Summer Home Schoolin'

As summer starts to wind down, the tell-tale signs that the beginning of school is afoot are appearing. The patio furniture at Target has mysteriously morphed into the school supply section. School supply lists have replaced summer reading lists at our local library. And I have shifted into "summer enrichment" mode.

Back before I had three kiddos and it was just Lizzie, she got mommy enrichment every day after her half day at Kindergarten. Work books, home science projects -- the works. Time constraints (and a little laziness on my part) has reduced the enrichment to the last month of summer vacation. The program works like this: we cover the major subjects (math, language arts, history, science) with a few of our own thrown in (art, music, spatial learning & home economics). A sample day looks like this:

• MORNING: Lang. Arts (writing exercises, age appropriate computer learning game, BOB books for Olie), Piano lessons


• LUNCH -- girls might prepare their own lunch for Home Ec.


• AFTERNOON: Spatial Learning (3D puzzle, K'nex project), Math, SQUIRT time (Super Quiet Uninterrupted Reading Time aka Mommy decompression/knitting/showering time)

Today, for Science, the girls are hunting down unusual bugs in the backyard and preparing a detailed report about them. Later on, we will do Paper Mache. Let's hope it goes better than their Play-doh making two days ago! *fingers crossed*

Madhubby thinks I'm a little nutso for tackling home schooling with the girls, but I remind him it's only temporary. Amazingly, the girls are bickering less. I haven't figured out why there is less arguing, but my theory is they argue less because they are getting more of my attention. Thus, they don't feel as though they have compete as much. It's very nice but after one week, my mind is getting numb. I'm a little worn out, too. I only hope that my efforts will be borne out by the results of their assessment tests in late August.
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I've been knitting like crazy, lately! Some of it's good. Some of it should never see the light of day. Still, the more I knit, the better I get at it. And the less crazy my children make me.