Homeschool Through the Summer (Even if you don’t homeschool!)

{{In case you are wondering… YES!  They are all this excited about summer school!  ;)}}

As a kid I remember always looking forward to Summer because it meant no more homework and no more teachers!  It meant playing all day long with friends from sun up to sun down, ice cream trucks and popsicles, mud pies and bike rides.

By the time school would start again in the fall I had forgotten so much!  I distinctly remember one particular incident where I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to do a subtraction problem where the top number was smaller than the bottom number.  If I remember correctly, it was the beginning of second grade.  We had learned, the year before, how to borrow from the neighbor to the left but… I hadn’t borrowed from a neighbor for nearly 3 months! 

I sat on the couch with my first homework assignment of the year (math) and I remember laughing out loud when the question was 35 – 8 = …

Because 5 – 8 = 0… THREE TIMES!! 

How was that even possible?  I laughed as I walked my homework over to my mom who reminded me to ‘borrow’. 

Good times, good times.

My kids aren’t so lucky.  They don’t take an entire 3 month hiatus.  We school year round because we take breaks whenever we feel a burn out coming on.  Sometimes one kid is breaking while the others are still chugging along.  Or we break on some subjects but not others.  That’s the beauty of homeschooling!

This summer is going to be so much fun!  I had a friend in my ward call up and ask if we would be interested in forming a small group of kids for a book club. 

HECK YEAH!! 

Three of us and our kids met up to discuss the details and set it all up.  We decided ages 8-12 would be perfect!  However, there is another mom that has a 6 year old that wanted to do it as well, and one of the moms at the meeting also has a 6 year old so it was decided that we could do two separate book clubs.  The two little ones along with H because even though H will be eight next month, she is still not quite ready for the bigger books on the docket for the older kids. 

A schedule was made with a list of all activities planned.  Two moms are in charge of the activities each Thursday throughout the summer (the moms that don’t have little ones at home) while myself and another mom are in charge of the book clubs on Tuesdays each week.  We will rotate having the little ones and the older ones. 

My kids are excited to be doing this with some of their friends and I am excited that we have a plan!  Mind you, these other families do not homeschool.  They do, however, have a vested interest in their children’s educations.  I look at all of these families and think, they would make AWESOME homeschoolers!  But I realize that it’s not for everyone.  And in their own way, they ARE homeschooling!  I love that they have a plan for summer as well! 

In case you are interested here is a list of the activities planned. 

• June 13 – Make bread
• June 20 – Picnic at the lake
• June 27 – Learn about and make kites
• July 4 – No activity planned
• July 11 – Fly kites at The Great Salt Lake
• July 18 – Learn about indexing
• July 25 – take Trax downtown
• August 1 – Make baby burritos (not sure what that is)
• August 8 – Family History Class
• August 15 – Go on a hike 

 

As for the book club, here is a list of the books we plan to read and discuss over the summer for the big kids.  

• June 11 – Bring your favorite book (novel) to tell the others about. 
• June 18 – The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
• June 25 – The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt
• July 2 – Bring your favorite childhood picture book to discuss
• July 9 – Choose a Childhood of Famous Americans book to read and discuss.  Dress as that person.
• July 16 – SOS Titanic by Eve Bunting
• July 23 – The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo and Yoko Tanaka
• July 30 – Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• August 6 – The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• August 13 – Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan

 

Obviously, this is just a guideline.  We have a total of six kids in the older group.  Some of them are not readers.  They just don’t like it.  This is the case for the mom’s son who approached us about this group idea.  She just wants him to start reading and enjoy it.  And then there are the 8 and 9 year olds in the group.  They aren’t going to read as quickly as K or her friend who are both bookworms and could read Harry Potter within a couple of days. 

If we start to see that things are just going way too quickly for some, we will simply slow it down.  Discuss one book for two weeks if we have to.  That might mean that we aren’t able to get through them all and that’s ok. 

For the younger group we are simply going to read and discuss a picture book each week, one with a message.  Or a short chapter book that moms can read to them during the week without losing their attention. 

What about you?  Do you school your kids during the summer months?  Are your kids in year-round school?  What do you have planned? 

 

 

Here We Go Again

Look at this face…

Yep, he’s a cutie but do you also see the smirk?  He’s three now which means he’s growing horns.  Maybe you remember another little somebody being a troublesome 3-year-old.  (Read some of the older stories found here.) 

Oh three… why must you be soooo long!!  A whole year is just too much!  And yet, I LOVE that age just as much as I loathe it. 

They are so darn cute and say the darndest things. 

His favorite thing to do recently is to pretend to be different people.  Grandpa W. (my grandpa), Papu (my dad), Pops (Anthony’s dad), John (our friend/neighbor), or Dad (Anthony).  And of course each person comes equipped with props. 

Grandpa W. – ‘toy car’ (a little off road car thing that I don’t know the real name of.  He comes and gives the kids rides in it once in a while.)

Papu – Pepsi.  B will grab a cup of water or milk and pretend it’s Pepsi.  Papu always has Pepsi…. always!

Pops – bike.  Anthony’s dad is a bicyclist.  The real deal spandex, bikes that cost more than you knew a bike could, ride from Logan to Jackson Hole (Lotoja) kind of bicyclist. 

