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drought

By Tara Zandra | July 21, 2006

We slathered on the sunscreen, donned our swimsuits and headed out to a new location for today’s park day. This particular park has fountains that they run from 11:00am-6:00pm daily in the summer. Except they didn’t. We saw fountains. We saw loads of people in swimsuits. We did not see water. Needless to say, the eldest Anc child was less than pleased. We never even met up with our friends. As we pulled back into our garage, the youngest woke up and her first (second, third and fourth) word was “water” because I had promised her we were going to the water. Rather than waste the sunscreen, I took the kids into the backyard and filled their respective pools and turned on the sprinkler toy. That was a big hit and both girls enjoyed themselves immensely. It didn’t quite make up for missing friends, but at least there was water.

For the month of June we pretty much took a break from lessons. We were waiting for some new books and we just had other things we wanted to do. Then we were focused on Ho’ike and I didn’t want to overload the kid and Chris was working overtime which changed our days just slightly. So the Monday after Ho’ike I was saying was the day we were going to get back to normal. Chris’s OT stopped, hula went back to just twice a week and we had all our new books. We had a whole week and then we just kind of stopped again. A little extra break, I guess. We will get back into them Monday and possibly tomorrow since we have nothing planned. Right now Tabitha has her creative writing, Math 3, Solar System, Grammar, Map Skills and Spelling. I’m going to order Weekly Reader for her and that starts the second week of September. I’m going to add in the special science insert as that is a subject in which she cannot get too much. I fondly remember Weekly Reader from when I was a kid and they publish her Map Skills book which she really enjoys, so I’m sure she’ll love it. I was going to order a book for brushing up on her handwriting skills, but upon further evaluation I decided against it. She’s only sloppy when she’s not thinking about it or trying to make flourishes (she’s such a girl). She’s quite capable of being neat and I see no reason for the review book. History is that subject that I’ve put off for way too long. No real good reason either. She’s in the middle of second grade (in a manner of speaking) and hasn’t had a single history lesson :( She does, of course, read loads of stuff that gives her insight into past events. Right now, as a matter of fact, a Civil War battlefield is being reenacted in her bedroom. I think Peter Pan fought on the South and Aladdin on the North. In any case, we are taking a trip in the coming months so I’m going to start her on a real History curriculum upon our return.

As for the little one, she is a classic toddler learning through her day-to-day life. Somehow she has managed to figure out the colors green and yellow, can count objects to two, recognizes a circle and can tell the difference between letters and numbers (all letters are A, T or H and all numbers are 1, 3 or 8) . We have not started the directed play that I did with Tabitha at this age simply because she has no interest. The only way she wants to play with me is if I’m her jungle gym, throwing her into the air, or reading her countless books. Again I say, I can’t believe just 5 months ago I was anxiously scanning the warning signs for a language delay as now the kid adds an average of 3 new words a day and she’s doing just fine making short sentences. Yesterday she added “my” and now has laid claim to half the house including Tabitha’s fish now known to her as “My Squeaky.”

Topics: Life, Homeschooling |

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