Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Busy doing nothin'

Man, this summer break thing sure is busy! Not that we were officially going to be "on" summer break until June 30th... but we don't seem to be doing much schoolwork, lol. Well, if DH asks, tell him we're on Summer Break. ;)

Anyway, we went on a minor camping trip on Sunday/Monday. The kids had fun. We had fun. Not really camping, but lots of fun. Greyson made a new baby friend. They sat in the grass together and chewed on plastic utensils. Cameron and Cassia played with a really sweet little girl with the coolest name. I have a thing about posting our friends' names (and especially their kids' names) without their permission, so I will just tell you that it was the feminine version of Amadeus.

Tuesday we started the day with a walk in a local park with a couple of the Mom's Night Out girls. One of the moms said that she wanted to make a point of inviting me because she felt bad that I had to miss their night out... which was apparently pretty wild! I guess I made a big enough deal about being excluded, lol. Anyway, that was great and then we went out to lunch and got lots of dirty looks from the "working women" there without kids, lol. You know, those single women on their lunch break who look at your wild passel of hoodlums like they belong in juvi rather than that particular sandwich shop. Yeah, well we appropriately ran them right out of Dodge. :P ~thbbt~

After that, they all went to a park but we had to come home and quick print up the mailing labels for our homeschool group's newsletter. And then I had to hand deliver them all the way to the other side of the county because I flaked and didn't get them done in time. Oh well. They can hire someone without kids if they care. ;) We got home from that with about 45 minutes to spare before we had to rush off to Cameron's t-ball game. That went pretty well - Cassia was good - but Cam kept getting in trouble for not listening and doing things like swinging the bat around the other kids and wrestling his teammates in the outfield. *sigh* Greyson just wanted to go rearrange all the batting helmets and drink everyone's water. We got home and had to rush to get dinner ready and then rush to get ready for bed and PHEW! Tired Mommy.

Wednesday was a little more relaxed. I had to catch up on all the laundry (which is still sitting on my bed unfolded) and clean the house a bit (ok, a lot). We did manage to get a page of math done - telling time to the half hour - read a book on the skin and its many functions, and Cameron (after much whining and "I can't do it"s) read a preK/K book about Clifford. Books with labels like that make me feel like he's really behind. It was actually labeled for 3 - 5 year olds. Why can't they just label it Level 1? I am ok with him being a Level 1 Reader. I get nervous when he is having trouble getting through a preK/K book when he should be pretty much done with K work by now. I know, it's just a label and doesn't matter but still...

Anyway, after that we went to Park Day. It was nice, as always, but something particularly interesting happened today. At one point, every child in the park homeschooled or "regular" was playing together. First it was on a spinny thing and I swear it sounded like a roller coaster, lol. Next they organized - and I'm talking about 15 or 20 kids - a game of duck-duck-goose and then they finished off with hide-and-seek. ALL of them! It was so cool. It was one of those beautiful "just let them be kids and they'll be fine" moments. And then the other parents started getting nervous (once the hiding part started) and it was back to just our group playing together again. But man, Eutopia it was. Yoda, I am. The force you will feel. At me, on the floor laughing, you will be. You will be.

We ended the day today with the dress rehearsal for the Annual Gymnastics Show. Cameron did so well. I know, I always say that, lol, but he did! He was so excited that he did his Big Finish moves (the traditional gymnast arms in the air thing) with all the enthusiasm of an Olympian who just gave a Perfect 10 Performance. No spaghetti arms there! The only down side was when he injured his future manliness on the parallel bars, but he continued on like a professional. At first, Cassia was sad that she couldn't be in the show too (next year she'll be old enough) but then she found a friend with a whole bunch of Little Mermaid toys. Then she was only sad when it was time to go, lol.

And there is our life this week. DH is taking the rest of the week off and then we are taking a trip early next week (to the Pixilated Palace!) so that one half-assed day of schoolwork is probably all that is going to happen. Summer Break, yeah, that's it. ;)

6 comments:

Cathy said...

I really like the Usborne phonic readers (Matt does too, there's some funny stuff in them)...

There's also something I saw that I never checked out (it wasn't published yet) called Phonics Comics...I really like the publishers other stuff. I need to look those up and see if they are out now.

Interest in the subject matter makes a big difference and a slightly harder book that he is interested in could make a huge difference.

That was always part of Lexi's problem, she did care to read baby books - but obviously she couldn't verbalize that that was the problem.

Buy a super cool book and leave it laying around and he'll want to read it I bet! :) There's also Star Wars level 1 readers...Matt has couple I think.

Cathy said...

http://www.innovativekids.com/catalog/2005_spring/phonicscomics.htm

I know it was just last year I tried to order them at B&N and they said they hadn't been released yet...but this is dated 2005...weird.

Cathy said...

I know - are you kidding me??? - but you should have been in chat...my husband is out of town and I'm chatty tonight (but to lazy to email you).

Have you taught him "decoding" techniques? Looking at the pictures, sound out just the first part of the word and then look at the rest.

You probably have, but sounding out every word is exhausting for me to listen to, much less them to do. Giving them tricks to be able to "know" the word before they sound it out is a legitimate reading technique. If they KNOW how to sound words out, know phonetics, stealing some whole language stuff to make it "easier" isn't cheating on a phonics conviction, just enhancing it. ; )

I'll stop now.

~Mary~ 4boys4me said...

You're right. I was rolling in the floor laughing at your Yoda impression... too funny!!

G said...

Sounds like summer break to me! I like the idea of leaving cool-looking books around for Cameron, and there are, I'm sure, beginner Star Wars books.

Love the Yoda impersonation...

The gymnastics show sounds fun too. We're almost to C.O.'s belt ceremony in Aikido - he's soooo excited.

Hve fun on your trip!

G said...

In reply to your comment on my blog, YES, I am very much putting myself through torture. Don't worry too much though, we'll still be sitting down for schooling! ;) I am not ready by any means to make a jump to unschooling, though you're right, K's kids are basically a great advertisement for unschooling! I'm just stuck in my eternal, internal debate over what we'd love to study. I'm glad I have the summer to figure it out! In a nutshell though, we'll still be hitting the books come fall.