John – boat.  John owns a boat and takes us out in it once in a while.  Anthony goes with him often every summer.

Dad – could be anything.  It might be a tool or a flashlight.  Or something completely random.

Goodness sakes!  I sure do know how to get off track. 

The real reason for this post was to tell about something that happened at dance the other day.

So, there we were.  Typical Monday at dance except that more little ones showed up than normal because they were doing pictures right after.  They were all playing in the toy room. 

The toy room that’s connected to the bathroom. 

I went back to check on them only to find 5 little ones in the bathroom with plastic cups dipping them into the toilet and dumping it back in.  EW!! 

I promptly freaked out and told them to throw the cups away.  Then I proceeded to make my boys wash their hands in the sink. 

Pictures got done and we were just about to leave.  Several people had already left.  Then one mom comes into the waiting area frantically trying to get to the other bathroom yelling, “We need a plunger!  The toilet is flooding.  There is water everywhere!”

According to her son, his ‘best friend’ (that would be B) flushed a plastic cup down. 

Not a moment later we see water coming from under the wall into the waiting area.  Myself and another mom ran in to see how bad it was.  This other mom has older kids NOT involved in the incident and yet she was the first one to jump in head first and start taking care of business. 

(She’s the one with the daughter that got her butt slapped by my little C.  When I told him he needed to apologize because that wasn’t appropriate he responded with, “But why?  Daddy does it!”  Nice!!  Anthony got a stern talking to about that one! ;))

I was so grateful that she was willing to get it taken care of.  She threw her shoes off and just started scooping water up with a dustpan and throwing it into the toilet.  I started mopping and ringing out the water every half a second.  There was literally at least an inch of water on the ground. 

The boys and I had a ‘chat’ when we got home.  A chat that stuck with them for all of maybe 10 minutes for C and didn’t even register for B.  He just laughed at me.  I don’t know what to do with that kid!   

Mother’s Day

What a fabulous holiday Mother’s Day is.  I love it! 

Father’s Day isn’t nearly as much fun.

It could be the fact that I love having an excuse to sleep in, have breakfast made for me, receive adorable homemade gifts from my kiddos, and not having to change any poopy diapers (pass if off to Dad!). 

All of which happened. 

The kids and Anthony woke up early to make breakfast for both myself and my mom.  Dinner was taking place at Anthony’s mom’s house so my mom got breakfast.  Pancakes, hash browns, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, orange juice, chocolate milk, and real maple syrup! 

We didn’t make it to Sacrament Meeting at church due to breakfast running a little longer than we thought but we weren’t worried.  The girls were sure the primary wasn’t singing.  They hadn’t practiced anything. 

They sang… and we missed it.  Since my kids are pretty much half the primary there were very few kids to sing. 

UGH!  The girls and I were ready on time, too!  I should have left with them and let Anthony deal with the boys.  I love seeing them up there on the stand singing.  C still refuses to do it.  But he’s still very willing to bear his testimony on fast Sundays.  Go figure. 

It was a great day!  I got some sweet cards from the girls, H gave me a Kit Kat, a flower made out of handprints from C, a bookmark from K, and some fun banners from all the kids.  Those were for my Mom also.

It was a really great day!  Next up… Father’s Day.  That’s the day I get all the poopy diapers. 

But I choose not to think about that.   

 

And this is what Baby Munch gave me… an adorable picture of himself.  Oh how I love that baby boy!

Butterball

Can I miss what once was and still be happy for what is? Is that an oxymoron?

When I look at these pictures I already miss the little butterball in them.

Miss him because I know these moments are fleeting.  Before I know it he’ll be running around with his brothers, causing trouble. 

Not the bad kind… just the boy kind. 

And I’ll miss the moments that he would fall asleep in my arms and smile whenever I talk to him.

But for now I’ll just smile.  I choose not to be sad. 

Right now is the time to enjoy the fleeting moments. 

Enjoy the fact that he still fits into the bathroom sink for a bath… barely.

 

And I’m going to cherish every middle of the night feeding that we share.  They’re already few now but I enjoy the ones we still have. 

I choose to be glad for where we are now though I miss where we were even just a few short months ago. 

It’s crazy to me how quickly time flies by.  I can’t stop it but I can enjoy them as they zoom by.

What are you missing and enjoying right now?

 

 

Building A Nest

I don’t do nearly enough homeschooling posts. 

On that note, we tried building a nest this week.  A nest.

For birds.

Not as easy as you might think!  My girls learned quickly that they would not make great birds.  They can’t build a brilliant nest.

{That… and they can’t fly… weird!}

Their science book suggested the project and so they thought they’d give it a go.  They had just learned about all the different types of nests that birds make.

Ingredients were gathered.

Mud…

Sticks and twigs…

Weeds…

And with that they set to work.

 

They even tried soaking the twigs in hopes of making them more ‘bendy’.  The dry ones kept snapping.

In the end, they came up with a great little basket thing (or maybe a potholder?)

And C made some delicious pies!  (He was so proud!)

H was determined to build a nest.  This is what she came up with. 

She even put it up in the tree because she thinks a bird might use it.  I don’t have the heart to tell her otherwise.  It could happen!