According to the state, our new school year starts July 1. So every year on July 1 I have a tradition of shaking everybody's hand and informing them that they've moved up a grade. My kids always laugh at this, because I'm sure they know how arbitrary it is.
Theoretically, we are on summer "break". All this means is that we're not doing math or diagramming sentences. At our Little Flowers/Blue Knights picnic Saturday, one of the missionary brothers of LaSalette asked me if we were done with our school and if we would start again on September 8 when our homeschool group has its annual "kick off the new school year" picnic. I have a stock answer for those sorts of questions, which is that we go year round, taking breaks as we need or want them. It's hard for me to limit our "school year" only to those times when we do math, and as patient and kind as Brother is, I'm not sure he really wanted to hear the long, complicated explanation.
So even thought it's summer time, I'll be doing week-in-review posts for the new school year as I can. At the end of the year I print out all the review posts and add them to our documentation. Even so, they're just snippets of our lives. If there's anything that seems to be missing or that you'd like me to elaborate on, please feel free to let me know!
This week was probably one of the busiest of the year (which is why there were no blog posts.) I still can't seem to adjust to the yearly rhythm of life in upstate New York. It seems like everyone tries to cram every single activity that could possibly be done into the first two weeks of July. This year summer soccer season began (three nights a week), Gareth had Boy Scout camp, Katydid went to a day camp at the Farmer's Museum, and our Little Flowers/Blue Knights group had a field day. That was all we could possibly manage to fit in. What we couldn't do that we had wanted to were botanical drawing lessons and photography at our local arboretum.
Scout camp. Gareth came within 4 points of earning his archery badge in one week. He did manage to earn his geology badge and come home with some nifty fossils, and he improved his swimming skills. The camp has a terrific fossil bed with Devonian-age fossils (mainly shells) literally every few inches. Camp is only about fifty minutes away from our house, so Andy drove down every morning and met Gareth for breakfast, and I brought the little boys and Katydid down for a family outdoor meal, cooked in rock ovens and over the campfire, and for the closing ceremonies' barbecue. After running around in the woods with the youngest son of Gareth's scoutmaster, hauling firewood, and cooking crescent rolls on sticks over the fire, Pop turned to me with huge eyes and said, "Can we live here???" Gareth did well being away from home for the first time, but was happy to be back with a hot shower and all his books.
The Farmer's Museum is supposed to replicate a small village around 1845. Katydid spent her week at daycamp weaving baskets, pounding iron hooks in the blacksmith shop, quilling, making folk art paintings, wandering around the art museum across the street, taking care of farm animals, and playing Native American games. Since Thursday and Friday were nice days (the other days were cold and rainy), we walked around the museum after we picked her up. The major exhibit indoors is called "Wild Times" and displays the main animals of the various regions of New York. They've set up a puppet theater for the little ones -- easily the little boys' favorite place.
Although Farmerboy also liked the bear rug.
Katydid has been very upset with her brothers lately, because they never want to play soccer with her. Having to play soccer after spending all day at camp made her tired, but happy!
So our daily routine was a little unusual this week, but by the end of the week we had fallen into a predictable pattern. Andy would get up super early to take care of all the chickens and turkeys and drive down to Scout camp to have breakfast with Gareth. I would get up and take an incredibly fast shower so I could be in and out by the time that Chipmunk realized I was gone and woke up. Then I would get everybody breakfast, and we would be out the door by 8 AM-ish. On the way there and the back, the boys would quiz me on my knowledge of dinosaurs, boa constrictors, insects, and Star Wars. When we arrived back home, Andy would already be there, getting ready to go to work. We'd chat for a few minutes, then I'd wash dishes and do laundry while the boys watched a little TV or played. After that habits would kick in and the boys would demand to work on some kind of project. After they were satisfied with their project work, they'd wander off to play before lunch. I'd take a quick break at lunchtime, then more dishes and laundry while the boys played, and it was off a little early to get Katydid so the boys could have a nap in the van. After this week, I have no idea how mothers of large families who have their kids in school manage. We are all very tired and ready to stay home in the mornings.
