Last Week of Summer School

This will be our last week (well, couple of days) of summer school. Most weeks this summer, starting the first week of June, we have done schoolwork for 2-3 hours in the mornings, Monday through Thursday. We have logged enough hours that we can take off a couple of weeks from our regular school schedule in the fall to go to Florida in late September and to relax around the holidays. We plan to do some schoolwork today and tomorrow and then call it quits until Wednesday, August 14th when we will officially start our 2013/2014 school year.

It has been an amazingly great summer of learning and I totally plan for us to do this again next summer.

We have moved along in our learning of multiplication.
We have learned all of the letters in cursive handwriting.
We have finished some great read alouds (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Poppy).
We have completed the Summer Reading Program at the library with each child reading a large chapter book and 20 picture books.
We did a crazy fantastic unit on Life Cycles by observing first-hand the life cycles of frogs, butterflies, and chickens.
And we have done some fun art projects (review coming in a couple of days).

In addition we have taken swimming lessons, gone to Cub Scout day camp, had scouting activities, played a season of softball, gone to VBS, and more.

It's been a full and fun summer.

But we are ready for a two-week break. My birthday is this week. My brother, sister-in-law and baby niece are here for a week-long visit. We NEED to spend some more time at the lake. I have a couple of little projects I would like to do around the house. We are getting Kyndal's room redone in preparation for her move here in a month. Dawson is wanting to enjoy his last two weeks of summer before school starts again. And, I just want to get some reading done. Schoolwork is pretty much planned, but I just need to get a couple more things purchased and printed.

And on that note, I better get up and ready to start our day. How about you? Have you done summer school? Or have you taken the summer completely off?

ABCya

Eli's reading resource teacher shared a website with me yesterday that I would like to pass along. It's called ABCya . There are separate educational sections with fantastic games for ages kindergarten through 5th grade. I browsed the 2nd grade level, and it includes age-appropriate games about Letters, Numbers, Shapes, Geometry, Patterns, Mouse Manipulation, Art and Holiday games. There are lots and lots of fun and creative games for children to play. They are fun, but oh, so educational. Eli's favorite, in his short time playing it, was Create a Car . A lot of the games also have Apps available for purchase (99 cents for most of them) for the iPad and iPhone. I have been looking for another free website for games similar to Starfall , for some time. I think I have found it. I can feel confident having Eli and Brynne play these games.

Cells ~ It's What's for Dinner

Dawson made edible cells on Friday. He made an animal cell pizza ... and a plant cell chocolate chip cookie ... He reviewed what he's learned about cells the past two weeks, and I had dinner made by someone else. Win, win!! I am linking up at Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

Last Child in the Woods ~ Chapters 1-4

Welcome to our book study of Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. To be honest, I have no idea what this "study" is going to look like. I imagine that when we get together I will post about all of the things that caught my eye. And I would ask that you leave a comment, or a link to your own blog post in the comment, about what caught yours. This isn't anything formal, ladies, just a place to talk about what we have read. I have now read the first four chapters of Last Child in the Woods two times. It is just so good. Several things have specifically hit me deep, but in general I just realized that "times, they are a changin'." Things aren't the way they were when we were kids. Chapter 1. Gifts of Nature ~ "When I see birches bend to left and right ... I like to think some boy's been swinging them." ~ Robert Frost What is your definition of nature? What feelings, visions, senses does it conjure up? For me, it's not a

Journey to Excellence

Search This Blog