School has been out for almost two weeks and despite all the moving chaos going on right now, we've still been having successful daily school time. Last week we did it every day, this week we missed a few days 'cause of swim camp and the house being packed up, but here is a little of what we've been up to.
Every day we do journal writing (that's Matthew with his journal), a few workbook pages (from the Summer Bridge Activities workbooks or some math workbooks) and reading time. Reading time involves 20 minutes of reading with Matthew while Anna gets to play learning to read games on my ipod and then we switch for another 20 minutes (the little boys are napping or attempting to nap during this time). Then we have reading time altogether. Sometimes I have them present their journal writings after our reading time. It sounds boring but the kids LOVE it. They keep asking when we can have more school time.
And I had planned that we would do a special activity each day of the week:
Monday: cooking something together
Tuesday: library day
Wednesday: swimming, playing in the water
Thursday: a craft or experiment at home
Friday: a special field trip somewhere
We haven't totally kept to that because of moving and stuff, but it at least gives me ideas of things to do with the kids.
I give them a different journal prompt each day...anything from "what do you want to do this summer?" to "what would you do if there were a dragon under your bed?" This particular day we wrote about what we were most looking forward to this summer. Matthew wrote about moving and drew a picture of us driving out of (or over?) the mountains. :)
Anna said she was most looking forward to seeing the cousins.
She wrote "I love you Aunt Angie" and drew a picture of Aunt Angie. She did her best on the spelling. I don't stress about Anna's creative spelling. In Matthew's kindergarten class they started out letting them spell things however they could sound them out, so I think she's good. I hope. :)
Another day I asked them for their journal prompt what they want to learn about. Matthew said animals and Anna said skulls (we had an in depth discussion about bones the day before). She drew a picture of a skeleton and then told me not to look at it in case it scared me too much. :)
One day we went on a field trip to play mini golf. On this day we did color and line drawings.
I got the idea from this site that has lots of art lessons for kids.
I thought it was such a great idea til Matthew reminded me he already did pictures like this in real school. ;) He still enjoyed it.
And Anna was inspired to start a journal of her own (not a mommy school one). She wrote the word Oregon. Can't you get Oregon from that? She has to tell me what it says sometimes. I only corrected the O at the beginning and that was after she asked me.
We are now out of our house and staying in temporary lodging and I brought all the summer school supplies with me and they have been a lifesaver. The kids sit down and work at stuff for so long. I have supplies for Grant and he sometimes chooses to participate, sometimes not.
I also got a few of the Doodle books (boy one, girl one) which both Matthew and Anna have been loving and the Usborne Sticker books. I got Anna one about ballerinas and Matthew one about World War II. Each page tells a little blurb about some aspect of the war (factual without being too scary for children) and then they get to put on the appropriate uniform and accessories on each character. Matthew loves it and I think it's pretty cool, although I wish I had gotten a more informational one for Anna too. Oh well. Maybe I can find a skeleton one somewhere. :)
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