The Homeschool mother's journal: Summer begins!

  

In my life this week...I feel like summer has officially started here this week!  We've had swim lessons at the pool everyday.  There's also been playing outside with the neighbor kids all afternoon, and cleaning out the garage.  We've also signed up for the library summer reading program which the kids look forward to doing every summer.  We get to spend a lot of time at the park for various reasons.  Trips to the coast, and the Air museum.  Yes, we did all that this week!  Although, it really has been a nice week.  And, we keep adding more and more fun things to the calendar as the summer gets started.

In our homeschool this week...The kids kept requesting to do reading eggs again, so I decided to go ahead and get a 1 month subscription because our free trial was over a few weeks ago.  They have loved doing reading eggs each day, and that's almost enough by itself for their summer learning, especially for the 2 little ones.

We've also started up hooked on phonics again for Aaron because he has asked for it again.  He did his reading lesson 3 days this week!  That's quite an accomplishment for him.  He does pretty good, but he still forgets so quickly what yesterday's lesson was, and so he can't remember the sound combinations from previous lessons.  That makes it hard because there is review each day, and it slows him down.  He is doing better than he ever has though.  I'm hoping this will be a good summer for him for reading.  The boys are enjoying listening to Charlotte's Web too, we are about halfway through it.  I am enjoying reading this book to them, it makes for a great read aloud.  We may actually finish it too.  Our first chapter book read aloud!  Woohoo!

We didn't get a lot of math in this week, but we did get some science in.  I found some solar paper at the Learning Palace, and we tried that out.  They loved collecting different things around the house and outside to try out.  We found that solid objects pressed down firmly next to the paper left the best impressions.  Next they want to make a solar oven.




I am inspired by...being asked to take a sweet young girls wedding pictures.  This young lady used to babysit my kids, and now she is getting married.  It's so fun to see young ones grow up!  I'm kind of nervous as I've only done 2 other weddings, both of which were family.  This is like the real deal.  I have been inspired to brush up on my photography, and get my camera in shape/ready.  Wedding's are a lot different than families and children, but I'm excited to get some new experience.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...We have been going, going, going!  We went to the air museum last Friday,  Then the coast and aquarium over the weekend.  It was $5 swim lesson week at the pool, so the 2 older kids did swim lessons every day for only $5 each.  We also went to see the Dr. after Wednesday's swim lessons because he bumped the side of the pool and his tooth went through his bottom lip.  April said to me after:  "I guess our $5 swim lessons turned into $30 swim lessons with the Dr. co-pay."  She made me laugh.  At least it wasn't worse!  So thankful that he didn't have to have stitches.

My favorite thing this week was...Going to the Oregon coast and seeing the Japanese dock that washed ashore, and going to the Oregon Coast Aquarium.  We have visited the aquarium a lot over the past few years because we have a joint pass with my in-laws, so it's always a fun tradition at the coast.  They have a new kids exhibit that the kids really enjoyed too.  It was also a beautiful day.

What's working/not working for us...I've realized that I over-plan sometimes (which really isn't much planning at all), and that stresses me out.  Then I get burned out real fast.  I've realized that doesn't work for me.  I need to just relax, and stop over working things in my brain.  Sometimes I find things work better when I just let things be and plan only where necessary.

Questions/thoughts I have...I had a thought this past week about April.  She's getting older, and I need to go more out of my way to find things that are non-preschool activities and things.  We have little boys so a lot of our outings during the day tend to revolve around the preschool scene.  She's a good sport, and always makes the best of it.  But, I need to find more field trips and outings that are oriented more for older children too so she doesn't get too bored with our outings.  The hard part is that I have small children, it's tricky.  It's a thought I'll be working on for a while.

Things I’m working on…reading.  Reading for me.  Reading to the kids.  Finding books that interest them.  Working on getting them to sit still enough to listen.  We ARE making progress.  I am making progress.  I am picking up a book as much as possible.  It's not that I didn't read before, but I am really learning and loving reading more these days, and I'm hoping that my example helps my boys.

I’m cooking…english muffin pizzas for the kids tonight while I go out to dinner with Hubby for our 13th anniversary.  I love how quick and easy english muffin pizzas are.

I’m grateful for…the opportunity April and I had to go to the library and volunteer this week. 

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…a photo of the "Japan bridge".  It's amazing to think that this drifted all the way from Japan and just plopped down on the Oregon coast.  It was pretty fun to look at.  We were bummed that they had to strip so much stuff off of it though.  It would have been cool to see some of that stuff.

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Desiree