Summer school

My grand plans for 2011 to continue to hold "Summer School" fell through the cracks. This is where I discovered that for me and my family, unless I do something regularly, it just takes too much energy to continue forward with a project. You can't do something half-heartedly! It's all...or NOTHING!

I chose this summer to help out a friend and watch her wonderful, sweet, fun, children 2 or 3 days per week. I thought this would be great break and treat for my kids to get some summer fun and play with friends, and then we'd balance it by doing "school" the other days of the week...but life just doesn't work that way! I was crazy for thinking that would work! When my kids friends came over at 6 a.m....of course they all wanted to play! I could barely get my kids to do their regular chores or even concentrate on piano practice.

For a big family to function, there has to be synergy, a family focus, certain accepted ideologies and rules of behavior. And especially for homeschooling families, schedule is everything! If you don't have a plan and stick to it, none of your goals are going to happen. We got into "play mode" and that was it for the whole summer. There were too many wonderful, fun, outdoorsy things to do for my kids to even fathom sitting at the table working on math. Any attempts to facilitate formal schooling was officially flushed down the toilet!! And as I could see the writing on the wall, there was no use fighting it...we just took all that energy and went a different direction!

Playing all summer didn't mean that learning didn't happen at my house this summer...oh, no, not by a long shot! We read tons and tons of books, did projects, and created. We had fun baking, cleaning, gardening, and park-hopping. We did art, wrote plays and filmed them. We found and cataloged bugs and other misc. creatures. (see interesting beetle below that we captured, identified online, and then sketched in our nature books)

We went to pick fruit. (This was THE major effort of the summer!) We had huge cherry pitting parties while watching the new My Little Pony series. And of course there was the Berries...we picked 300 lbs of Strawberries, 300 lbs of blueberries, 100. lbs of boysenberries, 200 lbs of raspberries, 500 lbs of peaches...and I have no idea how many hundreds of pounds we picked, processed, and froze of apples and pears! We also did 100lbs of grapes. I didn't even try to count how many pounds of blackberries we did...because none of it ever made it to our freezer!!! We just consumed them...continually :) I had weeks of scratches on my arms and legs from the brambles, and the creases in my hands seemed continually stained purple. My kids mouths and teeth were purple, too! We made pies, jams, and lots and lots of smoothies. :)

All the kids participated and had a grand time in all our yummy endeavors. We also did some plum harvests...we consumed all those fresh, too! The rest of it all we froze because we eat daily a variety of fruit in our green smoothies and kefir smoothies...yum! I will be so sad when it is all gone...I doubt it will all last till next summer!!!

The highlight of the summer for the kids was DRAMA CAMP put on by an awesomely creative family in Salem. Every Summer, their teenage daughters adapt a famous story into a musical. All the proceeds from their camp go to pay for their church girls camp and other school costs for the coming year.

This year, the play they wrote was on NORSE MYTHOLOGY!!!

Dorathy here on the left is FREYA, the goddess of love and beauty. Athena on her right is her twin brother, the god Frey.

Sanford played THOR and Christopher played Loki. This was so hilarious to Mary and I as we realized that these roles fit their personalities Perfectly!!! Sanford it a leader who loves to take charge and has quite a temper. And Christopher is the comic side-kick who is always pulling tricks, telling jokes, and making everybody laugh.

The costumes were great, there were several creative musical numbers, and Courtney and her cousin Jared made two very adorable doggies!

My camera battery DIED right in the middle of the performance...so I didn't get more shots...but at least I got the whole thing on my camcorder! My kids can't wait till next year, they really want to participate again. We'll see!

This year I also volunteered at a Girl Scout Day Camp so all my girls could have that opportunity and experience...it was a wonderful but exhausting week. I'm not sure I'll be up for that again next year... it might have been a once in a lifetime thing for my girls.

I wonder what the summer of 2012 will be like? Already, it doesn't feel to far away...

Summer Fun

One of our favorite parts of Summer is that we have time for lots of playdates. During the year, most people are too busy between school and activities to come and play. During this playdate, the kids had a blast with Play-doh.

Dorathy, Christopher, and Courtney opened up a bakery shop with all the
goodies they created. They got out the play money and wanted me to take pictures of everything. This was serious business to them: Arguing prices and handing out change. So fun to watch! My kids love to run pretend businesses. They're not ready to do it in the real world yet, though. Christopher has a few ideas for making a side income next summer, though. He's finally big enough to mow other people's lawns!

Julianna is fascinated with glasses. Funny thing, she ONLY likes Daddy with his glasses on. If he ever takes his glasses off, Julie will say "Daddy glasses, glasses? glasses? NOW!" And she won't stop till he puts his glasses back on. It's hilarious. Julianna prefers people with glasses!

Christopher proves that being almost 12 is NOT too old to goof off with Play-doh! I think he re-discovered just how much fun it was. He created a swirly road for everyone's creatures to drive down. It looked great, but was a pain to clean up. I felt grateful all over again for my laminate flooring!!!

Here is Julianna getting ready for the Dallas Summerfest Parade. It was so chilly we shivered in coats! It was so weird...parades should be hot! In past parades, people would spray the audience with water as they drive by. Not this year, though!

The girls ate our packed picnic before the Candy-throwers arrived. Everyone loves the parade, but the Candy is everyone's favorite part. We got several bags worth this year. This was the first time ever that Scott didn't get to come...he had to work. We missed his enthusiasm and silly shouts to all the floats.

After the Parade, I went to the Library book sale and got about 50 books for only 5$!! It was amazing...I'm definitely going to do that again next year! I needed to borrow a wagon cart to haul the books to my car. What an amazing deal. :0

The Big Bad Bee

Now that the weather has gotten warmer, the bees and wasps are out and about.

My girls are remembering their past traumatizing bee and wasp stings. They are paralyzed with fear.

Whenever Angel sees even a harmless little black fly, she freezes and screams, "A bee! A bee! Help Me, I'm scared!"

Today homeschooing screeched to a halt when Courtney noticed a wasp in the house. She couldn't move for horror. She was convinced that if she moved the wasp would see her and sting her.

Can you tell they've had a lot of bad stings in the past? I'm working with them on it, but the fear isn't going away anytime soon. Last summer Angel and Courtney got so many stings close together, I was worried that they would develop an allergic reaction. We have tons of plants, herbs, flowers, and clover...so those bees really love our yard! Most stings happened when the girls stepped or sat on them somehow.

I've had a few bad stings myself, so I don't blame them at all for their fear! I'm just telling them that there is nothing they can do about the bees, and they'll just have to get used to them, and if they don't bother them, they won't get stung. A child' s fear, however, is too irrational to be solved that easy! And they know for a fact, that accidents happen, even when the bee isn't "out to get them".

One good helper is Christopher! He is into collecting bugs, and so he has lost all fear of them. Anytime an insect is seen our house, out comes the bug jar! We then get to examine it in detail over the next 24 hrs before he releases it outside. At least the girls aren't afraid of a the wasp when it's IN Christopher's jar. This week the guests in Christopher's jar have been: a spider, a crane fly, a moth, and a few big wasps.