School Time

Landon hard at work w/ Ed Emberly pics

I think that I can officially say that our 'school time' so far has been a great success. Even in our 4th week now, we had this conversation yesterday - 

me "guys, I think we need to just do short school time today so you'll still have a time for a movie before we go to the library activity..."

ellie and landon "No!!!!"

(Anything that wins over movie time must be super great!)

I did a lot of planning and thinking about what themes/topics/units we'd cover for school time this summer... but then summer came and I ended up putting most of my plans aside. Here's what we've ended up doing: 

I made a book for Landon and Ellie that we use each day to practice penmanship (a letter each day) and drawing (something that starts with that letter - I'm learning along with the kids :)   Along with these, we're reviewing/remembering all of the letters in Portuguese and learning them in sign language. Then we do some sort of fun or learning activity. 

So we review our letters and whatever else we've been working on during our activity time, then do penmanship practice (good for both Landon and Ellie), drawing, and then some kind of fun activity. It's usually an hour or so and fits in perfectly after quiet time (while Owen naps, Ellie and Landon have quiet play time on their own and I get things done and make quick plans for whatever activity we'll do that day for afternoon school time)  Owen usually wakes up from his nap as we're finishing.  An upstairs clean sweep earns the kids movie time after school time and then we're at 4:00 when Jordan is 'home from work' :)

Some of our activities are based on reading or math practice, others are just for fun (making ice cream in bags, learning about measurements and then making chocolate cookies, 4th of July bead necklaces/bracelets...) We've also done a little bit of piano intro and some arts and crafts kinds of things.

It's been such a fun part of our summer break. And since it's pretty low-key, it's something I can keep up with and jump back into between all of our summer busy-ness.

Hooray for happy school time days!