Outside Activities
• Record when pumpkin flowers open in the morning (if you are growing them). Record when they start to close in the evening and how long closing takes. Watch them on a rainy day.
• Count how many seeds are in a dandelion seed head. Count the number of blossoms and/or seed heads on a typical plant. Multiply the number of seeds by the number of blossoms and/or seed heads to see how many seeds one plant may produce. It will be a large number!
• Observe pond water under a microscope. You can see quite a bit with even an inexpensive one! Catch tadpoles in a clear container and observe. Sometimes you can find one changing.
• Make a bird feeder from a milk jug and observe what types of birds come to eat. Have a bird identification book nearby. Be very quiet and they will stay for a while so you can observe.
• Start a wildflower journal. Take a wildflower identification book and your journal on walks throughout the summer and see what grows in your area.
• Read up on the origin of popcorn and have an over-the-fire popcorn party. Get an old-fashioned popcorn popper, usually a metal basket with a wooden handle. Kids love making dinner over an open-fire. Find recipes for stick bisquits!
Inside Activities
• Draw a map of the inside of the house.
• Have an older child read your current read-aloud to all the other children.
Listen to stories. Here is a site with free audios of living books in the public domain, used in the Ambleside curriculum.
The Burgess Bird Book for Children
The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
Ambleside Online offers free curriculum resources and is designed to be as close as possible to the Charlotte Mason method. While we don’t know about all recommended books, this site has some very good resources.
Do you have summer activities or book lists you can recommend? Share them with us here!
Happy Summer!
