / Fourth of July Pinwheels Party at Hostess with the Mostess
Every year, our friends host a spectacular Patriotic Party for the Fourth of July, but they won’t let us bring a thing. In fact, they threaten to send guests home if they show up with anything other than chairs. Which is wonderful and generous of them, but one wants to do something. So this year I thought it would be fun to make Firecracker Favors for the dozens of kids who will be running around at the party. I wish I could take credit for this clever idea, but the creative folks over at Family Fun magazine are the ones to thank.
You can find the instructions for making Firecracker Favors here. It was surprisingly difficult to find Life Savers candy in bulk. I needed about 50 rolls and was surprised that Target and Cub didn’t carry packages of them. I ended up buying the Life Savers at Sam’s Club. If you don’t need quite so many, you can buy individual rolls at a grocery or drug store. I found the colored electrical tape at Office Max and the foil party picks at Michaels.
For assembly, you just have to slide the wrapper off the roll of Life Savers, wrap different colored strips of electrical tape around the roll, snip them off, and then stick a party pick in the middle of the roll. Easy peasy. Just keep in mind that the foil picks are sharp so children should handle them carefully. Have fun!