Happy 4th of July!

We had a fun 4th of July!  

First, we did some firework painting (with a hidden lesson in absorption) 

Use some elmer's white school glue to draw some fireworks (or any design) on black paper.  Then dump salt all over, make sure you cover all the glue.   You can let the glue dry, if you want to prep this in advance, or it works just fine with the glue still wet! 

Mix a tiny bit of water with food coloring (you can test the color strength by putting a drop on white paper).   Use an eye dropper to drip small amounts onto the salt.

Its also a fun way to experiment with color mixing.  You could draw short lines with glue/salt, and put a drop of color on each end, and watch them mix in the middle.    When these dry, it looks more sparkly (you could always mix some glitter with the salt for putting it on, for even more fun)


We spent the rest of the morning decorating Levi's bike.  I cut about a million stars from paper, and Levi stuck them everywhere.  

Then we headed out for a trial class of "Music Together".  Levi enjoyed it, but was acting kind of nuts because he was so excited about the fireworks, and his friend being in the class.  I think we will try again on a calmer day in a class where he doesn't know anyone, and see how that goes before I decide if I want to sign him up.


Here is his finished bike:

Levi's wearing the same shirt he has worn for 3 years in a row, it still fits!   Maybe next year he will have grown enough for me to justify making a new outfit.

And then there was the bike parade!

He is looking at a helicopter, that had the worst timing ever landing right in the middle of the bike parade, on the field really close by.   The crowd made there way over to check that out instead of watching the kids, and it distracted all of the little ones! 

But anyways, he won 1st place in his age group!  (they only had 1 prize for each age group).   He was so proud!  He got a glow stick (purple, his favorite), a puzzle, egg shaped chalk, and a weird squishy caterpillar guy.

He also participated in a "rain" relay race (run with a cup of water on your head to fill a bucket, the cup had holes!), and "keep it up" with a balloon.  They had a water slide, and Levi decided to go head first down it and landed face down in a giant mud puddle.  He wasn't hurt at all, so it was pretty funny seeing him head to toe mud!   He had to go on the next slide to get it off, which had a pool of (rather muddy) water at the bottom.   There was also some bouncy castles, live music and booths to look at.

And at night fireworks!   They were good ones!

Finally, we read books in the car for 30min until we could escape the parking lot maze, went home and did a couple bonus fireworks, and then went to bed!

Happy 4th!!!