School's Out! A Summary of our Last Homeschooling Day of the Year

My kids were happy to go through their schoolwork today.

They even did a little extra!

I'm sure it didn't hurt that they knew today was our last day before summer vacation plus we had a fun gathering planned for our afternoon.  

Reading and Language Arts: 
Evan read the last three stories in his Dick and Jane book and then completed a page in his Star Wars Reading book.

Ian and I read the next chapter in Catching Fire while Alec read another chapter in his Warriors book and spent the afternoon reading the second Amulet book.

Math: 
Ian and I talked about it and decided that if he skipped ahead 8 or 10 pages and completed the review test in the back of his measurement book we'd pick back up with book 4 and let book 3 be officially finished.  But I forgot just how much the word "test" freaks him out and was dismayed, but not all that surprised, when he froze up and forgot how to do pretty much the whole thing.  I reminded him not to panic.  It wasn't a real test; I wasn't scoring it, there weren't any grades, no one was going to know how he did except for me and that if he forgot how to do something he should just flip back through the book and remind himself.  He was marginally better after that but still not performing as I knew he could.  I hate that I just can't help him overcome this anxiety he has when it comes to being evaluated.  I know that's why he hates reading out loud so much too.  He's so fearful of being judged.

 Alec worked on two pages in his math book practicing the eight times tables and using multiplication facts with division.  He did great, of course.

All three boys were begging to play the math game I had found for Evan's schooling today.  I found this free dice game called Double Down where the kids practice near double facts by rolling dice.  Since even knows most all of his doubles up to 10 we used 9 sided dice to play.  The boys had a blast and Evan was quite quick to add up the rolls of the dice.  He was exceptionally happy that he won.

 All the boys enjoyed it so much we put the game idea back into our math folder to play again another day.

Alec offered to keep score 

The final score card- Evan was a pro at rolling
near doubles! 

Group Reading: 
We settled on the couch to read one more chapter in The Phantom Tollbooth.  When we were done we piled into the car and listened to our book on CD while driving to a nearby lake.  We were meeting up with a few homeschooling families for a fun day of playing.

Socialization/ Physical Education/ JUST PLAIN FUN!: 

It was a fabulous day!

The sun was shining and the sky was so blue.

We had tons of families turn up and met quite a few new ones again.  It's always amazing to realize just how many new families we continue to meet; many of whom just started homeschooling a few weeks ago!  There is such a huge growing population of homeschoolers.

The kids had a great time swimming, digging in the sand, playing Marco Polo, having water fights, trying to catch a water snake (OK that may have just been Ian!), and meeting new people:

• I saw Evan hit it off with a new boy who was much closer in age to Ian.  They were playing together with Evan catching rides on his back and getting dunked underwater.  
• I saw Ian carrying around some little kid and helping him swim out to the buoys.  
• We watched as once again the kids formed groups, played games, disbanded, regrouped and played new games.  
• Many of the kids who are a bit afraid of the water were dunking their faces in by the end of the day encouraged by those that could swim well.  
• They all shared toys and snacks and ideas about games they could play, books they could read, Minecraft stuff, and the usual things kids talk about.  

It's great watching all the mixed ages interact and hearing their conversations.  We were a bit sad to leave but I know I had my fill of sun by the time we packed up to head home.

Playing Marco Polo

Alec and Evan are trying to convince one of their friends to go
get wet all the way so they can start to play 

Talking, laughing and snacking 

Keeping the sun off his head 

Looking for the water snake that was
swimming around 

Swimming, playing and splashing 

Taking a break 

Digging together 

Water fight! 

Real Life Science:
Evan found a large sun turtle laying eggs in our yard while he was coming inside to get some of his toy swords to play a game.  He was so excited; "Mom, it's a real big one and it kept looking at me.  I think it's Paint (the sun turtle him and his brother found years ago) and I think he remembered me!" It was so cute.

Self- Guided Art: 
Alec and Ian went to draw and color.  Ian came home and told me he drew the scene from Catching Fire where Haymitch was killing the girl.  So he drew a picture of a girl holding her bleeding eye with an ax on her head and a boy near her with his arm out like he had just thrown it and my first though was "thank goodness he's not in public school."  Not knowing the context of that picture would stir up quite a hornet's nest of inappropriate content I'm sure.  Yet, here I was thrilled that he's enjoying the book so much he's inspired to draw it out.

Looking back over our day I was so excited to realize that this is what our days will be like now for several weeks.  Playing in the water and the sand, hanging out with friends, relaxing and perhaps drawing if we feel like it.  Or as I like to call it; Unschooling Our Summer!