Doing nothing

Here are a few photos of today's unstructured time activities. I love it when the children find (independently) fun and interesting things to do in their unstructured time. It is why I never mind having a summer break (more about what we do during summer break later).

Katie has been upstairs reading Jane Austen's Emma all afternoon. :)

After Matthew read to me today, I read this story to him and Meghan.


The main reason I bought this book was that it had directions for making 5-pointed stars in the back. I remember reading a biography of Betsy Ross as a grade-schooler and wanting so much to make those stars, but having no idea how to go about it. Matthew was equally excited when he saw the directions. Then he discovered it was easy to do. Even Meghan could help--just one line to cut.



Between them, they made 13 stars, which Matthew was inspired to glue onto blue construction paper.


Which grew into a full Betsy Ross flag.



From there, he dug out the "Flags of the World" placemat and went on a flag-making adventure. There are at least a dozen construction-paper flags hanging around his doorway this evening. He says, "We have a STATE room now." :)


Meghan used Matthew's busy time to dress her dolly in peace. She quietly brought her to me at one point with a cloth belt that she wanted me to tie around the dolly's head. She's already got the big head-bow fashion down.

Joseph took out his wooden boat project again today to finish the sail.



He designed and constructed the boat almost all by himself after we got back from the voluntary departure in the spring. When the early rains came, he sailed it in "Liberty Creek," the stream that pours out of the downspout on the corner of our back porch. He had cut and hand-stitched the sail, then lost steam on the project. The sewing was a lot of work!


But today, he was back at it and made great progress. He is pondering the problem of how to attach the mast to the boat now. I have no doubt that he will come up with a solution and have the boat sailing before the autumn rains begin.


Afterwards, they all went outside, drank lemonade, and played some sort of invented lawn tennis game with our Japanese neighbor's grandson. Happy days.