ESY and One World...Many Stories

The week or so before school let out for the summer, I was really stressing on what to do with my kids, especially Hunter, where he has speech delays.  I was thrilled when a couple of papers were sent home in his backpack the Monday before school let out.  One set of papers was letting me know he qualified for ESY or Extended School Year.  I was THRILLED beyond words, because if you remember back when I posted about summer speech help, I was really concerned Hunter wouldn't be able to retain what he had learned throughout the school year.  Because of the low funding Utah public schools gets, even though he is considered a special needs child and in a special education program and gets state funding specific to his needs, he is only able to go to school every other Wednesday, so by the time school starts, he will have gone 6 times.  However, I'm not complaining in any way whatsoever, because its time he spends getting that one-on-one speech help he needs.  The best part of him going to ESY for speech, Zane's Aunt Mary is the speech therapist.  Hunter loves "Speech Mary".  So far, he has only gone twice, but in those 2 times, he has successfully learned how to articulate the "F" sound!!!!  I never though hearing my child articulate the "F" sound correctly in words, would be music to my ears, but it is such a wonderful sound!!!  I'm so proud of him for learning such a hard sound to articulate.


Back to those papers in his backpack...the other paper was for the Gunnison Civic Library's Summer Reading Program.  When I saw the paper, later that afternoon, the kids and I walked down to the library and I signed both Hunter and Paizlei up for the program.  It stated they had to be at least 3 to be in the program, however, they let Paizlei be in it since she is "almost" 3.  The theme for this year is, One World, Many Stories.  Each week, they will focus on another country, tell a story that depicts that specific country.  So far, we have learned about America, Mexico, and this week was Egypt.


Both kids LOVE going each week.  Hunter was asking me on Saturday when "we go to read time at park?".  I'm so happy the library decided to do something fun for the kids during the summer.  It definitely helps add a little structure to our routine.  And, it also helps with Hunter's speech, as he LOVES to be read to and learns so much from being read too.  And, I know it helps with his speech delays.

 

 Each week, they do a different arts & crafts project catering to the country the kids learned about.  This week, because they learned about Egypt, the kids made sugar cube pyramids.  Hunter followed the instructions so well and did his pyramid all by himself!  I was so proud of him!

My little pipsqueak, Paizlei, all she wanted to do was eat the sugar cubes.  I'm not surprised though.  If there is food, especially sugar, she smells it and has it in her mouth within seconds.  Needless to say, she has a couple of deformed sugar cubes on her pyramid.

 One of the librarians complimented Hunter on his "excellent pyramid"!  He was beyond happy hearing that, as you can tell by his adorable smile.

 The other arts & craft project they did, was hieroglyphic bookmarks.  Hunter was really into it.  He couldn't figure out WHY his black paper was turning to color as he moved the stick around on the page.  He was really curious about it.

All Paizlei wanted to do, was play with the drawing stick.  She was so funny!  I helped her draw on the paper with the stick to see if she would think the different colors were fun, however, she just wanted the stick.

PS...sorry for all the high contrast b&w photos.  It was super bright outside, and didn't realize the settings on my camera weren't right for the brightness, so the photos turned out super over-exposed, so I had to do them in b&w to see the photos.