Independence Day

I hope you all had a wonderful celebration on July 4th! Gess was really looking forward to it this year and started asking for fireworks a couple of weeks in advance. Thankfully the blog No Time for Flash Cards shared a great fireworks craft titled Light Up The Sky. When Gess asked for fireworks I told her that since we couldn't set some off yet, we could make some instead. She loved the idea and we went to work. Visit the Fireworks craft on the No Time for Flash Cards blog to see the instructions. Here is our finished product!


To learn about the holiday we watched some 4th of July videos at the History Channel. Of course there is nothing like reading the actual Declaration of Independence itself. We plan on making that a family tradition. We spent the rest of the week on vacation so that was about all the "studying" we did about the holiday. Even so, Gess certainly knew that the 4th of July was "Independence Day" (even if it was tough to pronounce) and that it was a day in which we set off fireworks! Here are some pictures of her enjoying the festivities.








She is still very sensitive to loud noises so you can see by the last photo how she handled all the noise. She does this every year, holds her ears and watches the show. At least this year she really didn't do it as much until we got to some of the really loud ones. It gets better every year. Still, I love how she does not let a little noise get in the way of her fun!

Comments

Stephanie said…
She is pretty brave, even though she doesn't like the noise. Even holding a sparkler. My son runs for cover at the first sounds of any firecrackers.
July 6, 2009 at 4:49 AM
Beverly said…
glad you guys had a great holiday! Noah doesnt like loud either, some years he will be fine with fire works and others we have to leave. We didnt go this year, too hot here. I love No Time For Flash Cards as well and we do alot of her crafts!
July 6, 2009 at 5:38 PM
Jenny said…
My daughter is holds her ears for fireworks as well. In fact, she holds her ears all of the time. Whenever the baby cries, public toilets flush, hand dryers are used, I use the hair dryer, etc.

It looks like Gess had a great time!
July 6, 2009 at 8:13 PM
Beth said…
Hannah doesn't like loud sounds either, but she is improving.

Brave Gess to hold the sparkler!
July 13, 2009 at 9:35 AM
Leah Courtney said…
My son has some sensory issues and always used to be afraid of fireworks. It has gotten better as he's gotten older. He enjoys watching them now and will even light them. :-)
July 3, 2014 at 7:06 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Printable Family Chore Chart

Image
You know chore charts are not just for children.  As I have been struggling trying to keep the house work up among all my summer activities, homeschooling projects, exercise, blogging, church activities and other every day life events I realized that I needed a hand.  Since Gess is getting older and taking on more responsibility I though it was a good time to put some order into her routine of helping.  Then Chelsie gave me a great idea that she uses.  By breaking up my weekly chores into daily tasks I don't have to give up an entire day to nothing but cleaning house! Taking her idea and breaking up the daily chores I came up with the following list.  There is one for each of us and an extra one that goes beyond the standard chores.  It's the stuff we do at least once a week to keep our house neat and clean.  What I love about it is that if something happens on that one day I had set aside to clean the house, it doesn't mean that my entire house gets neglected for anothe
Read more

Computer Time: Starfall.com

Image
One thing my daughter loves to do (like most other kids) is spend time on the computer. One of our favorite websites is Starfall.com . It is a free educational sight that not only teaches reading but the kids really seem to enjoy it. It is geared towards preschool to 2nd grade and is a great tool for learning early reading skills. It helps to teach phonics but can also enhance sight vocabulary as well. The ABC's section is for early reading and it lets you explore your letters and their phonetic sounds. There are great songs for each of the short vowel sounds and for each consonant there is a short activity which explores the letters sound and teaches you some words that start with each letter. Once children know their letters (and even before that) there are stories that you can read. If you click on each word it not only says the word for you, but it sounds it out phonetically, teaching you to do the same. There are lots of other fun activities too. I think it is one of the
Read more

Learning the 10 Commandments

Image
As Gess is getting older we thought it was important to stress having some personal devotion time. I think she needs to know that she can pray and study God's Word anytime she chooses. We always begin her day learning something in the Bible together. Then I have her write and meditate on the portion of Scripture that was the focus for the day. Since she was doing some written work each day we thought it would be good to have a place to keep it all together so that could look it over later and remember what she has studied so far. So we made made her a notebook and titled it My Devotional and keep it with her bible. One of our early lessons this year was to memorize the 10 commandments. I recalled that Living Waters had a great resource for helping kids to memorize them so I went to their site and downloaded their 10 Commandments Learning Aids . They use these images to help tie the number to the actual commandment. They have a full presentation but here is the sheet with
Read more