Our Plans for the Next Few Weeks

I had a talk with the kids about what they wanted to do on their "school break", and after we weeded out the "not going to happen list", we have come up with some good ideas.  I have the next 3 weeks mostly figured out and thought I would share what is bouncing around in my head.


This coming week is "child led" or "Mommy is not going to help you become a rocket scientist or any other such thing" week.  During the first part of the week, I am going to clean the house and put away the books we are done using.  The second half of the week we are off to Duke for our big teen's annual pacemaker check up.  Hopefully, all will go well, and we will be back next weekend.  We hope to have time to go to a museum or two and visit the large homeschool consignment store in Raleigh while we are there.  The kids are totally excited about staying at Ronald McDonald House again.


Week 2 ~ We will be studying manners.  I have to finish gathering the stuff I already have and printing games off of the Internet.  At the end of the week, we will be having a formal tea party, complete with (mismatched) china.  Little Red Ridinghood will be inviting all of her friends from her ballet class to the party to celebrate the end of the ballet year.  I have no idea how she is going to survive the summer without weekly ballet classes!


Week 3 ~ I am really excited about this week.  We will be studying the Hungry Planet book.  It looks like a really special book and depicts what kind of food/how much food people eat around the world.  After we have looked over the book, the kids are going to try to figure out which country's photo looks most like our family's diet.  Hint ~ in my opinion, it is not America.  Then we are going to buy all the food we eat in a week and take a photo of it to compare to the book.  I wonder who will guess the closest?  I am also considering an international night meal with some unusual dishes but not sure I'll pull that off.  The point of this break is keeping me sane by not overloading myself.  LOL!


Week 4 ~ We will be trying out the making friends program.  A friend of mine told me about this, and it looks like a neat way to get mail and find out about other kids in America.  She says it is more of a one time pen pal situation, which I think is easier for little ones.  I had a pen pal for years, and it is hard to keep up with the letters sometimes.


Week 5 ~ We will read Flat Stanley and prepare our own Flat Stanley paperdoll to travel to Italy with my Father and Step-mother.  I also want to look into the Flat Stanley Club on the Internet and the geocache boxes that trade Flat Stanley dolls.  I am hoping that this will prove to be very fun and an exciting way to explore geography for the little ones and we can continue it throughout the coming school year.


I am not sure what we will do for week 6 yet.  I also plan on signing up Tom Sawyer for the reading programs at the library and Barnes and Noble so he can earn books.  You can do the program for kids who can't read, but my opinion is that kids will be more motivated to learn how to read if you aren't just handing them books for listening to you.  Having your parents read to you is reward enough.  As I stated before, I am also hoping to get more children swimming.  Currently, only the big teen can swim.  Well, I am glad I got my thoughts to paper...I mean Internet.


Blessings, Dawn