The one thing I did find very interesting this week was how deeply ingrained our "choice time" routine has become. I suggested exactly one activity this week, and it was on a morning when some of us were recovering from a little mystery virus that has been going around -- nausea, stomach upset, and cold symptoms, all together. Everything else was suggested -- "demanded" might be a better word -- by a child.
Here's the breakdown of what the little boys did this week:
Monday: Helped Andy build a chicken tractor. (Andy took Monday off.) Monday was mostly sunny.
Tuesday: Built spaceships out of cardboard boxes. This is the one activity I suggested. Pip was still recovering from the sudden onset of our virus on the sidelines of a soccer game the night before, Farmerboy wasn't feeling too well, and neither was I, so I let the boys watch an episode of Star Wars: Clone Wars. It was raining, and after the TV was turned off the boys were a little at loose ends, so I thought spaceships might be welcome.
This is Pip's spaceship. We covered the outside with aluminum foil. The paper plate "steering wheels" were Farmerboy's idea, as are the feather "lasers".
Wedsnesday: Yet another TV inspired activity, I'm embarassed to say, but this one was entirely the twins' idea. They'd watched an episode of Sid the Science kid about leaves. Pop immediately wanted to draw leaves, and then collect his own leaves. Pip really got into collecting leaves (in between rain showers). He did not want to draw them himself, so I relented and drew for him. Both twins wanted to tape leaves on their papers. And Pop told me some stories about them to write down.
We put them on the bulletin board.
Thursday: Another cold, rainy morning. After a long discussion about fossils in the van, the boys arrived home ready to work, and my desire to load the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher was nothing but a pesky obstacle. I decided to get with the program and do my chores later. First the boys got out the fossils, then the shells, and then the playdough to make their own "fossils":
Pop lined all his shells up below a fossil guide.
Then the boys decided they wanted to paint.
Pop and Farmerboy are painting dinosaurs. Pip likes to paint boxes.
Farmerboy's dinosaur.
I have a whole post I want to do about painting with little ones. Hopefully soon.
Friday: Friday morning was sunny -- finally. The boys found some earthworms and rolie-polies in the flower bed where they can play with their trucks and spent a good long while setting up worm farms and rolie-polie habitats in my good freezer containers. (All in the name of science, right?) Then Pip wanted to build a bug out of clay. They used sculpey, plastalina, and florist's wire. (And Pip actually made a spider.)
Rolie-polie habitat.
Studying insect books.
Pip's spider close up.
A rolie-polie Pip made, Pip's spider, a bee Pop and I made together, and a plastalina butterfly with proboscis by Farmerboy.
This week was a lot of work, but I was pleased with the results. I was proud of Gareth for doing so well at camp, happy that Katydid was able to follow her own interests, and very satisfied with how independent and motivated the little boys were in doing their own work.
I have a whole post I want to do about painting with little ones. Hopefully soon.
Ooh! Yes please!
Posted by: Fe | July 13, 2009 at 09:23 AM
We are "year around" learners also. I really struggled with how to word that in my required letter to the school dept. I needed to "promise"...umm, report... that my son had, indeed, completed the 180 required days of "school". I could have just written that we did the 180 days. But I just couldn't leave it at that, it seemed so untrue. And I didn't want to go into depth with them about what we did do, so I wrote "We are year round learners and as of our year end his attendance for the 2008-2009 school year has more then covered the required 180 days." I felt content enough with that.
We already have 15 days of official learning completed for the 2009-2010 school year.
Here's to happy learning!!
Posted by: Melissa R | July 14, 2009 at 05:50 AM
This sounds like a really productive and fun week minus the 'sit down ' assigned work. You are so lucky to have things like the Farmers Museum and scout camp and Little Flowers/ Blue Knights.
But I am sure all the driving around and organising to get in/ out of the car etc would have made you very tired. It would me.
Hope you continue tohave more fun weeks in your "NEW school year".
God Bless
Gae ♥
Posted by: Gae | July 14, 2009 at 08:26 AM