Summer Fun...

Some may believe that leaning ends when summer begins...That it's a break from learning time...
I, for one, completely disagree! 

We dont' have to be officially "in school" to have amazing learning opportunities. 

The libraries offers some mighty phenomenal activities during the summer for kiddos.  We've taken part in a few that have been fantastic! 

One of the funniest, okay craziest ones that we did was the Mother/Daughter Belly Dancing...Yeah, I know...what am I doing teaching my adorable girls to belly dance?  Well, I have to tell you, it was a BLAST!  Watching those little ones of mine dancing about was adorable...I gave it my best shot.  I had to laugh when the instructor, which by the way was totally decked out in all the fancy belly dancing attire ~ bells and all, told all of us ladies in the room that contrary to what we've been told we are not to "tighten our buns during this, we are to just let it all shake about."  And I do have to say that those of us who had a little extra to shake about could flat do the belly dancing, there was one woman in there that I would swear had done this her entire life.  We learned to do the shimmy ~ both top and bottom ~ pretty exciting stuff there!!!  Don't know where my photos are from this one and I'm totally bummed about that...they were stinkin' cute!

But I do have pictures of another dance day we attended just this past week.  It was a class called "Without Borders".  A very sweet lady came in to share the Andalusian Gypsy culture and demonstrated the art of Flamenco Dancing...Flamenco dancing was very moving to watch.  I would have to say that the intensity with which she danced was beyond what I've witnessed before.  Flamenco dancing originated from a blending of cultures that gathered in the southern region of Spain and started as early as the 13th century.  The dancers expressed such intense emotions that in the beginning, these dances were kept fairly private...it was around the early 1900's that gypsies started performing these dances in public cafes.  During her dance performance, there would be pauses in the music, this is where the audience yells out "Ole" and claps for more...again such a moving, intense form of dance.  I loved it!  My little girls were quite impressed as well and really wanted a photo shot with the dancer and their little fans they had made.  (The Fan that the dancer is holding was used so elegantly throughout her performance)

Here is another one of our fun days out...this little program was put on for kiddos who are in the midst of losing their teeth!  What a fantastic job they did...

I loved the fact that they took cultures and beliefs from all over the world and gave the kids some good laughs at what other children do. 

Not all children give their prized little teeth to the tooth fairy!

At the end of the program they had supplies for each of the children to make their own Tooth Fairy Pillow ~ Natalie was pretty proud of hers!

 And yet another fun day...
This was our Canada Mini-Camp...
This little Reindeer joined us for a bit of time, the most fascinating part of this little gal was when she would walk around, her knees "click".  It was actually quite loud.
She was deep into her shedding, so the kids were not allowed to pet her, but they were still delighted.

 After meeting the sweet little reindeer, they took us all in for a dance session, sorry cannot recall what form of dance this one was, but the kids had a great time.  I opted to take photos  :0)  At the end of this class, all the kids made "Rock People", actually called an Inuksuk.  A story was read to us about a little girl who had stacked rocks into the shapes of people when her Father and Brother had been lost.  She did this in hopes that they would be able to find their way home.  It was a beautiful little story (sorry, don't remember the name, really should have made myself a little note)  Anyway, the library had painstakingly chosen a number of rocks for the kiddos to make their own Rock People ~ they are now hanging out on my book shelf. 

 I'll be posting some more fun summer things we've been doing in the very near future  :0)

Hope you are enjoying your sunny days as much as we are!