Week One of Summer Fun

Summer is (unofficially) here!! In between outdoor activities we have been having fun doing summer projects and learning about sea creatures and the ocean this week. We made a jellyfish, dolphin display (jumping dolphin project has been MIA for a few days), but the biggest hit was the "My Ocean Treasures" project. You can find more info here, which is where I found the directions to all the projects.
Since we live in the midwest and no where near a beach or ocean we did a mock seashell hunt. I printed out the seashells pictured here and hid them in the back yard for my three year old to hunt. She had too much fun! I hid them 3 different times and then grandma had to twice more later that day.
It's nice to get outside and incorporate indoor projects with the outdoors.

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Another project we did this week was a "reward jar" for our little one. I happened across another blog that incorporated this idea for her 3 children and thought it was worth a shot (sorry, can't remember the blog!!). Each time she does something good, or we feel she is being helpful, or even just is behaving well we give her a "pompom" to put into her jar. Once it's filled we told her we would get her a "speical treat", which will be whatever seems to be appropriate at that time. So far she has 4 pompoms and seems to be understanding the concept pretty well!
I got the jar from Wal-Mart ($1.98) and the pompoms as well (less then $2). We decorated it together with foam sticks and ribbon we had laying around the house.